Three Czech maps developed by experts from the Departments of Geoinformatics, Geography, and Development & Environmental Studies of the UP Faculty of Science have been awarded “runner-up” status in the international competition Best Map Award 2023. The prizes are awarded annually by the prestigious Journal of Maps published by Taylor and Francis.
The highest runner-up position for Czech maps was given to the map Quality of Life Indices: How Robust Are the Results Considering Different Aggregation Techniques? by Karel Macků and Radek Barvíř from the Department of Geoinformatics.
“Despite long-term research, there are no unified opinions on which specific indicators to use in assessing quality of life and how to aggregate them into indices. In our article, we focus on the latter issue. Based on a literature review, we compiled a set of indicators that could describe how well people live in a particular place. We investigated whether we would obtain significantly different results if we simply changed the mathematical procedure to construct a synthetic quality of life index from these indicators. Individual approaches to the calculation confirm the partial similarity of the results. However, it is the remaining dissimilarity that points to the fact that by combining different methods, authors of similar papers always reveal more interesting details about the processed data that would remain hidden using one simple approach. Maps have been used to present the results, thanks to which the reader can quickly, simply, and correctly perceive the differences between the individual methods,” said Macků.
The maps Geoparticipation in the Czech Municipalities: Index Based Quantitative Approach and Astronomically Determined Localities, the Core Part of Ptolemy’s Geography were also shortlisted for the Best Map Award 2023. The first is the work of the collective of Jaroslav Burian, Radek Barvíř, Daniel Pavlačka and Vít Pászto from the Department of Geoinformatics, and Jiří Pánek and Jiří Chovaneček from the Department of Development and Environmental Studies. The second was created by Aleš Létal from the Department of Geography and Jan Martínek from the Transport Research Centre.
The Best Map Award has been awarded since 2008 and entries are judged on both academic content and cartographic quality. The winning entry for 2023 was the Geological Map of South America in Google Earth, which unified geological maps across individual countries and published them online in a freely accessible format.