The Uncertain Participatory Geoweb

Abstract

Communities in the Okanagan Valley, Canada are increasingly under threat from forest fires due to climate change and expanding urban development into fire interface zones. The effects of forest fires are not always quantifiable ‘hard' impacts. The fluid and chaotic ‘soft' impacts can have a profound effect on the collective consciousness of the people living close to those fires. To make sense of these impacts and understand where and when these forest fires have taken place, authors developed and implemented a participatory geoweb tool to support citizen-to-citizen dialogue and tell the stories of these impacts. The tool was launched in 2014. This chapter explores the interlinked ‘chaos' that exists between forest fires, volunteered geographic information, and the participatory geoweb. It further examines how academics and practitioners understand the post-project and longer-term impact of participatory geoweb projects and reflects on how the contemporary state of its practice contributes to transformative social change.