"Artemis Project: A Digital Bridge to Historical Landscapes and Maps"
Event Details
- Date: October 15, 2025
- Time: 12:00 PM GMT
- Location: Online (link above)
Overview
Join us for a presentation by Iason Jongepier and Vincent Ducatteeuw on Artemis, a Flemish research project that unlocks and interlinks historical Belgian maps for environmental and landscape research.
Focusing on the Scheldt River Valley between Ghent and Antwerp, Artemis unlocks a wealth of geographic data from pre-1880 maps, including the Ferraris, Vandermaelen, and cadastral map series. Using advanced computer vision techniques alongside manual validation, the project extracts features such as toponyms, land use, and hydrographic structures.
These enriched data will be made available as Linked Open Data via a IIIF-enabled online platform, creating a reusable research infrastructure for historians, geographers, ecologists, and spatial planners.
Case Study: Flooding and Water Management in the Scheldt Basin
The second part of the seminar presents a research scenario on historical flooding in the Scheldt basin. Drawing on extracted map data, historical newspapers, and official reports, the study reconstructs changes in hydrography and identifies flood-prone areas from the late 1700s to early 1900s.
Special focus is given to the 1906 flood, exploring how dikes, wetlands, and floodplains were transformed over time, potentially increasing vulnerability. The talk also highlights how local communities experienced and responded to flood risks.
The Environmental Digital Humanities Seminar (EDHS) brings together scholars from across the humanities who use digital methods to understand environments past, present, and future. EDHS is inclusive of urban, rural, suburban spaces and places and while we explore environments globally, we also showcase local work from and about the North of England.
EDHS is supported by the N8, the Lancaster Data Science Institute, Digital Humanities Centre at Lancaster, Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures, and Media at the University of Manchester, and the MCGIS research group at Manchester.
Organisers: Giulia Grisot (Manchester), Katherine McDonough (Lancaster), Luca Scholz (Manchester), Joanna Taylor (Manchester)
