Visualize Sustainable Land Use in the Tropical Maya Forest: Revitalizing the Old Tikal Map for New Geospatial Analyses

Keywords: Geovisualization, Central America, Maya, Sustainable Agriculture, Low-denisty Urbanism
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Much debate has surrounded population growth and land use in the tropics. Major population growth is projected for the tropics worldwide, impacting environmental sustainability if the Euro-American land use trajectory dominates. The ancient Maya civilization provides an example of long-term growth and development in the tropics and has the potential to identify the dimensions of sustainability. Our project updates the published 1961 Carr and Hazard 9 sq km paper map of Tikal that pictures ancient monuments, residential settlements, and topography of this major Late Classic Period (600-900CE) Maya civic center in Guatemala. We create a new and comprehensive 12 sq km map of Tikal in the domain of GIS, incorporating details from the 9 sq km map and integrating data from the unpublished field notebooks provided by an original cartographer, Robert Carr. This gives us an opportunity to explore alternative land use scenarios for the tropics based on the Maya agricultural analogs. Using our Tikal database, we develop a range of population estimates based on residential units, evaluate the availability of cultivable land based on slope, and present geovisualizations based on the literature of the Maya and the tropics. We will demonstrate the challenges of the Euro-American strategies when compared to traditional local ecological strategies in modeling sustainability in the tropics.