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434 views15 pagesGoodchild - 1992 - Geographical Information Science
El avance de los SIG, en la mirada de Goodchild en 1992
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
434 views15 pagesGoodchild - 1992 - Geographical Information Science
El avance de los SIG, en la mirada de Goodchild en 1992
Uploaded by
Armando Eufraccio MorgadoCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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/ 15
INT. J. GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS, 1992, VoL. 6; NO. 1, 31-45
Geographical information seience*
MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD
[National Center for Geographic tnformation and Analysis,
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA,
Abstract. Research papers at conferences such as EGIS and the International
Symposia on Spatial, Data Handling address a set of intellectual and scientific
{questions which go well beyond the limited technical capabilites of current
technology in geographical information systems. This paper reviews the topics
which might be included in science of geographical information, Research on these
fundamental issues is a better prospect for long-term survival and acceptance in the
academy than the development of technical capabilities. This paper reviews the
‘current state of research i a series of key areas and speculates on why progress has
been so uneven. The final section of the paper looksto the future and to new areas of
significant potential in this area of research,
1. Introduction
The geographical information system (GIS) community has come a long way in the
past decade. Major research and training programmes have been established in a
number of countries, new applications have been found, new products have appeared
from an industry which continues to expand at 2 spectacular rate, dramatic
improvement continues in the capabilities of platforms. and new significant data sets
hhave become available. It is tempting to say that GIS research, and the mectings at
which this research is featured, are simply a part of this much larger enthusiasm and
excitement, but there ought to be more to it than that,
‘What, afterall, is the purpose of all ofthis activity? Expressions such as ‘spatial data
handling’ may describe what we do, but give no sense of why we do it. This was one of
the themes behind Tomlinson’s keynote address at the First International Symposium
on Spatial Data Handling in Zurich in 1984 (Tomlinson 1984). The title of the
conference suggests that spatial data are somehow difficult to handle, but will that
always be so? It suggests a level of detachment from the data themselves. as ifthe US.
Geological Survey were to send out tapes labelled with the generic warning ‘handle
with difficulty’. It is reminiscent of the name of the former Commission on
Geographical Data Sensing and Processing of the International Geographical Union.
A quick review of the titles of the papers at that or subsequent meetings should be
enough to assure anyone that their authors are concerned with much more than the
‘mere handling and processing of data—from a U.S. perspective, that the community is
more than the United Parcel Service of GIS.
Geographical information systems are sometimes accused of being technology
driven. a technology in search of applications, That seems to be more true of some
periods of the 25-year history of GIS than of others, For example. it is difficult to
“Based on Keynote addresses by the author at the Fourth Intern:
Spatial Data Handling, Zurich July 1990 (Goodchild 1990), and EG
(Goodchild 1991),
nal Symposium on
91, Brussels, April 1991
169-398 92 $800 + 1992 Talo Fran La 32 M. F. Goodchild
‘suggest that Tomlinson and the developers ofthe Canadian Geographical Information
System (CGIS) (Tomlinson et al. (1976)) were driven by the appallingly primitive
hardware capabilities of 1965, On the other hand the prospect of a menu driven, full
colour, pull-down menu raster GIS in the 386-based personal computer on one’s desk
has clearly sold many systems in the past few years, Technological development comes
in distinct bursts, and so does the technology drive behind GIS. It may be the
motivation behind the desire to handle spatial data, but it fails to explain many of the
diverse research efforts being reported at meetings and in the literatuce.
‘There have also been phases when applications have driven GIS. CGIS itself was
‘an application in search ofa technology, and the drive was suficiently strong to lead to
the prototype of the first map scanner, and to numerous other technological
developments (Tomlinson et al, 1976). McHarg had worked out the principles of the
‘map overlay technique (McHarg 1969) long before Berry and others automated them
in MAP and its derivatives (Berry 1987); school bus routing software has been around
‘much longer than the problem's implementation ina standard GIS. But again, much of
the subject matter of GIS research lies well beyond any reasonably foreseeable
application
‘There have also been phases when applications have driven GIS. CGIS itself was
‘The widespread distribution of Landsat and SPOT imagery, and the availability of
digital elevation models and street files in many countries have certainly led to
applications well beyond those used to justify the data’s compilation. TIGER, for
example, appears to be spawning its own industry of updaters, repackagers and
application developers, although it exists in principle only to serve the needs ofthe 1990
US. Census.
However, although the driving seat of GIS is undoubtedly crowded, I would like to
dealin this paper largely with the fourth driver located apparently irrelevantly in the
back seat, the ‘S' word. It seems to me that there is a pressing need to recognize and
develop the role of science in GIS. This is meant in two senses. The first has to do with
the extent to which GIS as a field contain a legitimate set of scientific questions, the
extent to which these can be expressed and the extent to which they are generic rather
than specific to particular fields of application or particular contexts. To what extent is
the GIS research community driven by intellectual curiosity about the nature of GIS
technology and the questions that it raises? And if GIS can be motivated by science,
then what are their subfields, what are their questions, and what is their agenda? The
second sense has to do with the role of GIS as a toolbox in science generally —with GIS
for science rather than the science of GIS. What do we need to do to ensure that GIS,
and spatial data handling technology, play theie legitimate role in supporting those
sciences for which geography is a significant key, or a significant source of insight,
explanation and understanding?
To do this we must first establish that spatial, or rather, geographical, data are
unique, and that their problems cannot therefore be subsumed under some larger field.
We must also establish that there are problems which are generic to all geographical
data, or at least establish that it is possible to distinguish those that are from those
that are not. For example, the accuracy of attributes on a choropleth map of crime
statistics would seem to be very litle informed by knowledge of attribute accuracy for
geographical data generally, but to require instead a level of understanding of the
specific problems of crime statistics. However, the accuracy of population estimates for
an arbitrarily defined polygon may well be known from, or at least informed by, the
general properties of the modified areal unit problem (Openshaw 1977) Geographical information science 33
2. What is unique about spatial data?
In many facilities management systems, the role of the GIS is to provide an
alternative key to data, a method of access based on geographical location. [nessence, 8
spatial database has dual keys, allowing records to be accessed either by attributes oF
by locations. However. dual keys are not unusual. The spatial key is distinct, asit allows
operations to be defined which are not included in standard query languages. For
example, itis possible to retrieve all point records lying within an arbitrary, wser-
defined polygon. an operation which is not defined in standard query languages such as,
SQL. In essence, the spatial key is multidimensional, but again multidimensional keys
‘are known from other areas, and analogues of point in polygon retrieval can be defined
for non-spatial dimensions.
What distinguishes spatial data is the fact that the spatial Key is based on two
continuous dimensions. Its possible to visit any location (x,y) in the real, eographical
world, defined in principle with unlimited precision, and return a value for a variable,
for example, topographic elevation z. Terrain is thus characterized by an infinite
number of tuples
