Geographical Enrichment of Historical Landscapes: Spatial Integration, Geo-Narrative, Spatial Narrative, and Deep Mapping

Abstract

This chapter reviews cartographic and phenomenological views of landscape; argues for opportunities to traverse freely between the two seemly disjoint perspectives to landscape understanding, and discusses four geospatial approaches to enrich historical landscapes geographically. Innovations and advances in Geographical Information Science and Technology (GIST) not only facilitate the spatial integration of geographic features and perspectives in landscape interpretation but expand the traditional authoritative and demarcated mapping of the land into collective constructs of contingent personal experiences over space and time. The discussion applies Montello’s figurative, vista, environmental and geographic spaces to frame the transition of landscape concepts from phenomenological to cartographic perspectives. GIST methods of spatial integration, geo-narrative, spatial narrative, and deep mapping incorporate geographic features, feelings, events, and senses to enrich the representation, analysis, and communication of historical landscape. Recent developments in unmanned aviation vehicle (UAV) surveys, virtual reality, and augmented reality give great promises for further geographic enrichments to historical landscapes with holistic syntheses of cartographic and phenomenological perspectives. The chapter concludes with challenges to formalize the methodology and epistemology for studying historical landscape processes and transformation.