Using their research skills to obtain public information, a group of librarians created an interactive map showing the location of ICE offices and juvenile detention facilities. They also created a toolkit to assist digital humanities workers to know how to respond in a crisis.

Social justice organizations use digital cartography to tell stories about and bring awareness to unfair gentrification and landlord loopholes. By making massive data sets available and easily digestible to the public, organizations create a way for the public to play watch-dog in the affordable housing market.

Whenever there’s a natural catastrophe, a team of “crisis mappers” activate around the world. These volunteers use crowdsourcing tools to turn satellite data into digital maps, which are then used to make decisions on the ground, enabling rescuers to deliver food, shelter, and supplies to areas that need them most.

Humanitarian, crowdsourced street mapping has become a crucial part of disaster relief efforts. Initiatives like Missing Maps and OpenStreetMaps call on volunteer cartographers – professional or not – to fill in maps and data gaps so that emergency humanitarian efforts can help as many people as possible. Such platforms became necessary after Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas in September 2019, with over 100 people coming through to map previously unidentified roads and buildings.