The Next Step in Citizen Cartography

With Tina's recent post covering a different look at maps than we usually see and the Atlantic's article on OpenStreetMap and non-traditional cartographers entitled "What Happens When Everyone Makes Maps?" my mind has been filled with all the possibilities that exist today for citizen cartographers.

Disclaimer, I am a huge fan of OpenStreetMap. For those who are not familiar, the five second version is that OpenStreetMap does to mapping what Wikipedia did to encyclopedias. Imagine Google Maps where each bike path and fence line that someone has taken to the time to map makes its way to your eyeballs and you would have a pretty good idea of what it looks like for some areas of the world. Results may very. Again, this is a similarity it has with Wikipedia.

The new National Atlas Streamer: tool for watershed-based reporting, or personal cartographer?

With help from the brand-new National Atlas Streamer Map and Pixlr, I've been having fun with watershed maps all morning. I've been delighted by what I could learn and create. Like this information on the Gasconade River, my home watershed*:

Trace Details

Trace Direction: Upstream
Trace Origin Stream Name: Gasconade River
Trace Origin (latitude, longitude): 38.676, -91.556
Trace Origin Elevation (feet): 614

Water Features

Total Length of Traced Streams (miles): 800
Outlet Waterbody: Gulf of Mexico
USGS Stream Gages (count): 12
Stream Names (count): 18

Political Features

U.S. States (count): 1
U.S. Counties (count): 12
Total County Population (2010): 320,595
Cities (count): 31

For people without a fancy geography system, this is a phenomenal way to report statistics and details at the watershed level. I have hoped for some easy way to make this kind of calculation for the kinds of articles I want to write. So journalists, take heed! There's more to a border than a line on the map. (Actually, there are many, many lines.) 

And that's just the summary report. In detail, you can see the USGS stream gauge locations, the stream names of all the creeks that feed into your selected river, and the counties and cities inside that watershed. Oh, what the heck, here's the rest of the information: