Map Symbols for Crisis Mapping: Challenges and Prospects

Crisis maps and visualizations utilized routinely by international agencies, humanitarian organizations, and non-governmental organizations for aid and relief activities commonly require complex sets of map symbols. However, effective map symbology for humanitarian relief purposes entails several challenges, including consideration of the following: (1) taxonomy development, (2) symbol design issues, (3) promulgation and sharing of map symbols, and (4) standardization of symbols within and among organizations. This paper discusses these key challenges to the design and use of crisis map symbology through a review of the cartographic literature as well as results collected from a survey targeted at humanitarian organizations from around the world. The survey was designed to gather information on current symbology design and use practices in order to understand common challenges. Survey results confirm agreement in the persistence of these four primary symbology challenges, especially the importance of intuitive symbol design. Respondents disagreed most about the adequacy of current crisis map symbology standards as well as the ease in which standards may be implemented within and across organizations. Survey results suggest the need for expert systems designed specifically for symbology design to support humanitarian relief activities.