Geospatial Risk Management Part 1: Learning to Navigate

Note: This is the first in a two-part series on risks relating to geography. In this post, I'll discuss the risks that can arise through an inability to navigate, as well as ways to mitigate them.

I believe that land navigation is one of the most critical skills a person can possess. Being able to determine one's location and move to another location can reduce or even eliminate a variety of risks relating to business and personal security. There's a particular piece from The Guardian (Map reading tips for a world without satnav) that I read when it was first published in 2009, and it continues to amuse me because so many Americans have given up on land navigation altogether. It's amusing in clips like this one, from the hit TV show The Office...


... but it can turn tragic all too quickly, as the Kim Family found out in the Oregon wilderness in 2006. The original story was that James Kim had relied on a GPS, but this turned out to be untrue. Regardless, Mr. Kim's inability to navigate contributed to his tragic death, and nearly cost the lives of his family. Similar stories have cropped up in recent months regarding the low quality of Apple's mapping software on the iPhone 5 (Apple Maps could be life-threatening, Australian police warn; Apple Maps glitch could be deadly - Drivers were sent 'off the beaten track'). The lesson is clear: electronic mapping utilities can be helpful, by they're no substitute for developing strong navigation skills.

Land navigation isn't a tough skill to learn, and once you've learned it it's not tough to practice, but it does take some occasional fine tuning. Here are some resources that can help. Some of them are great for beginners, while others are better for those who have had some experience at navigating.

Land Navigation.org: This website is a great place to start. This website is specifically intended for the unitiated in map reading and land navigation.

Army Resources: FM 3-25.26, plus Map Reading, and Land Navigation lessons: Good navigation skills are big with military folks. The manuals are a bit dry, but the information's good will be helpful even to newcomers. These three items are definitely worth checking out.

Geocaching.org: A great way to practice your navigation skills is by geocaching. Geocaching is typically done with a GPS, but if you can get good maps and a compass, you can use those instead. The real benefit of geocaching is that it familiarizes you with finding your location and moving to a destination, which is the real essence of land navigation.

Wikimapia.org: I tend to prefer Wikimapia to Google Maps for a few reasons. First, the interface is a bit more user friendly. Second, the search function on Wikimapia tends to be better at finding things for which you don't have an address, particularly in foreign countries. The other benefit I've found is that, if you know what you're doing, you can combine elements of the URLs from Wikimapia, with the .GPX files from EasyGPS to pre-load waypoints into your GPS.

Google Maps: Google Maps is sort of the standard these days (other than Google Earth, which is a bit more involved). Google Maps has the benefit of allowing you to search by address, which is good when combined with Wikimapia (along the lines of my earlier post about diversification).

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Most of the maps at the Perry-Castañeda Collection's website are a higher level than anyone would use for navigating, but it's still a great website, and I've found it useful.

I was fortunate to have learned land navigation from the Marines when I was an undergraduate. That's not to say that I've never gotten myself lost - for example, when I was in Beirut, there was a point when I had intended to be checking out Roman ruins here, but found myself among posters of Bashar al Assad right around here. Beirut's sort of a special case, as it's about the least tourist-friendly city I've ever visited, but I was pleased that my ability to navigate eventually got me to where I was going against all odds, rather than taking me further from my destination and possibly into some real danger. Hear me now and believe me later, knowing how to navigate can absolutely save your life, and it has many other lesser benefits as well.