Operationalizing places in GIScience: A review

In this chapter, I concentrate on aspects of the intersection between human geography—a way of understanding and making sense of the world—and geographic information systems, geographical information science, and cartography—methods, tools and modes of representation that inform how geographers measure and describe the world. I will do that from a personal perspective based on my background as a geographer, cartographer, and geographic information scientist (GIScientist) that has worked and is interested in questions related primarily to history and historical geography, and in particular in the geographies of the Holocaust. The intersection between GIS and geographic information science (GIScience) on one side, and human geography on the other, is at the same time quite broad and quite narrow, for while the methods and tools of GIScience and GIS can be deployed across the various subdisciplines that compose human geography, at their core these techniques do one thing: measure the value of quantitative data. This not only leaves out, at least for the most part, qualitative data, but also underscores the fact that the meaning of these measurements is often outside the subject matter of GIS and GIScience and needs to be interpreted according to models and theories which reside elsewhere: GIS and GIScience unearth relationships between data, but do not explain them. The case of cartography is somewhat different, as maps are both a way of measuring and representing the world and also, offer a window into the times, ideologies, social norms, and worldview of the cultures and societies that produced them. My purpose is to illustrate the intersection between topics with GIS, GIScience, and cartography, and in doing so I will simplify and generalize concepts and ideas that are more fully developed elsewhere.

Abstract. Research in geographic information science has not yet found clear answers to the questions of what geographic information is about or what a geographic information system (GIS) contains. This lack of consensus makes it especially challenging to teach and learn GIS. Existing pedagogical approaches either focus on the representational level of data (e.g., “raster and vector”) or are too generic (e.g., “geo-referenced information”). This characterization of GIS and its content is difficult for learners to transfer and apply broadly. As instructors, we approach the challenge of teaching GIS from a conceptual basis. We describe our process to develop a set of core concepts of spatial information, which we use to redesign an undergraduate-level introductory GIS course. Our intervention focuses instruction on the kinds of questions that geographic information enables before training students to produce workflows and answers through system commands. The course redesign complements and informs ongoing research on core concepts of spatial information. Our results demonstrate that GIS courses can deliver more than software training, indicating both theoretical gains and didactic challenges.

Geographic Information Science (GIScience or GISci) — using the synergy of global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing, spatial analysis and statistics, and geographic information systems (GIS) — provides a powerful set of tools and intellectual approaches to address environmental change. Since the advent of satellite remote sensing of Earth resources in the 1970s, new and innovative ways have been developed to map, measure, monitor, model, and provide decision support for the ongoing changes on our planetary surface. Healthy green vegetation has a unique spectral reflectance response due to absorption in the visible red portion of the spectrum and strong reflectance in the near infrared. Indexes derived from combinations of satellite digital data have been documented to provide good indicators of the amount and geographic coverage of green vegetation. Thus, GIScience methods can be very helpful in spatial reasoning and scientific visualization of the success of agroforestry programs designed to combat desertification. Change detection or monitoring of the success of establishing green vegetation can be accomplished in a geographic information system using multiple dates of satellite imagery or aerial photography. In addition, when information about the state of the vegetation cover is combined with other digital data types, such as soils, access to water, transportation routes, the location of human settlements, and/or natural vegetation cover, then strategic decisions regarding development of the Great Green Wall can be made.

Relative space-based GIS data model to analyze the group dynamics of moving objects

Network data structures were one of the earliest representations in geographic information systems (GIS), and network analysis remains one of the most significant and persistent research and application areas in geographic information science (GIScience). Network analysis has a strong theoretical basis in the mathematical disciplines of graph theory and topology, and it is the topological relationships inherent in networks that led to revolutionary advances in GIS data structures. Networks can represent an alternative datum for geo-location in the context of linear referencing and support a set of tools for graphical display known as dynamic segmentation. Many network location problems are among the most difficult to solve in terms of their combinatorial complexity and, therefore, provide both a challenge and an opportunity for GIScience researchers. Because elements of network analysis appear in a wide range of academic disciplines—from physics, to sociology, to neurobiology—there are ample opportunities for interdisciplinary investigations of emerging research topics.

Reference to places is a central but largely underexposed problem of information science. Place has been a major object of research in many domains including Geography, Cognitive Science and Geographic Information Science. However, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been built solely on space reference systems creating a gap between human conceptualization and machine representation. While reference to space only partially captures reference to place, most existing definitions of place either reduce the latter to the former or lack a formal characterization of how places are constructed. In a spatial coordinate system, locations are referenced by angles and distances to other referents. In this paper, we suggest that place reference systems can be built based on localizing things (locatums) involved in simulated activities relative to other involved referents (locators). We propose a formal theory about relevant types of activities and their involved participants, and show how place referents can be identified and localized by choosing locators and locatum among the participants. We formally derive an ontology of places, publish a corresponding OWL version, and demonstrate how to compute a market place and a vantage place in a GIS.

For the performance of geographic information systems, it has been widely recognized that efficient data structures and algorithms supporting proximity based access to spatial data are a crucial ingredient. Because of that, in the last years, a lot of data structures for storage of multidimensional non-point objects have been proposed in the literature (for an overview see our tutorial introduction in this volume). Almost all of these approaches are made to support queries based on spatial neighborhood of objects, so-called proximity queries. Common examples of such proximity queries are range queries, returning all objects intersecting a given (rectangular) region, or nearest neighbor queries, determining the object nearest to a given point. But a geographic or cartographic information system should also support queries that do not exclusively refer to the spatial neighborhood of objects. For example, different versions of spatial data must be organized such that proximity queries to any version of the data can be answered efficiently. Or, given a set of object classes, a spatial query that involves an arbitrary combination of these classes should also be supported. Because of the growing size of data sets to be handled in geographic information systems, an appropriate data organisation to support such and several other application-specific queries becomes more and more important. In this paper, we will present two approaches for access structures supporting the two types of queries mentioned above. Handling of versioned, spatial data is the topic of Section 2, while Section 3 discusses queries on some classes selected from the set of object classes stored in a geographic information system.

The GITTA project covers the overall matter of Geographic Information Sciences (GIS). Spatial modelling (SM) is the particular theme of GIS as it is everywhere in the life cycle of Geographic Information (GI). No analysis without modelling, no database without modelling, no data capture without modelling, etc. Thus SM could be tackled in every module of a GIS course such as spatial analysis, data capture, databases. The course structure proposed for the GITTA project introduces two modules of one ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) unit each entirely devoted to SM. The particularity of SM induces that the content of the SM modules is narrowly related to the others. Deciding the place of particular modelling notions during the integration phase of the content of the modules is of prior importance. This requires that we precisely settle the frontier between modules by clearly explicating the links between modules according to their structural line. The paper aims at bringing some elements of reflexion on the enhancement of the quality of the structure and content of the GIS courses by dealing with the central issue of spatial modelling.

Identifying the (Hot Spots) for traffic accidents in Erbil City A study of the problems of the Urban Environment

Geographic information systems (GISs) as a technology have been studied and reported extensively and, not unexpectedly, in the field of geography. The various ways of capturing spatial data, arranging attribute data into appropriate database structures, and making the resulting large data sets efficient to store and query have been extensively researched and reported (Densham, 1991). However, the geographic research community has only recently noted the need to study how GISs are used as decision tools, especially with regard to how such decision making might be related to a decision maker’s cognitive style (Mennecke, Crossland, et al., 2000). As an example, the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science called for research examining how geographic knowledge is acquired through different media and by users with different levels of experience and training (University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, 1996). Researchers in the fields of decision sciences and information systems have more recently begun to make contributions in the area of decision making with GISs. When a GIS is employed as a decision support system, in these studies the resultant system is often referred to as a spatial decision support system, or SDSS (see Crossland, 1992; Crossland, Perkins, et al., 1995; Mennecke et al., 2000). A geographic information system in its simplest form is a marriage of accurately scaled digital maps with a database. The digital maps comprise spatially referenced details such as natural elements (lakes, rivers, topographic elevation contours, etc.), manmade objects (buildings, roads, pipelines, etc.), and political boundaries (city limits, state and county lines, international boundaries, etc.). These natural elements are typically referenced, with varying degrees of precision, to latitude/longitude coordinates on the earth’s surface. It must be noted here that the degree of precision and, more importantly, differences in degrees of precision for the various elements are the subjects of much research and user consternation in applications of GISs to solving problems. The database, in turn, catalogs information about the various spatial elements (e.g., the names of rivers, names of buildings, building owner, operator of a pipeline, etc.). These descriptive entries in the database are often referred to as attributes of the various spatial elements. A GIS may be paired with the global positioning system (GPS), from which real-time, satellite-derived location information may be derived, as provided by an appropriate GPS receiver.

Geographic information systems (GIS) are becoming more usual due to the improved performance of computer systems. GIS applications are being developed using the three-tier software architecture traditionally used for general-purpose information systems. Even though this architecture is suitable for GIS applications, the special nature and exclusive characteristics of geographic information pose special functional requirements on the architecture in terms of conceptual and logical models, data structures, access methods, analysis techniques, or visualization procedures. In this paper, we propose a generic architecture for GIS that provides support for the special nature of geographic information and conforms with the specifications proposed by the ISO/TC 211 and the OGC. Our strategy to achieve this goal consists of two steps: (i) we analyze the special characteristics of GIS with respect to traditional information systems, (ii) and we adapt the traditional three-tier architecture for information systems to take into account the special characteristics of GIS. Finally, we have tried to apply the architecture that we propose in the development of a complete and complex real-life GIS application using commercial tools in the analysis, design and implementation. We describe this application, and we use it to describe the limitations of current commercial GIS development tools by analyzing the differences in the architecture of the resulting system with respect to our proposal.

Principles of stereoscopic vision have long been used in geographic data processing and visualization, e.g. Laussedat created what he called metrophotography in 1895 [2][3] and a stereoautograph for plotting from terrestrial photographs was produced in 1911 [2]. Today, a common and established use of stereoscopy in geographic domain is three-dimensional (3D) modeling of terrains and cities based on aerial, satellite and/or terrestrial imagery with photogrammetric techniques. In these systems, commonly, stereoscopic imagery is used as an input and a vector 3D representation of the terrain or city is obtained as an output. Stereoscopy has also been used for close-range photogrammetry, however within the scope of this paper the focus is on the cartographic use of stereoscopic visualizations. In recent years, a number of mainstream digital devices with stereoscopic capabilities are marketed (e.g. [4], [5], [6]), which indicates that we can expect to see more stereoscopic content in the near future [1]. In anticipation of such a development, it is also plausible to expect that stereoscopic geo-data will become more available for everyday use. It is, therefore, interesting to document which stereoscopic visualization features are supported by mainstream geographic information systems (GIS) software and whether these features can be improved. This work presents a survey on current stereoscopic visualization support in geographic information (GI) systems. The underlying objective is to outline future research needs by examining current stereoscopic 3D visualization techniques and tools in current GISs. This paper focuses on visualization modules of GIS software, and tries to answer the question “How commonly is stereoscopic visualization supported in GIS?" To achieve this, first whether such support exits or not in GIS software is documented, then supported types of stereoscopic operations and viewing methods are reported. Motivated by improving efficiency of stereoscopic visualizations in cartographic domain, within this survey, it is also examined whether these software offer level of detail (LOD) management support for stereoscopic datasets. Findings from the study are meant as a guide to researchers and practitioners to assess the current state of True 3D support in widely used GIS software.

Social security of the state is the ability to guarantee and provide its citizens with safe and decent living standards. Study of the impact of the war on the state of national security, in particular human social security, will help to identify weaknesses in the state policy implementation in the political, economic and social areas. The impact of Russia's full-scale war against our country on the social security of Ukrainians requires substantiation of new, more effective mechanisms and tools for strengthening human social security in times of war. Under these circumstances, there is a need to apply new technologies to manage the socio-economic processes of the state for analysis and decision-making, and to reflect the current situation. These technologies will make it possible to predict scenarios and offer managers at all levels the best ways to achieve a balanced result. We need technologies that can effectively combine space and time with large amounts of special data in the form of attribute information about objects in the operational environment, background information about regions, climatic conditions, socio-economic conditions and processes in the region, etc. The need for prompt decision-making based on real indicators of anthropogenic, social, and environmental nature, taking into account the factors of space and time in a particular region or area of study, necessitates the involvement of specialized software platforms – geographic information systems that combine analytical capabilities with geospatial analysis. Today, a large number of general-purpose geographic information systems have been developed, but despite the variety of such software products, there is still a need to create specialized geographic information documents and databases that allow obtaining up-to-date geographic information data, the use of which leads to a real reduction in the time required to solve specialized tasks of information management systems. The analysis and decision support system in the environment of existing geographic information platforms will allow to take into account the influence of external factors, analyze the possibility of development, expansion, and monitor the state of the general environment when assessing the current state of input data, using information on the spatial distribution of the necessary resources, information on the competitive environment, etc. With the help of spatial and surface analysis modules, a GIS user can analyze spatially compatible objects and their interrelationships, taking into account the dynamics of their development. Currently, the world leader among geographic information systems is the ArcGIS products. It is a complete system that allows you to collect, organize, manage, analyze, exchange and distribute geographic data. Additionally, ArcGIS, depending on the type and specification of the platform, has other specialized modules that provide a wide range of opportunities for working with geodata and their visual display, namely: creation, management, visualization, analysis and exchange of geographic information. In addition, there are many compatible applications and extensions that integrate into the GIS platform and are focused on solving highly specialized tasks, such as assessing the state of the environment (water, soil, vegetation) or forecasting the development of natural phenomena and man-made emergencies. The article analyzes and substantiates the approaches to the use of a geographic information system as an effective tool for studying the impact of a full-scale war on human social security, improving the efficiency, completeness and quality of information and spatial support for management processes. The modern and full-featured ArcGIS system is considered as a platform that allows not only to form a geographic information system of any scale and purpose, but also to form on its basis an effective system of socio-economic monitoring, which is combined with decision support systems. The article presents an algorithm for studying the impact of a full-scale war on human social security using the ArcGIS system as an effective decision support tool with the use of spatially specialized databases.

Groundwater plays a crucial role in sustaining livelihoods and ensuring a reliable water supply in regions with insufficient or unreliable surface water. The effective assessment and management of groundwater potential are essential for a sustainable water supply. Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES), was integrated with Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) through a Geographic Information System (GIS) to assess groundwater potential in Ajaokuta, Northcentral Nigeria. Geoelectric parameters such as aquifer thickness, aquifer resistivity, reflection coefficient and basement resistivity were used to characterise the subsurface lithology and aquifer structures. Similarly, various spatial themes such as geoelectric parameters, geology, lineament density, slope, drainage density, land use/land cover, and average annual rainfall were integrated within the GIS environment using MCDA of AHP to estimate the groundwater potential zones. Results indicate that drainage density is the most influential factor, followed by geology. The study was classified into four groundwater potential zones: high (0.42%), moderate (29.32%), low (64.55%), and very low (5.71%)—highlighting the spatial variability of groundwater availability within the study area. it was observed that areas underlain by the Lokoja-Bassange formation and quartzite exhibit excellent groundwater potential while areas dominated by the schist show moderate groundwater potential and areas underlain by migmatite, gneiss and granite exhibit moderate to low groundwater potential. The method proves effective in groundwater exploration and offers valuable information for proper groundwater management. The findings of this research contribute to the advancement of hydrogeophysics and geographic information science. The method can be adopted in similar geological and hydrogeological terrain.

Geographic Information Science (GISc) is a relatively young discipline whose research body revolves around Geographic Information System (GIS) research, technology, and service (Goodchild 1992). Th...