The Maryland Department of Natural Resources initiated this project as they were in need of visualizations of the deleterious impacts of climate change at a variety of Maryland park landscapes, as well as graphics that illustrate possible adaptions that could help to combat these impacts. These graphics were to be used in printed land use and planning documents, webpages, and story maps. The challenge of this project was to create drawings that could articulate complex, time-based environmental issues and augment more traditional verbal or written explanations.
Visualizations play a crucial role in describing complex issues, specifically ones related to our changing environment. Depicting possible future conditions of ecosystems can help to challenge our preconceptions of the environments in which we are currently embedded and familiar with. The hope is that this work can help to convey this important, but sometimes difficult to comprehend information to a broader audience.