The Participatory Geoweb for Engaging the Public on Global Environmental Change

The Geospatial Web (Geoweb) emerges from the combination of Internet technology, geographic information, and social networking. As part of the second-generation World-Wide Web (Web 2.0), the Geoweb has the potential to address the crucial issues of our time, such as global environmental change. In this project we employ the Geoweb to stimulate, mediate, facilitate, and advocate public understanding, engagement, and action towards a sustainable development of the nature-society system. The project team seeks to examine what defines effective participation through the Geoweb, contextualize observations and opinions on environmental change, and develop a technical and policy infrastructure to support climate change response and adaptation. Our research approach includes a case study laboratory, in which experiments are conducted in partnership with different levels of government and non-profit organizations across Canada using a diversity of geographic and social scales as well as a variety of Geoweb technologies and applications.