Ground and Sketch Mapping

1. Ground and Sketch Mapping By: Julius Muchemi (ERMIS Africa) Unit: M08U01

2. Presentation outline • Introduction • Ground mapping • Sketch mapping • Map legend • Transect walk • Mental map analysis • Strengths • Weaknesses

3. Introduction • Ground and sketch mapping • Most commonly used method • Suitable when introducing mapping to a community

4. Ground mapping • Most basic map-making method • Drawn on the ground • Uses raw materials (e.g. soil, pebbles, sticks, leaves) Facilitating a participatory integrated community development exercise in Somalia, 2003. Picture courtesy of Julius Muchemi, ERMIS Africa.

5. Ground mapping • Participants store acquired knowledge as mental maps and mentally recompose it when needed • Used to map physical and cultural landscapes as the local communities perceive them to be

6. Sketch mapping • A slightly more elaborate mapping method that uses large sheets of craft paper • Features are depicted with natural materials or, more often, with coloured pens or chalk Facilitating the development of a participatory forest management map in Karima Forest, Kenya. 2007. Picture courtesy Julius Muchemi, ERMIS Africa

7. Sketch mapping • Stakeholders usually have a range of choices regarding: • materials to use for the sketch map • symbols to use to visualise desired features • Size of each feature reflects the importance that stakeholders attach to it

8. The map legend • Information is preserved through documentation process • Records are preserved in a legend and interpreted using depicted symbols A legend developed by local communities to aid in developing a sketch map for participatory forest management for Karima Forest, Kenya. 2007. Picture courtesy Julius Muchemi, ERMIS Africa

9. Transect walk • A cross-section ground-truthing exercise • Traverses across entire landscape • Covers ecological, production and social contexts along the chosen route RRA conducted in El Nido, Palawan in January – February 1997, National Integrated Protected Areas Programme (NIPAP) Adapted from G. Rambaldi

10. Transect walk • Assists in: • harmonising stakeholders’ understanding of the mapping context • making observations and confirming the field realities of the mapping outputs • eliciting a reality-based discussion about issues, constraints and potential for addressing them • diagramming the landscape features and related issues • analysing, planning and monitoring development initiatives

11. Transect walk • A transect walk assists in ground-truthing: • man-made features (e.g. infrastructure, local markets and schools) • natural features (e.g. land-use types, vegetation zones, cultural sites, hills, rain, escarpments, valleys, plains and coastal areas)

12. Mental map analysis • Mental map analysis is used to: • illustrate that different groups of people within communities or organisations have different perceptions about the same mapping space; • identify map features and determine their attributes, position, patterns, trends and relationships.

13. Strengths • Local communities take a leading role to: • generate local and indigenous information • visualise spatial perceptions, skills and practices • Engages non-expert users • Stakeholders can relate to mapping products

14. Strengths • Low-cost approaches to mapping • Not technologically dependent • Easily facilitated because they are tactile

15. Weaknesses • Lack accuracy because they don’t rely on exact measurements or a consistent scale • As a result, ground and sketch maps: • are not useful for location and quantitative accuracy • are not used to determine quantitative measurement (e.g. size, area, length) • lack authority with policy makers

16. Weaknesses • Interpretation is subjective because the data don’t use a consistent scale • Maps disappear when a wind blows