This session explores how GIS technologies are applied to diverse environmental and urban challenges through community-engaged research, digital visualization, spatial modeling, and citizen science. Presenters will examine how geographic visualizations support integrated community planning, analyze friction landscapes to identify ecological pinch-points, and evaluate the spatial dynamics of transit systems and environmental (in)justice. Other contributions focus on mapping socioecological territories in Brazil through cybercartography and analyzing intra-urban heat islands using citizen-generated climate data. Together, these presentations highlight the evolving role of GIS as both an analytical and participatory tool for understanding and shaping environments.

• 10:15 AM
  Geographic Visualization as a Tool for Collaborative Community Planning
  Elvia Willyono, University of Victoria

• 10:30 AM
  Configuration Pinch-points that Influence Spatial Landscape Processes
  Tarmo K. Remmel, York University

• 10:45 AM
  Geospatial Assessment of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit System in Johannesburg, South Africa
  Oforiwaa Pee Agyei-Boakye, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

• 11:00 AM
  Cybercartography and Territorial Representation: A Cybercartographic Atlas for Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Maranhão, Brazil
  Mauricio Eduardo Salgado Rangel, Carleton University

• 11:15 AM
  GIScience Approaches to Improve Urban Mobility Research
  Ashley Tegart, Simon Fraser University