Charlbury-on-Sea, 2208 AD - how about an electronic map?

Fri 2 May 2008, 18:48

I know Richard has got a complete UK 1" Ordnance Survey map scanned from copyright free 1954 maps, held on computer and geometrically corrected for distortion (can't remember what that correction process is called in cartography).

On reading the latest IPCC report on icecap meltback in Greenland proceeding much more rapidly than modelled in forecasts, I was thinking it would be fun/intriguing to make up a series of maps of our area - for say 25 miles around, or perhaps 50 - with different projected sea level rises and what that would do to the landscape of Britain and our part of it.

Including perhaps the big one - substantial melt off of the Antarctic icecap in centuries instead of thousands of years!

Might give us something to mull on, like for instance, where do we put the housing for our share of 7 million Londoners?

Or do we start a secret resistance movement now and proceed with stockpiling armaments over the next few generations for a secret society ... say the Cotswold Isles League of Defence (CILD with a hard "c" eh) so we can indulge in an effective bit of genocide when the time comes?

What's your dystopia for the great great great grandkids if we don't do something about changing the way we are going?

There could be a great science "fiction" book that could be written based on the tales of the Cotswold Archipelago, set a few hundred years ahead!

But seriously, I think a map of sea and river levels could be interesting and instructive!

If no one else does I'd love to make one up if I had a copy of the appropriate map data - give an excuse to learn about open source geographic computer map programs if nothing else, they look fun but horribly complex with some pretty hairy mathematics to do some things properly - eeek!

Nice project for some older kids at secondary school?