Beyond Mapping Meeting National Needs Through Enhanced Geographic Information Science (2006) / Chapter Skim
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3 GIS/GIScience Research Needs
3 GIS/GIScience Research Needs
Pages 43-54
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From page 43... ...
The suitability of existing organizational arrangements to meet the demands inspired by GIS/GIScience can be questioned with specific reference to college and university structure, research funding mechanisms, and research agenda setting. PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL CHALLENGES Geographic information systems have revolutionized the ways society handles geospatial information, allowing the automation of what were previously tedious and inaccurate methods of map analysis, the construction of sophisticated simulations of real systems, and the visualization of geospatial information in new and exciting ways.
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From page 44... ...
The committee used the metaphor of blankets and quilts to describe the complex nature of multiresolution geospatial information that is inevitable in today's world. While organizations such as the Bureau of the Census must work with uniform blankets of a specified scale for the entire nation, local governments continuously create quilts of extremely high resolution for property records and infrastructure management.
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From page 45... ...
. Some additional problems and questions for which more ideas and more trained people are needed are · Ways to map and analyze such dynamic phenomena as new road construction, thunderstorm and hurricane development, or animal, human, and inventory movements in near real time; · Developing real-time maps for handheld devices, including audio capabilities; · Testing possible relationships between disease outcomes and environmental, demographic, and social indicators to predict the spread of disease through human, animal, or plant populations; · Refining navigational information for the sight impaired; · Analyzing networks to identify choke points and critical nodes, and the potential effects of removing or blocking selected links in a road network or for evacuation during emergencies; · Investigating why past data-sharing efforts failed and identifying the types of institutions and mechanisms (e.g., mandates, incentives, regulations)
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From page 46... ...
Research is needed to identify both the technical advances required to create systems for sharing restricted data and to formulate business models that simultaneously support and constrict access to sensitive datasets. In fact, the emergence of GIS/GIScience could be taken as a stimulus for taking a fresh look at the entire concept of privacy relative to geospatial data, rather than creating a set of ad hoc solutions.
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From page 47... ...
In the final analysis, the mapping sciences exist to provide society with geospatial information, and their success in doing so must be the basis of any measure of their value to society. The world of geographic information creation has changed dramatically over the past few decades, as a result of new technologies for sensing, acquiring, assembling, validating, disseminating, and using geospatial information.
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From page 48... ...
usability. The workshop report also recommended that: · NSF recognize GIScience as a coherent research specialty and establish a funding center for it as soon as possible; · Both basic GIScience and research using GIS be supported by the new unit to promote integration of these related research efforts; · NSF establish an internal task force consisting of representatives from all its directorates and the Office of Polar Programs, charged to meet regularly and ensure that GIScience links to all relevant parts of the foundation and benefits from their operations; and · NSF appoint a multidisciplinary advisory panel of non-NSF personnel to assist in defining, implementing, and evaluating the new unit's effectiveness.
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From page 49... ...
authorizes FDA to collect fees from companies that produce human drug and biological products that FDA reviews. Perhaps a similar scheme would work in the United States for funding GIScience research, with a nonprofit entity such as the Open Geospatial Organization disbursing funds in support of a consensus research agenda.
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From page 50... ...
Differences among the research agendas for GIS/GIScience that have been proposed over the last 30 years generally reflect the varying focuses of the groups that have put them forward, and many common elements transcend both the multiple disciplines engaged in GIS/GIScience and the time that has elapsed since geographic information systems moved beyond the experimental stage. In some respects, the first formal research agenda was proffered in the 1987 National Science Foundation solicitation for proposals for the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA)
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From page 51... ...
GIS/GISCIENCE RESEARCH NEEDS 51 SIDEBAR 3-1 UCGIS Research Agenda Long-term Research Challenges Spatial ontologies Geographic representation Spatial data acquisition and integration Remotely acquired data and information in GIScience Scale Spatial cognition Space and space/time analysis and modeling Uncertainty in geographic information Visualization GIS and society Geographic information engineering Distributed computing The future of the spatial information infrastructure Geospatial data mining and knowledge discovery Short-term Research Priorities GIS and decision making Location-based services Geoslavery Identification of spatial clusters Geospatial semantic web (a web of geospatial data that can be processed by machines) Incorporating remotely sensed data and information in GIS Geographic information resource management Emergency data acquisition and analysis Gradation and indeterminate boundaries Geographic information security Geospatial data fusion Institutional aspects of spatial data infrastructures Geographic information partnering Geocomputation Global representation and modeling Spatialization Pervasive computing Geographic data mining and knowledge discovery Dynamic modeling SOURCE: UCGIS, 2004; McMaster and Usery, 2004.
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From page 52... ...
lists 12 salient tasks: · Assimilation of new, numerous, and disparate sensor networks within the tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination process; · Spatiotemporal data mining and knowledge discovery from het erogeneous sensor data streams; · Spatiotemporal database management systems; · Process automation and human cognition; · Visualization; · High-performance grid computing for geospatial data; · Image data fusion across space, time, spectrum, and scale; · Role of text and place-name search in data integration; · Reuse and preservation of data; · Detection of moving objects from multiple heterogeneous intelli gence sources; · Geospatial intelligence ontology; and · Multilevel security. The mission of the NGA -- until 2003, the National Imagery and Map ping Agency -- is to provide timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intel ligence to support national security.
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From page 53... ...
A general theory of spatial relationships -- Theory of spatial relationships -- Nonplanar relationships among multiple objects -- Efficient data storage structures -- Structures for volumetric data -- Structures for time-dependent data -- Methods for integrating heterogeneous data -- Techniques for redefining data -- Translations among different locational schemes 3. Artificial intelligence and expert systems in GIS -- Automated data entry -- Database summaries and indexes -- Map evaluation and interpretation -- Intelligent geographical information systems 4.
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From page 54... ...
Broad support throughout the GIS/GIScience research and applications community would be a major step toward garnering increased support for GIS/GIScience research and toward producing the well-qualified GIS/GIScience professionals the country needs.
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