A Research Agenda For Spatial Analysis

This Research Agenda explores the future of spatial analysis, and how the field informs and challenges the policy landscape. A wide range of contributors from different intellectual communities address the problem of causality in geographic analysis, arguing that diversity is crucial for the future success of the discipline. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

A close relationship exists between GIS and numerous applications, including cartography, photogrammetry, geodesy, surveying, computer and information science, and statistics, among others. Scientists coined the term "geographic information science (GIScience)" to describe the theory behind these fields. A Research Agenda for Geographic Information

Comprehensive and authoritative baseline geospatial data content is crucial to the nation and to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS founded its Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS) in 2006 to develop and distribute national geospatial data assets in a fast-moving information technology environment. In order to fulfill this mission, the USGS asked the National Research Council to assess current GIScience capabilities at the USGS, identify current and future needs for GIScience capabilities, recommend strategies for strengthening these capabilities and for collaborating with others to maximize research productivity, and make recommendations regarding the most effective research areas for CEGIS to pursue. With an initial focus on improving the capabilities of The National Map, the report recommends three priority research areas for CEGIS: information access and dissemination, data integration, and data models, and further identifies research topics within these areas that CEGIS should pursue. To address these research topics, CEGIS needs a sustainable research management process that involves a portfolio of collaborative research that balances short and long term goals.

A close relationship exists between GIS and numerous applications, including cartography, photogrammetry, geodesy, surveying, computer and information science, and statistics, among others. Scientists coined the term "geographic information science (GIScience)" to describe the theory behind these fields. A Research Agenda for Geographic Information

This timely Research Agenda highlights how slow violence, unlike other forms of conflict and direct, physical violence, is difficult to see and measure. It explores ways in which geographers study, analyze and draw attention to forms of harm and violence that have often not been at the forefront of public awareness, including slow violence affecting children, women, Indigenous peoples, and the environment.

This book provides a critical assessment of key areas of urban scholarship. In twelve stimulating chapters, expert contributors examine a range of important pressing topics from sustainability and gentrification to feminist interventions and globalization to security and food issues. Six more regionally informed expert reviews examine recent urban research in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, East Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Eastern Europe. The chapters provide polemical assessments and signposts for future research. The book will be an indispensable and accessible guide to urban research across the globe.

Homeland security and context In the Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism (GDOT) (Cutter et al. 2003), the first book after 9/11 to address homeland security and geography, we developed several thematic research agendas and explored intersections between geographic research and the importance of context, both geographical and political, in relationship to the concepts of terrorism and security. It is good to see that a great deal of new thought and research continues to flow from that initial research agenda, as illustrated by many of the papers of this new book, entitled Geospatial Technologies and Homeland Security: Research Frontiers and Future Challenges. Context is relevant not only to understanding homeland security issues broadly, but also to the conduct of research on geospatial technologies. It is impossible to understand the implications of a homeland security strategy, let alone hope to make predictions, conduct meaningful modeling and research, or assess the value and dangers of geospatial technologies, without consideration of overarching political, social, economic, and geographic contexts within which these questions are posed.

Integrating a discussion of the application of quantitative methods with practical examples, this book explains the philosophy of the new quantitative methodologies and contrasts them with the methods associated with geography′s `Quantitative Revolution′ of the 1960s. Key issues discussed include: the nature of modern quantitative geography; spatial data; geographical information systems; visualization; local analysis; point pattern analysis; spatial regression; and statistical inference. Concluding with a review of models used in spatial theory, the authors discuss the current challenges to spatial data analysis. Written to be accessible, to communicate the diversity and excitement of recent thinking, Quantitative Geography will be required reading for students and researchers in any discipline where quantitative methods are used to analyse spatial data. `This is a veritable tour de force of everything that is exciting about quantitative geography and GIS. It is a timely, thorough and exciting account of the state of the art and science of spatial analysis′ - Paul Longley, University of Bristol `A highly innovative and up-to-date text. It is unique in its coverage of the many developments that have taken place in the field over the past few years. The book is one that is highly readable and stimulating for those with some background in the field, and its expositional style and many examples will make it stimulating to newcomers as well′ - Peter Rogerson, State University of New York at Buffalo `Brings the field thoroughly up to date, integrating modern methods of GIS with a comprehensive and easy-to-read overview of the most recent and powerful techniques of spatial analysis. The book will be valuable to students and researchers in any discipline that seeks to explore or explain phenomena in geographical context, and will make excellent reading for geographers, political scientists, criminologists, anthropologists, geologists, epidemiologists, ecologists, and many others. It offers a spirited challenge to critics of a scientific approach to social science, and demonstrates the value of its subject matter through abundant examples′ - Michael Goodchild, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara `There is a view within some parts of academic geography that what used to be called "quantitative geography" is dead, having been subsumed within "geographical information systems" or else of no continuing interest. This book should correct this view. First, it shows that quantitative methods have remained an exciting area of development and, second, it shows that, if anything, they have more relevance to substantive problems of interest than they have ever had. Although not specifically about GIS, it is a book that should be read by everyone concerned with the analysis of geographical information′ - David Unwin, Birkbeck College, University of London