Geography has always relied on, and also has been defined in large part by, collecting data in the field. “The field” for geographers has always spanned many scales—from analyzing microscopic marine life in deep ocean trenches to analyzing glacial action in mountain valleys (see Von Humboldt, Alexander), from the South Pole (see International Geophysical Year) to a single field at the boundary of two major ecoregions, acting as an ecotone (see Ecoregions and Biomes). Rather than trying to recollect and recreate their observations upon returning to their research institution, physical geographers have long been interested in collecting data in the field, in situ (on site), as “primary-source data.” But over the past century, human geographers have also been keen promoters and users of field methods, collecting public opinion about a proposed new dam and reservoir, collecting photographs and stories to capture data about sense of place even in abandoned buildings (Garrett 2013), or analyzing tenant occupancy of office spaces over time in a midwestern urban area. Therefore, as field collection devices expanded in functionality and versatility, allowing geographers to collect data about the subsurface, oceans, atmosphere, soils, people, natural hazards, and other aspects of physical and cultural geography, the entire discipline advanced.
For centuries, nearly all geospatial data gathered by explorers, ship captains, surveyors, geographers, and other field staff was recorded in paper notebooks, in the form of ship’s logs, strike and dip measurements from William Smith as he was creating the world’s first geologic map (see Smith, William), sketches of cirques from frostbitten fingers on Mount Everest, temperature readings measured in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and in many other settings. Matthew Fontaine Maury was especially keen about making sure that observations of ocean currents, depth, temperatures, ocean life, and weather were shared, and so he undertook the laborious task of standardizing, copying, and disseminating that data (see Maury, Matthew). While, over time, special paper that was a bit more resistant to the elements was used—important for the 20th-century Antarctic expeditions of Shackleton and for the ocean voyages to deep-sea trenches (see Antarctica)—physical media was the primary means of data input until the late 20th century. Even after sonar and computers began to be used, paper was still relied on heavily until computers became portable. The first data loggers started to replace field books during the 1980s, recording attributes such as soil pH, water quality, plant or animal species, housing type, household surveys of individuals, and other data. By 1991, PCs and PDAs (personal digital assistants) were being taken to field camps, from which surveys could be sent out and the data from those surveys gathered each evening in an “electronic field book” (Wahl et al. 1991). During the next decade, with the advent of GPS and digital methods of surveying, when data loggers could automatically capture the position of where the data was gathered in addition to the attributes, the volume and diversity of data increased manyfold (see Global Positioning Systems). Yet another change occurred with these digital methods: Because of a reduction in human note-taking, and the possibility of transposing digits or units, the data quality improved. Digital methods did not result in perfect data, by any means, but the ability for the researcher to access the field database after returning to the research facility or university was a revolutionary improvement.
Today, electronic field books are, in reality, electronic computers. Nowadays, field equipment is almost all digital and has diversified in the types of data that it can collect. Over the past few decades, all field equipment has become smaller, able to be held in the hand, easier to use, and more powerful. Many of the devices support multiple human languages; are connected to a cellular phone network; include a camera, long-life batteries, multiple ports to interface with other devices, and GPS chips and electronic compasses for collecting accurate locations; have the ability to collect in “offline” mode in steep or urban terrain when the GPS signal is blocked or compromised; and can store hundreds of attributes collected at thousands of locations. Many field devices can run computer-aided drafting (CAD) and geographic information systems (GIS) software directly.
One of the most revolutionary things that these advancements caused is the ability to update databases in real time or near-real time. Another major advancement was the ability to bring in Web maps as reference layers to the field, resulting in the first true field GIS-enabled collection workflows (Lwin and Murayama 2007). Because the world is a three-dimensional object, the ability to gather, map, and analyze data in 3D is another major advancement, as is the increasing ability to study and map interior spaces with accurate X, Y, and Z coordinates. Laser rangefinders have enabled geographers to determine the position of something nearby but that they could not physically reach, due to a freeway median, fence, or cliff. This means that geographers do not physically have to touch an object to record its position accurately. An even more important influence in this regard was the advent of GIS and remote sensing, allowing geographers to understand the planet through a variety of themes and wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum remotely, from a digital mapping interface. This did not remove the need and desire for geographers to get out into the field to collect data, but it meant that geographers had data at their fingertips that enabled them to study, understand, and make decisions about the world as never before. Many field collection devices now operate independently of a human operator, such as the sensors that are being placed on ground platforms as part of the National Ecological Observing Network across the United States, the global seismic network, sea-level and water-quality sensors on ocean buoys, and much more (see Internet of Things).
One of the fastest-growing areas in field equipment over the past few years has been the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones.” These small devices can be flown by geographers and other researchers, capturing photographs, data points, and videos, and creating derivative products such as 3D terrain models at fine levels of detail (see Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). Another revolutionary change was the ability that field collection devices—particularly smartphones—gave to geographers to instantly map crowdsourced data collected in citizen-science mode, through such tools as Esri’s Collector for ArcGIS (see Citizen Science). Suddenly, ordinary citizens could join geographers in gathering data so critically needed on the rapidly changing Earth.
Many field devices used by geographers are manufactured by companies that are heavily invested in GPS products and services, since “location” is one of the attributes that all data collection operators, no matter what discipline they represent, are interested in. These companies include TopCon, Trimble, and Garmin. Other companies, such as Leica Geosystems, came into the field data collection business from remote-sensing research and development; some of them manufactured cameras that took aerial photographs from airplanes (see Remote Sensing). Additional companies came into the field data business through providing support and technical services, such as Frontier Precision and Applied Field Data Systems. Others entered the industry through the development of specific tools; the company Geospatial Experts, for example, created a toolset and workflow where the field workers can collect photographs or videos, fill out a simple electronic form, and automatically transfer all of the data and its location to the home office to create reports or photo maps, or to add to existing geodatabases. Increasingly, field collection relies on the ordinary smartphone. The tools from ikeGPS allow users to measure objects such as buildings, facilities, signs, or other built “assets” by simply capturing a smartphone photo. From that photo, the app, and a hardware device that fits on the phone or tablet, such measurements as height, width, area, and length can be calculated, and a scaled image of the asset can be created. Furthermore, these devices are increasingly Web-enabled through Bluetooth technologies. For example, from the location-based information, ikeGPS images and measurements can be instantly added to the organization’s GIS (see Geographic Information Systems).
For a discipline that has the entire Earth as its laboratory to learn about and that consequentially is so focused on gathering data in the field, these field collection devices enabled revolutionary advancements. And, as is evident with ikeGPS and UAVs, these devices continue to have a revolutionary impact on geography. The advancements were aided by advancements in GPS, enabling accurate locations, but they were also enabled by GIS, because after the data is gathered, geographers always want to understand how field data is distributed. They can then ask such questions as, “Is the field data clustered or dispersed? Is it in close proximity to other objects or phenomena? How does it change over space and time?”
See also: Antarctica; Ecoregions and Biomes; Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Global Positioning Systems (GPS); International Geophysical Year; Internet of Things; Maury, Matthew; Smith, William; Von Humboldt, Alexander
Garrett, Bradley. 2013. Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City. New York: Verso.
Lwin, K. K., and Y. Murayama. 2007. “Personal Field Data Collection by UM-FieldGIS (Ultra Mobile PC and Embedded Google Map API),” pp. 165–170 in 16th Papers and Proceedings of the GIS Association of Japan (GISA). Sapporo: Hokkaido University.
Wahl, Jerry, Raymond Hintz, and Corwyn Rodine. 1991. “Development of an Electronic Field Book for Cadastral Retracement Surveys.” Cadastral Survey. http://www.cadastral.com/cadcefb2.htm.
Geography means “description of the Earth,” and every one of those descriptions hinges on knowing the shape and size of the Earth. Perhaps no other single measurement is as important to geography as the true shape and size of the Earth. What was the true size of the Earth? Eratosthenes and Posidonius calculated the size by measuring shadows and stars, and through mathematics (see Eratosthenes; Posidonius). These measurements, coupled with voyages of Magellan, Cook, and others (see Magellan, Ferdinand) meant that by the 1700s, the size of the Earth was generally well known. But what was the true shape of the Earth? Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and others believed it was a sphere. But by the time Isaac Newton published Principia Mathematica in 1687, it was generally accepted that the Earth was not a perfect sphere but something like a sphere. Debates ensued. Newton predicted a flattening of the Earth near its poles due to centrifugal forces acting on the Earth, an oblate spheroid, and held that the same would be true for all of the other planets as well as stars. Other followed the theories of René Descartes, who (along with the Paris Academy of Sciences) believed that the Earth was a prolate spheroid that bulged at the poles, a bit of an egg shape, rather than bulging at the Equator. What was needed was a measurement of one degree of latitude near the poles and one on or near the Equator, for comparison purposes. Measurements in Europe to this point had been inconclusive, and furthermore, they were not spaced far enough apart. Thus, the French government dispatched two expeditions, one to the north, and one to the south.
The northern expedition traveled with de Maupertuis to Lapland, and the southern expedition traveled to Ecuador under Charles-Marie de la Condamine and Pierre Bouguer. At the time, Ecuador was part of the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru. A team of 12 academics was accompanied by a surgeon, a watchmaker and guardian of the group’s scientific instruments, an assistant who helped construct maps and monuments to the expedition, a botanist, and a few relatives of the expedition’s leaders. For the French, the expedition signified more than science: Jean le Rond d’Alembert remarked that it was a “question of national honor not to let the Earth have a foreign shape, a figure imagined by an Englishman or a Dutchman.”
The reason the expedition traveled to Ecuador instead of to Africa or eastern South America, or some other location on the Equator, was because of political geography. The French monarch Philip V had recently ascended to the Spanish throne, and now the French academy could experiment in a region that had been off limits to anyone other than Spaniards for centuries. In addition, the king believed that sponsoring scientific missions would augment the prestige of the new Spanish monarchy and the Spanish way of doing things. The presence of the Spanish officers represented an important step toward a Spanish scientific presence on the world stage. Thus, two Spanish military officers accompanied the expedition—to make sure the French were behaving. The political implications went even further: The nation that understood the shape of the Earth could more accurately deploy its navy, control the oceans, and expand its empire.
The accomplishment of the French geodesic mission included setting up and measuring thousands of survey points, in terrain more difficult than that shown here, and with equipment that was much more difficult to use than modern GPS equipment. The mission overcame these obstacles and proved that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, bulging slightly at the equator. (Joseph Kerski)
The team spent the first nine years, from 1735 to 1744, simply getting to the study site and preparing the mission: crossing the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, landing on the Caribbean coast in Colombia, and sailing to Panama, whereupon they traveled overland to the Pacific, continuing by ship to Ecuador. Once in Ecuador, they split into two groups, traveling overland through rainforests and arriving in Quito in June 1736. There, they sought the assistance of local people to establish observatories from Quito to Cuenca to carry out their measurements. Problems in observation and with funding caused years of delay. But the world was watching, at least in 18th-century terms: Two major European powers were cooperating—Spain and France—and the mission was highly publicized. The expedition’s leader, Godin, squandered the team’s money on a diamond for his mistress. Bouguer, who took over the leadership, was at first reluctant, but he became so well known for his adherence to accuracy that his name is now applied to a type of map of the Earth showing surface gravitational attraction. Despite these money problems, weather extremes, the relief of the land, and the need to establish markers on high points (see Great Trigonometric Survey of India), the team succeeded, and its survey was used into the early 20th century.
Equipment included quadrants (see Cross-Staffs, Astrolabes, and Other Devices) and mapmaking equipment. The quadrant that they used was a cast-iron instrument with telescopes; though heavy and cumbersome, when used properly, looking through the telescope from 1.6 kilometers away, one could distinguish between two points that were only 15 centimeters apart. It took much time to constantly set up the wooden poles and other items, calibrate and make measurements, and take it all down, travel to the next line-of-sight point, and do it all over again. At one point, the scientists realized that all the measurements they’d done for the previous two years had to be thrown out due to an incorrect method of star sighting. They figured out a correction, however, and spent another seven months recalibrating their equipment. The natives often were unfriendly and suspicious about their activities, particularly as the team was from France, a long-time enemy of Spain. Yet the tenacity of the surveying team was unparalleled.
Once the team had measured a distance, they took star sightings to establish exact latitude at the northernmost point and southernmost point and then divided by the length. That yielded the exact distance of one degree of latitude at the Equator. Over the distance of one degree of latitude, which is about 69 miles (111 km), the measurements were accurate to within 151 feet (46 meters). Three degrees of arc of the Earth’s curvature on the Equator from the plains near Quito to the southern city of Cuenca were measured. This was compared to the measurements in Lapland and in France to determine the shape of the Earth. Beyond settling the question of the shape of the Earth, it also eventually led to the establishment of the international metric system of measurement. Unfortunately for d’Alembert, Newton’s theory was correct—the Earth is an oblate spheroid. Later, at the beginning of the 1900s, the French Academy of Sciences sent another mission to Ecuador at the behest of the International Association of Geodesy to confirm the results of the First Geodesic Mission and commemorate the relationship between the two republics.
Because of the expedition, the shape of the Earth was now known. Knowledge of physical and cultural geography improved. Measurement in geography was shown to be critically important, as was keen observation. Geodesy improved and eventually led to the computation of local data and to GPS (see Global Positioning Systems). Navigation improved as a result of more accurate maps. The expedition also showed explorers such as Cook the possibility of international cooperation in conducting long-range science. And the interest in the region also captivated Darwin a century later. The mission made other discoveries. The scientists witnessed two eruptions of the Cotopaxi volcano in 1743 and 1744. Expedition members witnessed the tapping of rubber trees, identified the correct types of cinchona tree that produce the active form of quinine (an anti-malarial agent), and put into practice what became the metric system for units of measure.
The team recorded other observations on flora, fauna, landforms, climate, and more, paving the way for naturalist expeditions by von Humboldt and other scientists (see von Humboldt, Alexander). Godin became a professor in Lima, helping to rebuild the city following the 1746 earthquake. La Condamine and Ecuadoran geographer and topographer Pedro Maldonado journeyed down the Amazon. Maldonado later traveled to Europe to continue his scientific work, which marked the beginning of true European–South American scientific collaboration. The accounts of the expedition opened the eyes of many in Europe to South America: Europeans received a view of a continent that was not simply an appendage of the Spanish empire; rather, it was rich and diverse in terms of its people, flora, fauna, climate, and landforms.
The mission also impacted the local political geography: Its fame influenced the adoption of the name “Republic of Ecuador” when the Quito viceroyalty gained independence in 1830. More importantly, it proved to be a catalyst that led to South America throwing off the bonds of the empire that it was under, eventually becoming a set of independent nations. Simón Bolívar specifically referred to the geodesic mission as one of his inspirations in his drive to liberate South American nations.
The French Geodesic Mission had an enduring influence on geography through its detailing of the physical and cultural geography of South America, but particularly through mapping and geodesy (see Surveying).
See also: Cross-Staffs, Astrolabes, and Other Devices; Eratosthenes; Global Positioning Systems (GPS); Great Trigonometric Survey of India; Magellan, Ferdinand; Posidonius; Surveying; Von Humboldt, Alexander
Ferreiro, Larrie D. 2011. Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World. New York: Basic Books.
Safier, Neil. 2008. Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Whitaker, Robert. 2004. The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon. New York: Delta.