Stone Wall Mapping

Press release

NH Stone Wall Mapper
You can’t help noticing the innumerable stone walls arrayed across the NH landscape, but then again perhaps they seem so commonplace that they just blend into the background of your day-to-day experience. This project is an invitation to take a “fresh” look at these simple relics from New Hampshire’s past and see them in a new light, or more literally, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). With the availability of LiDAR across NH, we can see imagery of land elevations through the trees, revealing – among other things – stone walls that are deep within forests today. You can explore New Hampshire’s LiDAR landscape, and contribute to the mapping of the state’s stone walls, with the New Hampshire Stone Wall Mapper, and learn something new about our state’s geologic and cultural history as you page through the companion story map “Wall-to-Wall: Connecting Landscape and Culture”. Every stone wall that you identify and map using this easy-to-use application will help to build a statewide, “Wall-to-Wall” database to document these amazing testimonials of our ancestors’ strength and perseverance, and help to preserve them for future generations.

Please use the first link below to access the NH Stone Wall Mapper, and take advantage of the other resources we have assembled to help acquaint you with the project.
•  Stone Wall Mapper – Public
•  “Getting Started with the NH Stone Wall Mapper” – provides guidance to users mapping stone wall resources in New Hampshire
 “Looking at LiDAR” – description of how to interpret stone walls based on LiDAR datasets
 “Wall to Wall: Connecting Landscape and Culture” – a story map providing rich background information on the history and importance of stone walls in NH
•  NH Stone Wall Mapping Group – join the public Facebook group to share your experiences and learn from others interested in this project.
The NH Stone Wall Mapper was developed by the NH Geological Survey and NH GRANIT, with significant input from a committed group of volunteers. We are grateful to the NH Charitable Foundation for supporting the development of this resource.

We welcome any questions or comments – please contact us via email.