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Harris County flood rescue. Image by Lt. Zachary West, 100th MPAD/Texas Military Department.
Geographies

Floodplains and Hurricanes: Mapping Natural Disasters to Uncover Vulnerable Communities

Using GIS mapping, I can identify at-risk communities most impacted by water-related natural disasters in the Houston Metropolitan Area (HMA), which is highly susceptible to hurricanes, tropical storms, and excessive flooding. Geospatial analysis reveals that at-risk communities are not randomly distributed throughout the HMA; populations like women and children are at higher risk of disproportionate outcomes during flooding events.

Wild rice and the 1833 Survey of Menominee’s Reservation. Image by Elan Pochedley.
Feature (Peer Review)

Restorative Cartography of the Theakiki Region: Mapping Potawatomi Presences in Indiana

This article explores what decolonization can consist of—and be envisioned as—when we recognize how settler colonial governance, policies, industries, and structures have affected both Indigenous peoples and nonhuman relatives within their respective homelands. I assert that analyses of settler colonialism must address the environmental dislocations and degradations experienced by both humans and nonhumans.

Flag of the Ojibwe White Earth Nation in Minnesota.
Primary Sources

A Lake with a Crossing in a Sandy Place

A few months ago, it was a typical day at work for me. I was tasked with producing a basic map graphic for an outreach brochure—nothing extraordinary. I sent off the completed graphic and moved on to another project. The next day, our local watershed partner replied to my email and asked me to “add the reservation communities of Little Rock and Ponemah to the map.”

Detail from a panoramic photograph of Nacimiento. Photograph courtesy of C. R. Chiriboga.
Primary Sources

Water and the Preclassic Maya at El Tintal, Petén, Guatemala

As part of the 1931 Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Uaxactun expedition, geologist C.W. Cooke (1931: 286) noted, “If the bajos were restored to their former condition, the Petén would be a region of many beautiful lakes. Travel in it would be easy, for one could go from place to place by boat, with only short journeys overland, from one lake to another, across country that offers little impediment to travel at any season.” These bajos mentioned by Cooke, low-lying swampy areas prone to flooding, are spread throughout most of the northern lowlands of Petén, Guatemala, characterizing the region with seasonal and perennial wetland systems.

First snow at Triple Divide Peak. Image courtesy of Daniel Lombardi.
Geographies

Where the Water Flows: Understanding Glacier’s Triple Divide Peak

Imagine pouring out a glass of water. Where does the water go?

After soaking your computer or floor, it would eventually flow to join a greater body of water and become part of a larger drainage system. Where I grew up, outside of Milwaukee, my water would join with Lake Michigan. In the Twin Cities, where I went to university, it would flow into the Mississippi River. From Jackson, Wyoming, where I’m writing now, it would combine with the Snake River and flow into the Pacific Ocean. But Glacier National Park, where I worked in the summer of 2017, has a unique little point called Triple Divide Peak.