Encyclopedia of Geographic Information Science

Book excerpt: Geographic information science (GIScience) is an emerging field that combines aspects of many different disciplines. Spatial literacy is rapidly becoming recognized as a new, essential pier of basic education, alongside grammatical, logical and mathematical literacy. By incorporating location as an essential but often overlooked characteristic of what we seek to understand in the natural and built environment, geographic information science (GIScience) and systems (GISystems) provide the conceptual foundation and tools to explore this new frontier. The Encyclopedia of Geographic Information Science covers the essence of this exciting, new, and expanding field in an easily understood but richly detailed style. In addition to contributions from some of the best recognized scholars in GIScience, this volume contains contributions from experts in GIS' supporting disciplines who explore how their disciplinary perspectives are expanded within the context of GIScienceâ€"what changes when consideration of location is added, what complexities in analytical procedures are added when we consider objects in 2, 3 or even 4 dimensions, what can we gain by visualizing our analytical results on a map or 3D display? Key Features Brings together GIScience literature that is spread widely across the academic spectrum Offers details about the key foundations of GIScience, no matter what their disciplinary origins Elucidates vocabulary that is an amalgam of all of these fields Key Themes Conceptual Foundations Cartography and Visualization Design Aspects Data Manipulation Data Modeling Geocomputation Geospatial Data Societal Issues Spatial Analysis Organizational and Institutional Aspects The Encyclopedia of Geographic Information Science is an important resource for academic and corporate libraries.