GI Science Research Articles

Geospatial Information Research: State of the Art, Case Studies and Future Perspectives.

Geospatial information science (GI science) is concerned with the development and application of geodetic and information science methods for modeling, acquiring, sharing, managing, exploring, analyzing, synthesizing, visualizing, and evaluating data on spatio-temporal phenomena related to the Earth. As an interdisciplinary scientific discipline, it focuses on developing and adapting information technologies to understand processes on the Earth and human-place interactions, to detect and predict trends and patterns in the observed data, and to support decision making. The authors – members of DGK, the Geoinformatics division, as part of the Committee on Geodesy of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, representing geodetic research and university teaching in Germany – have prepared this paper as a means to point out future research questions and directions in geospatial information science. For the different facets of geospatial information science, the state of art is presented and underlined with mostly own case studies. The paper thus illustrates which contributions the German GI community makes and which research perspectives arise in geospatial information science. The paper further demonstrates that GI science, with its expertise in data acquisition and interpretation, information modeling and management, integration, decision support, visualization, and dissemination, can help solve many of the grand challenges facing society today and in the future.

Lockdown lessons: an international conversation on resilient GI science teaching

ABSTRACT We report the findings from two global panel “conversations” that, stimulated by the exceptional coronavirus pandemic of 2020/21, explored the concept of resilience in geographic science teaching and learning. Characteristics of resilient teaching, both in general and with reference to GISc, are listed and shown to be essentially what might in the past have been called good teaching. Similarly, barriers to resilient teaching are explored and strategies for overcoming them listed. Perhaps the most important conclusion is a widespread desire not to “bounce back” to pre-COVID ways, but to use the opportunity to “bounce forward” towards better teaching and learning practices.

Bridging the geospatial gap: Data about space and indigenous knowledge of place

AbstractIndigenous knowledge of place is not well‐served by today's digital geospatial technologies, such as spatial data, maps, spatial databases, and GIS. This paper aims to identify and explore new connections between Indigenous knowledge of place and digital geospatial technologies. Our analysis is structured around three key gaps in past work: (a) the overrepresentation of digital data about space, rather than knowledge of place; (b) a lack of facility to differentiate access to knowledge and enable Indigenous data sovereignty; (c) a lack of facility to support and sustain relationships between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous peoples. The paper further identifies and explores recent research topics in the field of geographic information science (GI science) with relevance to addressing these gaps. This includes identifying new serendipitous synergies with previously unconnected research areas, such as research into location privacy, uncertainty, qualitative spatial reasoning, or distributed spatial computing. The conclusions acknowledge that our retrospective approach is unlikely to lead to radical reformulation of geospatial technologies. Nevertheless, we argue that identifying technological opportunities could offer a pragmatic pathway to more rapidly bootstrap new approaches, beyond simply technological “fixes.”

Route Recommendation System based on Safety Metrics and Route Profiling

This project is based on the crime rates happening in our city and the measures taken to curb them to help in strengthening the perception of security in the minds of women and also people who are travelling alone at night. Safe route recommendation is an important part of the field of intelligent transportation, which can provide the guidance of travel mode and travel route for women as well as to travellers. The current route recommendation method has the complexity of urban transports, such as single traffic plan recommendation that often fails to meet the expected requirements. In order to solve the limitation of the one-way vehicle travel method, we propose a safe route recommendation method which includes three modes of transportation, including cars/cabs/auto rickshaws, public transport vehicles, and walking. The routes are represented in different color each denoting a different degree of safety gives user a choice to choose from. The routes/paths are categorized into high, medium and low risk areas. In GI Science, problems related to routing systems have been deeply explored an approach to provide risk score defined by crime rates for generating safe routes This obtained data is then displayed in a map with red, yellow and green patches denoting high, medium and low risk areas respectively. Thus, data are classified by the decision tree (ID3) algorithm. A geospatial repository is used to store tweets related to crime events of the city and the city’s street network is converted into graph format which will make the routing and classification mechanism easier. A forecast related to crime events that can occur in a certain place with the collected data was performed. The ID3 classifier classifies each routes into the following labels High, Medium, Low which describes the extent to which the specific route is risky. Our application presents all possible shortest and safe paths between the starting and destination point to the user.

Searching for common ground (again)

GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings Searching for Common Ground (Again) 1 J. Thatcher​ 1​ , L. Bergmann​ 2​ , D. O’Sullivan​ 3 University of Washington Tacoma, 1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma, WA 98402 Email: jethatch@uw.edu University of Washington, Box 353550, Seattle, WA 98195 Email: luke.bergmann@gmail.com University of California Berkeley, 504 McCone Hall #4740, Berkeley, CA 94720 Email: dosullivan@berkeley.edu Abstract At over twenty­five years old, GIScience has been successful academically and institutionally. However, its relationship to one of its ‘natural’ homes, the discipline of Geography, has often been troubled and uncertain. We suggest that from the founding of GIScience, its close association with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) has contributed to an acceptance of an absolute coordinate space ​ ​ encoded ​ ​ as (​ x , y [, ​ z , ​ t ]) as both a relatively unproblematic and dominant representation of geographical space. We briefly consider how this situation may have arisen, perhaps as an unintended consequence of an originally tactical disciplinary positioning move. However, our purpose here is ​ not criticism, but to highlight the many other more minor strands within GIScience, which can provide fertile common ground for renewed conversations between GIScience and Geography. We suggest congruences between less dominant strands of research in GIScience and theoretical concepts in Geography, as an invitation to constructive collaborations. 1. Introduction “GIScience,” as a term, is around a quarter of a century old. It has become institutionally and academically valorized through multiple conferences, journals, and textbooks. We argue that from its inception as distinct from GISystems (GIS), GIScience (GISci) has been framed in ways that have partially delimited the spatial thinking that occurs within it. Specifically, by framing GISci as fundamentally concerned with “spatial information” and “spatial analysis” of such information (Goodchild 1992, 2006), GISci has tended to accept space as absolute, transforming it into data whose ‘atomic’ units are measurements within a coordinate system of the form (​ x , ​ y [, ​ z , ​ t , etc.]) (Goodchild et al. 2007), and de­emphasizing alternative conceptualizations of space, time, and process. While this reflects GISci’s construction as a “science ​ of ​ geographical information ” (Goodchild 1992: 38, emphasis ours), we suggest that, in taking a specific concept of spatial information as given, GISci may have unnecessarily distanced itself from broader research in computational geography and in geographic thought. To make this argument, first, we briefly examine how GISci was framed in an important early conceptualization, focusing on definitions of geographic information. Next, we provide evidence suggestive of continuing ties between these early framings and ongoing research in the field. Finally, we suggest that a reconsideration of the conceptualizations of both space and spatial processes found in broader computational and quantitative geography as well as some theoretical realms of (human) Geography could be valuable to GISci. Our title is a nod to ​ A Search for Common Ground (Gould and Olsson 1982) and the follow up ​ A Ground for Common Search (Golledge et al. 1986) which were among the last attempts to bridge the philosophical divides between quantitative and ‘critical’ geography before the 1990s ‘science wars’ and, more recently, ‘critical GIS’.

GI Expertise

AbstractThis article concerns the identification of the expertise that GI scientists have in common. Rather than attempt to be exhaustive, the approach is to identify a minimal set of expert topics shared across GI science. In this article, a set of five expert topics is proposed for this purpose: structure, uncertainty, dynamism, language and cognition, and design with geographic information. The article then examines the extent to which the literature lends support for these five topics, using two analyses: first, a qualitative analysis of the papers found in the 2006 Classics from IJGIS; and second a citation analysis investigating the occurrences of keywords related to the proposed expert topics. The results suggest that these five areas of expertise do indeed tend to distinguish research in GI science from that in other fields, and in particular where the expert topics occur in combination. The establishment of an acknowledged core of shared expertise should assist in interdisciplinary research and teaching collaboration, usually founded on a shared understanding of what expertise different partners can contribute.

Spatial Soil Erosion Modeling for Sustainable Agriculture Development Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technology

Middle mountain areas of Nepal Himalaya is seriously suffering from ecological degradation and an estimation of over 240 million cubic meter of top soil is being eroded annually to the Bay of Bengal. Thirteen per cent of Nepal’s watershed area have deteriorated seriously and 10,000 sq km are devoid of sufficient vegetation. Top soil loss from the mountain results in the riverbeds’ raise at a annual rate of 15 ‐ 30 cm and its effect on soil fertility declines. Considering this, an attempt was made to estimate the soil loss using GI Science technology and its correlative interpretation with land system units and land use and cover types from Maheshkhola watershed. Among several empirical and physically‐based erosion models, Revised USLE (RUSLE) using RKLSCP was used to estimate the soil loss in the present analysis. A total of 231,155 ton soil was estimated annually being lost from Maheshkhola watershed. Erosion rates were found highly associated with the slope of land system units. Thirty three per cent of the total soil loss were mainly contributed only by each land system units, 11 and 12. Depositional dissected alluvial fan was found highest of 3.62 t/ha/yr soil loss among the averages. Agriculture as a dominant human activity, spatially concentrated in 61.53% of the watershed area, was contributing significantly as of 90% of the total soil loss in the study area. Similarly soil cliff/landslide and river sand areas contributed 10.11 t/ha/yr and 9.38 t/ha/yr on an average, respectively. The land units, steeply mountainous terrain having soil loss more than 35 t/ha/yr must be given higher priorities for soil conservation.
 Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 24(2): 177-189, 2015 (July)

Why submit an abstract to UEG Week?

I am a convert to UEG! I have attended many conferences over the past 20 years and UEG has become better and better. The scientific programme is organized with a huge amount of thought to make it engaging and up to date with state of the art high profile speakers as well as providing unprecedented opportunities for younger researchers to discuss their work. As well as the content of the programme itself the secretariat are making use of modern, flexible formats of presenting scientific data including E-posters and Poster Champ Sessions with a planned time for poster discussion with a moderator. In 2015 the Todays’ Science, Tomorrow’s Medicine theme will be the “–omics revolution”. We are in a new era of scientific discovery thanks to the leaps that have been made in sequencing technology. It is now possible to interrogate the genetic contributions to disease (both in the germline as well as in diseased cells) at an unprecedented level of resolution and in a manner that is increasingly affordable. There will also be state of the art updates in the diagnosis and management of clinical disease which makes up our everyday practice with opportunities to discuss the latest recommendations and data with colleagues and experts. The UEG is very keen on prizes! Every year UEG awards prizes of €10,000 to each of the top 5 abstracts submitted to UEG Week. In addition there are prizes for “Rising Stars” nominated from their own National Society and the Research Prize. On top of that, there are Poster Champ Awards, Oral Free Paper Prizes, Travel Grants, National Scholar Awards and International Scholarships. To find out more information refer to http://www.ueg.eu/awards-grants/ueg-week-awards! I have been very fortunate to have received two awards from UEG. When I was a young researcher just trying to establish my own group I was awarded a “Rising Star” award. This was a great boost to me at this important stage of my career. One of the real benefits was meeting other clinical scientists at a similar stage in their career. Just last year I won the “UEG Research Prize” which was a great honour. The UEG is generous with the monetary value of the prize which thus enables one to pursue high risk projects that are not possible with some of the more traditional funding routes. This is aside from the thrill of stepping onto the platform at the plenary session to speak about one’s work to a huge audience – a real privilege. The secretariat are also keen to make UEG a place for everyone interested in Gastroenterology and GI science to interact and contribute. They ensure that there is opportunity for those that wish to be involved in committees. We are thus promoting equal opportunities for speakers from all countries, men and women, clinicians and scientists. We are keen to promote networking and mentoring opportunities and in 2014 we hosted a Young GI Network which was a resounding success. If you have ideas on how to improve the balance then we would love to hear from you. Please come to UEG Week and make it the number one conference to submit your abstract!

Geo-information Based Spatio-temporal Modeling of Urban Land Use and Land Cover Change in Butwal Municipality, Nepal

Abstract. Unscientific utilization of land use and land cover due to rapid growth of urban population deteriorates urban condition. Urban growth, land use change and future urban land demand are key concerns of urban planners. This paper is aimed to model urban land use change essential for sustainable urban development. GI science technology was employed to study the urban change dynamics using Markov Chain and CA-Markov and predicted the magnitude and spatial pattern. It was performed using the probability transition matrix from the Markov chain process, the suitability map of each land use/cover types and the contiguity filter. Suitability maps were generated from the MCE process where weight was derived from the pair wise comparison in the AHP process considering slope, land capability, distance to road, and settlement and water bodies as criterion of factor maps. Thematic land use land cover types of 1999, 2006, and 2013 of Landsat sensors were classified using MLC algorithm. The spatial extent increase from 1999 to 2013 in built up , bush and forest was observed to be 48.30 percent,79.48 percent and 7.79 percent, respectively, while decrease in agriculture and water bodies were 30.26 percent and 28.22 percent. The predicted urban LULC for 2020 and 2027 would provide useful inputs to the decision makers. Built up and bush expansion are explored as the main driving force for loss of agriculture and river areas and has the potential to continue in future also. The abandoned area of river bed has been converted to built- up areas.

PROTOTYPING A SENSOR ENABLED 3D CITYMODEL ON GEOSPATIAL MANAGED OBJECTS

Abstract. One of the major development efforts within the GI Science domain are pointing at sensor based information and the usage of real time information coming from geographic referenced features in general. At the same time 3D City models are mostly justified as being objects for visualization purposes rather than constituting the foundation of a geographic data representation of the world. The combination of 3D city models and real time information based systems though can provide a whole new setup for data fusion within an urban environment and provide time critical information preserving our limited resources in the most sustainable way. Using 3D models with consistent object definitions give us the possibility to avoid troublesome abstractions of reality, and design even complex urban systems fusing information from various sources of data. These systems are difficult to design with the traditional software development approach based on major software packages and traditional data exchange. The data stream is varying from urban domain to urban domain and from system to system why it is almost impossible to design a complete system taking care of all thinkable instances now and in the future within one constraint software design complex. On several occasions we have been advocating for a new end advanced formulation of real world features using the concept of Geospatial Managed Objects (GMO). This paper presents the outcome of the InfraWorld project, a 4 million Euro project financed primarily by the Norwegian Research Council where the concept of GMO's have been applied in various situations on various running platforms of an urban system. The paper will be focusing on user experiences and interfaces rather then core technical and developmental issues. The project was primarily focusing on prototyping rather than realistic implementations although the results concerning applicability are quite clear.

OUTREACH PROGRAMMES FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL CARTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION

Abstract. Organisations like the International Cartographic Association champion programmes that develop and deliver education and training to cartographers and geospatial scientists, globally. This can be in the form of traditional university and training college programmes, short courses for professional and technical members of mapping agencies and as outreach initiatives to transfer knowledge about the discipline and its contemporary practices. Through its international community, the ICA undertakes the transfer of knowledge about cartography and GI Science by publishing books and special editions of journals and running workshops. Colleagues from the ICA community conduct these workshops on a volunteer basis, generally with the support of the national member organisation of ICA or the national mapping body. For example, the ICA promotes the generation of extensive publications, generally through its Commissions and Working Groups. The publications include books, journals and the ICA Newsletter. Outreach activities are especially pertinent to up skill colleagues from developing countries. Specialist programmes can be offered for professional and 'everyday' map users (from adults to children). The ICA can assist with its current programmes, designed to embrace professional and non-professional cartographers alike. This paper will address how education and outreach programmes can be supported by international associations, by offering programmes independently, or in partnership with sister associations and national and regional organisations and societies. As well, the paper will address the need to deliver education and outreach programmes not to just the professional international community, but also to map users and citizen map publishers.

The International Cartographic Association Research Agenda: Review, Perspectives, Comments and Recommendations

After several years of work, the International Cartographic Association (ICA) has published its Research Agenda on Cartography and GI Science. This paper will broadly review the structure and content of the ICA Research Agenda in terms of the keywords utilized and concepts linked to them, while recognizing the history and development of the ICA. Attention will then turn to the additional insights that might be gained by the use of Self Organizing Maps (SOM) of scientific terms used in papers presented at the ICC meetings. These form a “Term Dominance Landscape” and “Network Spatialization” of research clusters for those scientific papers. Attention then turns to expanding some important concepts in the ICA Strategic Plan dealing with Real and Virtual Maps, and then Deep and Surface Structure. The discussion then leads to the possibility of the ICA developing a Body of Knowledge for the field of Cartography, a timely opportunity for the ICA. Recommendations then follow from this discussion.

The use of immersive real-time 3D computer graphics for visualisation of dilution of precision in virtual environments

Dilution of precision (DOP) is a fundamental concept in satellite navigation and surveying. A deeper understanding of this concept can be achieved through the means of 3D immersive visualisation. In this article, we present a method for visualising and exploring the spatial variation of DOP and discuss its presentation within an immersive virtual environment. The work demonstrates a real-time simulation of global positioning system (GPS) satellite geometry, modelled and visualised within a virtual representation of the university campus. The number of satellites visible to the receiver is modelled in real time as a user walks through the university campus. During this process, the changing satellite geometry is visualised in both 3D and aerial views. Various DOP values update to the screen against a pseudo-realistic building backdrop as the user travels. Both the aerial views and the changing volumes of the tetrahedra drawn in 3D provide an effective way of interpreting why exceptionally large or small horizontal DOP and vertical DOP values can occur in an urban context. Because the factors affecting DOPs are inherently 3D, communicating the spatial uncertainty of global positioning system coordinates within an immersive stereo environment has been viewed as a particularly powerful communication tool by both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying GI Science.

Semantic Interoperability through the Definition of Conceptual Model Transformations

AbstractThe integration of distributed geospatial data is a great issue in GI Science. Hereby, the collection of data from different systems and different structures as well as across country borders is a problem. We explain a model‐based four‐step approach to conceptual data modelling. Within this approach, we introduce a methodology to map data models on the conceptual level without touching data formats. First, we developed a conceptual mapping language called “UMLT” which is the core of our approach. Furthermore, we integrated UMLT into the Model‐Driven Architecture where a conceptual model mapping is referred to as a platform independent model mapping. Finally, the data format transformation is deduced from the model mapping automatically. This represents the implementation mapping from a platform independent model to a platform specific model. Together with transformation operations for attribute mapping, this approach is a means for effective and enhanced semantic interoperability.

Understanding Disaster: GI Science Contributions in the Ongoing Recovery from Katrina

Understanding Disaster: GI Science Contributions in the Ongoing Recovery from Katrina

Shaping the Future of GI Science in Europe

Shaping the Future of GI Science in Europe

What is GIS and What is Not?

As the title implies, this review of GIS (both GI Systems and GI Science) talks about boundaries – what is “in” and what is “out”. In order to do this, the discussion itself must have some boundaries. A Canadian prime minister once described his country as “too much geography and not enough history”. Here we will try to minimize both the history and the geography, and see how GI Science (the discipline) impinges on a variety of other disciplines, from Astronomy to Zoology perhaps. In other words, the boundaries of GI Science are becoming much less clear-cut, and fuzzier. It is important not merely to look at the traditional “Geo-” disciplines, but at other subjects which can contribute by overlapping with GI Science. In many cases this overlap may be more a question of mutually useful technology than similarity of applications – so even the distinction between GI Systems (the technology) and GI Science is a fuzzy one. This review is just one opinion, and a brief one at that, of where GIS fits at one moment in time. It will inevitably conflict in parts with the opinions of others. In outline we will look briefly at the initial situation, and see that historically the technology slowly became a new discipline. Since the question – What is GIS and what is not? – involves comparisons, we must look at the boundaries between the “ins” and the “outs”, initially for the discipline and then for the technology. Inevitably these boundaries will be fuzzy, with lots of overlap. We will then attempt to use these overlaps to suggest where things might go in the near future.

Support for GI Research a Priority for AGA Institute President

New AGA President Mark Donowitz won't mince words when he expresses his perception that the advancement of GI science “is under attack, making it difficult for investigators, young and old. We know that advances in GI science are being held back due to inappropriately low levels of support compared to other areas such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiac diseases,” states the Director of the Center for Epithelial Disorders and the LeBoff Professor for Research in Digestive Diseases at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Between Hot Air and Hot Spot: Placing Location Based Services within GI Science

Between Hot Air and Hot Spot: Placing Location Based Services within GI Science

Geographic Automata Systems

A novel approach to automata‐based modeling for spatial systems is described: geographic automata and Geographic Automata Systems. We detail a framework that takes advantage of the formalism of automata theory and GI Science to unite cellular automata and multi‐agent systems techniques, and provides a spatial approach to bottom‐up modeling of complex geographic systems that are comprised of infrastructure and human objects. The suitability of the framework is also discussed with reference to existing cellular automata and multi‐agent systems models used in urban studies. Practical implementation of the framework is illustrated with reference to an object‐based urban simulation environment and implementation of a popular socio‐spatial segregation model.