The Art of Mapping on the Run

MAPMAKERS RACE to keep up with the pace of human alteration of the earth.

RETREATING The Aral Sea in Central Asia, left, in 1967, has shrunk by 75 percent to its present size, right, because of water diversions.
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 9, 2007
It used to be that updated editions of world atlases mainly tracked the shifting of borders and changes in the names of cities and countries determined by politics, diplomacy or war.
The surface of the planet itself was a relatively constant template in the background. You could render it in more detail with, say, better satellite data, but the basics didn’t change much.
Now, though, the accelerating and intensifying impact of human activities is visibly altering the planet, requiring ever more frequent redrawing not only of political boundaries, but of the shape of Earth’s features themselves.
How so?

Aral sea beached boats