Core Areas

Cartographic science—the discipline dealing with the conception, production, dissemination, and study of maps as both tangible and digital objects

Geodesy and geophysics

• Geodesy—the study and precise measurement of the size and shape of the Earth, its orientation in space, and its gravitational field in three-dimensional time-varying space

• Geophysics—the study of Earth physics, including the fields of meteorology, hydrology, oceanography, seismology, volcanology, magnetism, radioactivity, and geodesy

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis

• Geographic Information System—any system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and visualizes data that are linked to location

• Geospatial analysis—the process of applying analytical techniques to geographically-referenced data sets to extract or generate new geographical information or insight

Photogrammetry and geomatics

• Photogrammetry—the making of precise measurements from photographs, and the use of the measurements to reconstruct the two- and three-dimensional reference frame of the photograph and objects within it

• Geomatics—the discipline of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering geographic or spatially-referenced information

Remote sensing and imagery science

• Remote sensing—the science of acquiring information using instruments that are remote to the object, such as from aerial or spaceborne platforms

• Imagery science—the science of devising and using computational techniques for analyzing, enhancing, compressing, and reconstructing images

Cross-Cutting Themes

Beyond fusion—aggregation, integration and conflation of geospatial data across time and space with the goal of removing the effects of data measurement systems and facilitating spatial analysis and synthesis across information sources

Forecasting—an operational research technique used to anticipate outcomes, trends, or expected future behavior of a system using statistics and modeling. It is used as a basis for management planning and decision making and is stated in less certain terms than a prediction

Human terrain—the creation of operational technologies that allow modeling, representation, simulation, and anticipation of behaviors and activities of both individuals and the social networks to which they belong, based on societal, cultural, religious, tribal, historical, and linguistic knowledge; local economy and infrastructure; and knowledge about evolving threats

Participatory sensing—tasks everyday mobile devices, such as cellular phones, to form interactive, scalable sensor networks that enable the public and professionals to gather, analyze, share, and visualize