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The southern California coast is well known for its surfing, beachfront towns, and high marine biodiversity. Humans share these coastal regions with species such as the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas; hereafter referred to as “green turtle”). Over the last two decades, East Pacific (EP) green turtles have undergone substantial population recovery. As a result of improved protection efforts at nesting beaches and foraging areas in Michoacán, Mexico beginning in 1979 green turtles have been spotted in more areas and in greater numbers than before since 2014.1 An analysis of existing stranding and sighting data is necessary to protect the growing EP green turtle population and ensure their continued population recovery in highly populated areas along the California coast. While the existing green turtle recovery plan (completed in 1998) addresses EP green turtles, it is dated and does not specifically address current known threats to this population, particularly in southern California. 2 Therefore, this report and accompanying StoryMap (link: https://arcg.is/0eX1zK) provide analyses on time-relevant and local scales. With the support of experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the University of California San Diego, I review existing literature, analyze stranding and sighting data, and propose recommendations that could help reduce the human impacts on green turtles in the southern California region if implemented.Storymap for this project can be viewed here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/391c53f931dd45619347177810259dd3

The recent surge in interest for restoring kelp forests in California has created a confusing and crowded landscape to navigate. Additionally, most existing resources are in the form of formal reports or journal articles, both of which rely heavily on specific terminology and can be physically locked behind a paywall. It is therefore unreasonable to assume interested members of the public and policy makers can reliably access or understand the intricacies of the kelp restoration landscape. To address these gaps, this project develops a multimedia web-based resource that provides unique access to kelp restoration projects happening in California. Through photos, videos, audio and maps, users can interact with the StoryMap and learn directly from stakeholders and learn how they are using various methodologies to restore kelp in California.See media created for this project here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d35a011b5dd747b89d4d94d324e62693

This paper inventories the number, type, location, and characteristics of refugee resettlement agencies and refugee third sector organizations (RTSOs) in creating opportunities for placemaking and longer-term integration via refugee-centered farming programs in the USA. Using an ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database, we map how resettlement organizations engage in farming programs and provide insight into the various actors implementing refugee resettlement and integration policy in the USA, while also highlighting the role of place and placemaking in that process. Findings indicate that there are 40 total organizations involved in 30 states, with 100 farm sites scattered across 48 cities, primarily found in nontraditional sites of resettlement. Using Ager and Strang's (Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2):166–191, 2008) integration model as a theoretical starting point, we use a two-cycle content analysis to illustrate that organizations have diverse goals focusing on employment, social connections, health, safety and security, and placemaking. Sponsored activities and community projects concentrate on workforce training and community-supported agriculture. This interactive visualization and analysis of existing programs nationwide allow the organizations involved, policymakers, scholars, and members of the public to explore the locations of programs with pertinent information about each organization. The research also illustrates that refugee-centered farming organizations should continue to emphasize their efforts on placemaking as a beneficial strategy for the longer-term integration of resettled refugees. Additionally, this research contributes to larger debates and theoretical understandings of longer-term integration by extending Ager and Strang's (Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2):166–191, 2008) integration model and embedding place and placemaking as underpinning elements in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coquille River Basin has long been a steady stream of stories, peoples, animals, and non-human objects. The basin has, however, been polluted, invaded, and subjected to myriad maltreatments, the most recent result of which is the decline of the Coquille River fall Chinook salmon. This article contributes to the "On Decolonial Feminisms" special issue by addressing this decline through a participatory action research project based in the digital humanities, Indigenous feminisms, and land-based pedagogy. From this theoretical framework, we produce a method of critical cartography and storied land utilizing ArcGIS story-mapping technology to educate viewers on the history of the Coquille River Basin and the decline of Chinook salmon. This project challenges settler narratives, particularly settler environmentalism and patriarchal control of land, by rejecting dichotomies that deanimate non-human beings and by demonstrating Indigenous feminist stewardship of land through love, desire, care, and prayer. The article ends by providing an overview of the ways digital art projects can continue challenging settler colonialism and by encouraging feminist scholars to theoretically expand their work to interrogate and challenge the patriarchal subjugation and oppression of all beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an attempt to memorise the arbitration processes conducted during the elaboration of an urban development plan for the city of Vitré via storymaps or narrative maps used to address landscape planning issues within the framework of urban planning regulations. The project develops a method for constructing these narratives ex-post, by using records of the speeches of actors in situ, making it possible to complete the storymaps with events during or prior to the planning process. The storymaps make it possible to place the urban development plan within a more long-term geo-historical perspective of landscape planning. They suggest that the urban development plans could play a role in the memorising of perceptions of space which influence public action in a given period.

Spatial data applications frequently examine behavior and values across recreation landscapes. While narratives are atypical in these analyses, ArcGIS Story- Map supports integrating spatial and narrative data. Digital storytelling, which various publicly engaged fields employ, entails first-person narratives told in short montages of video, images, sound, and voiceover that engage both storyteller and audience. This case study research explores digital storytelling and story-mapping as a novel methodology to understand, communicate, and inform recreation values and management. Specifically, it examines whether and how these methods contributed to the collaborative, non-motorized trails planning Pole Mountain Gateways project with the USDA Forest Service. Using purposive sampling, we supported stakeholders to create digital stories (N = 9) about their experiences and values in the Medicine Bow National Forest Pole Mountain Unit near Laramie, Wyoming, USA. Stakeholders' stories were topically diverse and spatially distributed across the recreation landscape. Stories reflected aspects of the USDA Forest Service framework on sustainable recreation, including ecosystems, healthy communities, equitable economies, culture and traditions, stewardship values, present and future generations, place-based recreation, social-ecological systems, and collaborative community engagement. Pole Mountain Gateways land manager interviews (N = 4) assessed the utility of this integrated approach. Managers discussed place-based digital stories as a complimentary tool for representing and communicating diverse stakeholder values; engaging the public and supporting partner relationships; and aiding in broad, collaborative decisions and projects. This case systematically describes a process for integrated digital storytelling and story-mapping for sustainable recreation and collaborative public lands management. We identify opportunities for further developing and exploring this novel, narrative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many introductory students face challenges adjusting to new geographic, social, and cultural contexts involved in their course of study, yet the extent of a student’s integration and “sense of place” in an academic environment is associated with their performance and persistence toward related goals. This case study describes a place-based blended learning activity we created in ArcGIS StoryMaps (https://storymaps.arcgis. com/) to acclimatize students to the novel environment of an introductory animal sciences course during the first week of the semester. Using an embedded mixed-method design, this activity combines two complementary sources of data: 1) a qualitative personal account of activity design and implementation during the fall 2020 and fall 2021 semesters, and 2) an embedded quantitative survey of student learning outcomes and perceptions of the activity in the fall 2021 semester. Qualitative results illustrated instructional design choices related to the course context and instructional constraints and illuminated potential modifications to the activity’s collaborative and assessment elements. Quantitative results on a 5-pt. anchored scale suggested that the activity was very effective at orienting students to the course’s geographic context (M = 4.0, SD = 0.9), moderately effective at facilitating social bonding (M = 3.5, SD = 1.1), and moderately effective at increasing historical-cultural awareness related to the department (M = 3.2, SD = 1.3). Our results indicated that blended, placebased learning served as an effective onboarding activity in the context of our course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary shares a unique collaborative experience between a student and faculty mentor, made possible by the shift from in-person to virtual conferences during summer 2020. Although the two never met face-to-face, online technologies made it possible to facilitate the mentoring, project development, and dissemination of ArcGIS StoryMaps themed on ocean literacy, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The StoryMap collection is available at: https://bit.ly/thepowerofconnections.

This paper inventories the number, type, location, and characteristics of refugee resettlement agencies and refugee third sector organizations (RTSOs) in creating opportunities for placemaking and longer-term integration via refugee-centered farming programs in the USA. Using an ArcGIS StoryMap and accompanying database, we map how resettlement organizations engage in farming programs and provide insight into the various actors implementing refugee resettlement and integration policy in the USA, while also highlighting the role of place and placemaking in that process. Findings indicate that there are 40 total organizations involved in 30 states, with 100 farm sites scattered across 48 cities, primarily found in nontraditional sites of resettlement. Using Ager and Strang's ( Journal of Refugee Studies , 21(2):166-191, 2008) integration model as a theoretical starting point, we use a two-cycle content analysis to illustrate that organizations have diverse goals focusing on employment, social connections, health, safety and security, and placemaking. Sponsored activities and community projects concentrate on workforce training and community-supported agriculture. This interactive visualization and analysis of existing programs nationwide allow the organizations involved, policymakers, scholars, and members of the public to explore the locations of programs with pertinent information about each organization. The research also illustrates that refugee-centered farming organizations should continue to emphasize their efforts on placemaking as a beneficial strategy for the longer-term integration of resettled refugees. Additionally, this research contributes to larger debates and theoretical understandings of longer-term integration by extending Ager and Strang's ( Journal of Refugee Studies , 21(2):166-191, 2008) integration model and embedding place and placemaking as underpinning elements in the process., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

The StoryMap application is built on the author’s master thesis, which is devoted to the spatial exploration of a literary imaginary place: Dante’s Underworld. The thesis analyses and interprets a literature concept of Dante’s Inferno from a cartographic and geographic point of view. It seeks spatial data within the Divine Comedy verses, which can be consequently used to determine the exact location, size, and dimensions of hell. The presentation is focused on the entire StoryMap creation workflow: data collection, visualisation, and technical implementation. The research includes the initial scientific attempts to map the Inferno. Two different hell designs calculated by Manetti and Vellutello are examined based on Galileo’s two academic lectures and Comedy itself. Especially Manetti’s parameters are emphasized and subsequently incorporated into the author’s maps and a 3D model, which form the final StoryMap. According to Dante, Inferno resembles an enormous conical abyss with its vertex in the centre of the Earth divided into certain levels in which various sins are punished. A set of two maps (created in ArcGIS software) and a 3D model (constructed in SketchUp) was prepared for the topic. The main objective of the first map is to project the borders of principal Inferno sections (so-called circles) onto the Earth’s surface. The second map is dedicated to the detailed structure of the Inferno (e.g., circles and its rings) including all characters Dante met during his pilgrimage through the otherworld. For this purpose, a database of every named sinner and devil in the first part of Comedy (i.e., Inferno) was compiled. Although the exact coordinates of the characters cannot be derived from the poem (except for Lucifer), each one is unambiguously linked to one of the Inferno rings. Since Manetti calculated even the trajectory of Dante’s journey, it was possible to estimate the character’s location along that line (within an appropriate ring) regarding the chronological order as they appear in Comedy. The trajectory of Dante’s wayfaring through the hell is shown as well. The final StoryMap is designed to introduce the spatial aspects of Dante’s Inferno while reflecting a richly cartographic nature of his writing. Created for multiple levels of detail, both maps reveal the content gradually to narrate the story of mapping hell step by step. Selected map features are interactive and offer additional information using pop-ups. In the first detail, the terrestrial places relevant to the hell’s location are highlighted. Furthermore, projected boundaries of the Inferno circles are indicated on the Earth’s surface in a composition with a medieval cities network. Afterwards, the view is focused on the Inferno structure itself and a point layer representing all Comedy characters is exposed when zoomed. Among the Inferno ring attributes included in popups belong its width and a height above the middle of the Earth, a brief description, a reference to an appropriate canto in Comedy, a specific sin, an illustration by G. Doré, etc. Ultimately, the StoryMap de facto fulfils the function of an interactive Comedy encyclopaedia. Moreover, map windows are enriched by a sidebar with text. For each zoom level, it contains a significant verse according to which Manetti or Galileo determined some aspect or parameter concerning Inferno structure and an accompanying text regarding the currently displayed map features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three universities and three secondary schools from Spain, Portugal and Hungary together with the European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO) are participating in the Erasmus+ KA201 project entitled "Biographical map library of European authors", which began in December 2020 and will be finished in June 2023. Our main aim is to create a map-based library of writers and poets born in those three countries that can be freely accessed on the web. This online library is created in Spanish language in interest of supporting the teaching of subjects related to grammar, literature, history, and others not only in the Spanish secondary schools, but also in the bilingual secondary schools of Portugal and Hungary. Each country chose fifteen of their most important and internationally-nationally recognized writers and poets, whose life and literary work is included in the national curricula. The workflow followed for the creation of story maps can be divided into two main phases: * First phase: Data collection, including biographical data and making emphasis on those geographical (georeferenced) data that connect an author to specific places where he lived and worked. Other interesting geographical data are those that, for example, appear in novels and allow us to create interactive maps for the representation of the content of these books. At the same time, the data collection is completed with the search for multimedia data to be used to complete and illustrate the text or to be included in the maps. * Second phase: the making of the story maps, which begins with the making of maps and follows with the selection of design and specific solutions to present the collected data in a dynamic, attractive, and interactive graphic way. The collected data is visualized using interactive web maps as well as story maps that together form the online map library. The tool selected for this purpose was ArcGIS Online, a cloud-based web environment to create and share interactive web maps, which is considered as one of the most powerful web-based mapping solutions currently (Figure 1). Authors summarized and evaluated the experiences gained during the making of maps and story maps with ArcGIS Online, while different aspects were considered during the analysis of advantages and disadvantages that not only specialists, but teachers and pupils could face when using web mapping services and ArcGIS Online specifically. The project is not limited to the creation of the online library, we also developed other activities. All the participating colleagues are also interested to test how the online library can be used in the practice. The main and most traditional aim is promoting its' use in the classroom, during the teaching of subjects related to literature, geography, history, etc. At the same time, secondary school students collaborating in the project (and those who are going to be future users of the library) are already developing linguistic communication skills in Spanish, as a main or a secondary language. However, we are also interested to test the most practical use of the new library in activities planned outside schools. By this reason, "literary routes" will be planned for secondary schools in each of the participating countries. It means that groups of selected pupils will visit those local places that can be found on the maps included in the story maps, which are related to a specific stage in the life of a writer or poet. At the same time our institutions develop different types of activities within the project to popularize these new solutions between teachers and students. One of them was the GIS Day organized in the Károlyi Mihály Hungarian- Spanish Secondary School in November 2020, which was a great success to be repeated in the next years (Figure 2). Based on the intermediate results and experiences, it can be concluded that the online biographical map library offers numerous options to help and make effective contributions to learning and teaching in secondary schools. Storytelling maps are innovative and engaging online solutions to present, teach and pay tribute to the literary heritage of a country in a more interactive and varied way, thus contributing not only to its teaching in schools or to its use by students, but also to its popularisation among the public in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For fifteen years now the Italian community of GIS come across in the context of Esri User Conference. Held in Rome at the Auditorium del Massimo on 9 and 10 April, the conference was an opportunity to take stock of the situation in the field of Geographic Information Systems. More than 1500 people from all over Italy and other European countries were present in Rome; 150 works were submitted, 10technology workshops, 7 training courses-videos, 14 sessions aimed at users. The organization has been able to renew the offer of the conference, proposing important changes in the program and a dynamic management of the plenary session, an important stage useful to perceive the dynamics of change that currently cross the GIS industry.

For fifteen years now the Italian community of GIS come across in the context of Esri User Conference. Held in Rome at the Auditorium del Massimo on 9 and 10 April, the conference was an opportunity to take stock of the situation in the field of Geographic Information Systems. More than 1500 people from all over Italy and other European countries were present in Rome; 150 works were submitted, 10 technology workshops, 7 training courses-videos, 14 sessions aimed at users. The organization has been able to renew the offer of the conference, proposing important changes in the program and a dynamic management of the plenary session, an important stage useful to perceive the dynamics of change that currently cross the GIS industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]