We are an interdisciplinary research collective working across cartography, remote sensing, climate science, hydrology and planning to understand how cities and landscapes are changing in a warming climate, and how they might adapt. We believe mapping can be a collective and enabling process: one that goes beyond official narratives and charts different possibilities for urban, territorial and ecological futures.
We work with civil society organisations, local governments, research institutions and international agencies. We bring geospatial analysis, field research and knowledge of local ecosystems to support the restoration of rivers, wetlands and coastlines, and the cities that depend on them.
We increasingly understand the world through satellite imagery, open data and digital models. These tools make mapping more accessible than ever, but they can also flatten places into pixels and leave the most vulnerable landscapes undocumented. Our work stays grounded in fieldwork: measuring water, sampling habitats, and learning from the people who know a place best. By layering field observations, remote sensing and local knowledge, maps can be a medium for bringing many kinds of knowledge together. In turn, maps can challenge our ways of knowing and acting.
This site is a space to share projects, field notes and ideas in progress.
Sera Tolgay Marshall an urban planner and hydrologist, originally from Istanbul. Her fieldwork follows water through some of the world’s most stressed and least documented river basins. As a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering, she combines earth observation and machine learning with field campaigns to understand how continental drying is reshaping the water cycle in arid regions.
She founded Critical Cartography Project as an interdisciplinary research project that works with communities to document undermapped rivers, wetlands and coastal ecosystems, studying their role in the water cycle and how changes in water quality affect ecosystems and public health, to guide restoration efforts.
A National Geographic Explorer, Sera has led planning initiatives and fieldwork to protect flooded forests and coastal wetlands in the Marmara Sea basin and the Asi River Delta. Her team’s work in the Asi Delta was featured at the 2025 World Water Forum. She began her career at the New York City Department of City Planning, working on coastal resilience zoning after Hurricane Sandy. She went on to manage award-winning coastal adaptation projects with SCAPE, mapped riparian ecosystems in South Africa through NASA DEVELOP at JPL, and has consulted for UNEP, UN-Habitat and the World Bank. She received a dual master’s degrees in Master of City Planning and Master of Science in Architecture from MIT, MSc in Hydrology from the University of Oklahoma, and a B.A. from Yale University.
Core Practices:
- Cartography, Remote Sensing & Earth Observation
- Machine Learning & Hydrological Modelling
- Field Hydrology & Environmental Monitoring
- Ecological Restoration & Nature-Based Solutions
- Climate Adaptation, Urban & Regional Planning, and Policy Analysis