Real-Time Space–Time Integration in GIScience and Geography

Abstract

Space–time integration has long been the topic of study and speculation in geography. However, in recent years an entirely new form of space–time integration has become possible in geographic information systems (GIS) and GIScience: real-time space–time integration and interaction. Although real-time spatiotemporal data are now being generated almost ubiquitously, and their applications in research and commerce are widespread and rapidly accelerating, the ability to continuously create and interact with fused space–time data in geography and GIScience is a recent phenomenon, made possible by the invention and development of real-time interactive (RTI) Global Positioning System (GPS)/GIS technology and functionality in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This innovation has since functioned as a core change agent in geography, cartography, GIScience, and many related fields, profoundly realigning traditional relationships and structures, expanding research horizons, and transforming the ways in which geographic data are now collected, mapped, modeled, and used, both in geography and in science and society more broadly. Real-time space–time interactive functionality remains today the underlying process generating the current explosion of fused spatiotemporal data, new geographic research initiatives, and myriad geospatial applications in governments, businesses, and society. This article addresses briefly the development of these real-time space–time functions and capabilities; their impact on geography, cartography, and GIScience; and some implications for how discovery and change can occur in geography and GIScience and how we might foster continued innovation in these fields.