Raorao Su 苏绕绕

My research examines how societies have shaped and been shaped by water, land, and climate across centuries. I combine historical documents, archival maps, remote sensing imagery, and GIS spatial analysis to transform fragmented textual records into computable geographic data, enabling new perspectives on long-term environmental and social processes.

Three lines of inquiry organize my current work. First, I reconstruct the evolution of hydrographic networks in arid Central and Northwest China over the past century, tracing how irrigation, land reclamation, and climate variability have reshaped the surface water systems of the Tarim Basin, Junggar Basin, and Hexi Corridor. Second, I investigate the spatial structure and historical dynamics of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries across the Plateau, using a georeferenced dataset of over 2,000 institutions to explore the interplay of religion, ethnicity, environment, and political authority. Third, I contribute to collaborative studies on cultural landscapes—including fengshui forests in southern China—that bridge historical ecology and spatial science.

Methodologically, I am committed to making historical geographic information open, reproducible, and interoperable, contributing to the broader project of digital historical geography.

I have had the privilege of working with scholars across disciplines and institutions, including Ruth Mostern (University of Pittsburgh; World-Historical Gazetteer), Nicola Di Cosmo (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Karl Ryavec (University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point; A Historical Atlas of Tibet), Gray Tuttle (Columbia University; Tibetan & Buddhist Studies), Chris Coggins (Bard College; cultural ecology & fengshui forests), and David Dian Zhang (formerly HKU; paleoclimatology & human–environment interactions).

I am a member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Chinese Economic History Society, and the Water History Committee of the Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society.