RGS-IBG GISCIENCE WEBINAR SERIES:
CHANCES, CHALLENGES, AND LIMITS FOR TEXT-BASED EXPLORATION OF LANDSCAPES
January 13, 2021
 WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
Landscape
- Defined as an area, as perceived by
people, whose character is the result of
the action and interaction of natural
and/or human factors.
- Definition is from the European
landscape convention.
OTHER DEFINITIONS:
- Landscape is not a mere substrate, nor
a bundle of (actual or potential)
resources, but instead is invested with a
framework of deep meaning.
o Meaning matters for landscape
- The unpacking and valuation of some
“cultural ecosystem services” not
readily amendable to biophysical or
monetary metrics have lagged behind,
and so has their mainstreaming into
policy.
THE AIM
- We aim to use TEXT to EXPLORE,
QUANTIFY, and COMPARE ways in
which people perceive landscape and
its meaning(s) through 2 ways:
o MACROANALYSIS
o MICROREADING
 AKA close reading
GIS Science Perspective:
Starting Points
- Much geographic information about
landscape (as opposed to research)
focuses on well-structured spatial data.
- Space is characterized in terms of crisp
objects or continuous fields.
- Attributes have single value,
representing an institutional viewpoint
and purpose.
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL LAND UNITS
- A global dataset that maps ecosystem
using:
o Bioclimate
o Landforms
o Landcover
o Rock types
- Endpoint: description of individual
ecosystems
Example:
- Assynt, Scotland = Cold wet hills on
carbonate sedimentary rock with
grassland, shrub, or scrub.
WHAT ABOUT VGI/UGC/SOCIAL MEDIA?
- User-generated content have emerged
as a scalable method to explore where
and how landscapes are valued.
CHALLENGE:

HOW CAN WE COMPUTATIONALLY ANALYZE

TEXTS AT SCALE TO EXPLORE LANDSCAPES?

A FEW WORDS ABOUT COLLECTIONS:

LANGUAGE MATTERS

- We work primarily with English and

German
- It’s important to be clear

DOMAIN SPECIFIC CORPORA

- Means the user already know the sorts

of things the user expects people to
write.
- Include digitized Swiss Alpine Club
yearbooks and scraped hiking
descriptions.
- Building general landscape corpora
requires identification of geographically
and thematically relevant documents
and filtering of duplicates.

Stopped: 16:42

Different sources of landscapes.