Maps, Models, and Sovereignty: Transforming Spatial Data for Place-Based Decision-Making As climate change accelerates pressures on land, water, and mineral resources, communities increasingly face decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty.
For Indigenous Nations, these decisions must balance intergenerational knowledge and cultural practices with real-time data and transparent interpretation. Curating localized and contextualized spatial information can strengthen Indigenous sovereignty by supporting self-determined governance and enabling communities to anticipate and respond strategically to external interests in land, energy, and mineral resources.
Yet many national datasets remain too coarse, fragmented, or difficult to interpret at the spatial scales most relevant to Indigenous lands and governance. This talk highlights efforts to transform existing public datasets and develop spatial modeling frameworks that synthesize new insights, producing locally meaningful tools that support research, teaching, and community conversations.
While these projects are developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities, the approaches illustrate broader lessons for place-based decision-making. Examples include geospatial analyses mapping relationships between Tribal lands and mineral development, integrated climate-crop models exploring drought risks and irrigation strategies in the Navajo Nation, spatial models linking land-use decisions to air pollution and public health outcomes, and interactive platforms connecting land dispossession to contemporary food sovereignty indicators.
Together, these efforts demonstrate how interdisciplinary approaches to spatial data can complement geographic perspectives on place, governance, and environmental justice. Calendar image: Handwoven and plant-dyed Diné rug made by Martha Nelson Charles (author’s shina´lı´or grandmother) featured in Dr. Charles publication "Weaving innovative fabrics of knowledge between institutionalized sciences and Indigenous ways of knowing"