GPS and MUND in Los Altos of Morelos, Mexico
 …with some direction home

We have observed and where possible applied new technologies for survey research here in Mexico.  Here as elsewhere, the new technologies have made possible significant advances in productivity and in quality controls – both in the field and in the processes of analysis.  Variations on the use of CATI and CAPI have been the high profile applications for the past decade.  Productivity and cost are crucial questions, but we see that over time quality control is paramount.

In this period, we find that the use of Global Position Systems (GPS) has become increasingly important.   MUND has participated in GPS projects with the traditional application of location services, from questions of missing vehicles to rationalizing pay telephone sites.  Recently we are pleased to report the application of GPS and related mapping devices to refine respondent locations as part of fine-tuned demographics.

With a consortium of local municipal governments, university centers and NGOs, we are participating in a long term study of water resources and water usages in one of the key mountain basin areas that surround Mexico City.  Questions relating to popular concepts of water availability, usage and quality require something more than traditional demographics by municipal and village designations. 

Within each of the seven municipal areas of the extended region there is a seeming maze of wells and rainwater ponds that serve as sources.  Within this maze is a veritable labyrinth of delivery systems ranging from open channels (pre-hispanic in origin) to asbestos lined tubing (from the post-WWII era) and more recent cement and ceramic lined systems.   Respondents’ views of water availability and quality are conditioned more by the labyrinth within the maze than by the happenstance of municipal boundary lines. 

In an area where memory and usage were irregularly understood, and formal maps tended to be limited to military generated overviews of access roads, the use of GPS and its popular on-line formats is a revelation for all concerned – including a sense of empowerment to the residents.   

The sample mapping we are developing, with its overlapping transparencies, is beginning to look like something out of Grey’s Anatomy (that is, the medical textbook).  At the same time, it is opening up a rich new sense of the parsing of opinion.

Dan Lund
President