Page 19 - Ranger Demo

DGC’s cartographic and research specialisations, and several joint products produced as a result of this collaboration.
As the momentum of production and demand for Human Geography outputs developed, DGC began to work increasingly closely with other partner organisations, particularly NGA in the US and DIGO in Australia. NATO Headquarters, recognising the value of what was being done by individual NATO nations, increased the momentum to incorporate Human Geography into NATO Geographic policy, thus confirming the discipline as part of mainstream geospatial outputs.
At home, growing knowledge of the products and methods within the UK user community encouraged increased engagement across Defence Intelligence. Several new and productive relationships were established as a consequence, significantly raising the profile of DGC across UK Defence, and allowing DGC increased access to greater volumes and varieties of data sources. In the early days, many providers of source data had little idea their information could be of use to geographers, and by the same token had no idea of how useful a geospatial perspective could be to them. One of the most productive associations has been with the anthropological community, both in the UK and US. The links with the Human Factors team have established a fruitful and effective relationship. DGC’s introduction to the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU), now part of 77 Bde, initiated another longstanding and mutually beneficial association. Cultural Advisers (CULADs), specialists trained in language and cultural advice deployed to assist operational commanders in Helmand province, provided a valuable source of information and knowledge. By attending CULAD debriefs DGC Human Geography staff could ask detailed questions of military personnel who had operated on the ground among the populations DGC were researching. This association provided DGC’s first and best opportunity to get a better understanding of the people we were studying and mapping.
Technical Challenges
From the outset, products generated using Geographic Information System hardware and software meant that they could be provided to users as data, either in their own right or as a backdrop for further analysis, or further processed to generate printed products. The norm is to present Human Geography maps on a standard mapping base, the depiction of Human Geography research and analysis was a new discipline, and a great deal of consideration continues to go into the display of the results.
The work in Afghanistan provided a very fertile testbed for DGC to develop techniques and methodologies.
The conditions provided the opportunity to test some of the findings with ground truth.
The opportunity has rarely been repeated.
Nevertheless, there continue to be challenges, and there is a continuing need for users to
understand what Human Geography products can offer them – and just as importantly can’t.
Apart from mapping those areas where there are definite geographical boundaries – islands, mountain ranges, etc., very often, the analyst has to portray human groups with imprecise locations and boundaries. Entities such as tribal/ethnic, religious or language groups very rarely have precise boundaries (and in many cases straddle political boundaries). Therefore, portrayal techniques have had to be developed to delineate the extent of each group. Notes and product-specific legends support the cartography.
Many of the situations represented are transient; for example, the movement of refugees across the Middle East. Therefore, it is essential to ensure the user understands that the information shown may have a short shelf life. DGC produced a series of maps showing the movement of migrants across and from Syria which had to be updated regularly to be of benefit to users. When it became clear that other agencies (e.g. Reliefweb) were able to devote more resources to the question, and could produce weekly updates to their maps, we stopped production and referred users to those products instead.
By contrast, other products were compiled from sources which might be considered dated - many of the most useful sources can be decades old. For example, the language maps of North Africa drew heavily on Murdock’s “Africa: Its peoples and their culture history” (1959). Still, no subsequent studies proved to be more reliable or comprehensive at a regional level. Sound academic sources will provide a useful starting point for further research on the more recent source material and also provide a means of assessing the reliability of that newer information.
It is therefore vitally important that users of the products are trained and educated in how to interpret the data and products. From the early Afghan work on, the military geo community have been actively
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