地理学：从知识、科学到决策

地理学是研究地理要素或者地理综合体空间分布规律、时间演变过程和区域特征的一门学科,是自然科学与人文科学的交叉,具有综合性、交叉性和区域性的特点。随着地理信息技术发展与研究方法变革,新时期的地理学正在向地理科学进行华丽转身,研究主题更加强调陆地表层系统的综合研究,研究范式经历着从地理学知识描述、格局与过程耦合,向复杂人地系统的模拟和预测转变。在服务国内重大需求和国际全球战略过程中,地理学正在扮演愈发重要的角色,在新型城镇化、生态环境保护、水土资源管理、地缘政治等领域拥有广阔发展前景。中国地理学正面临前所未有的机遇,需要紧紧围绕国家重大需求,创新发展综合性的理论、方法和技术,逐步形成具有鲜明中国特色、深远国际影响的地理科学体系,为中国和全球的可持续发展服务。     

Environmental decision support system project: an exploration of alternative architectures for geographical information systems

Abstract

Recent changes in information technology offer the opportunity to explore alternative architectures for geographical information systems (GIS) which might better support advanced applications. This paper describes the architecture and implementation of the environmental decision support system (EDSS), a prototype GIS tool kit. The architecture is based on a simple yet powerful systems model using only data collections, views and operations as the basic entity types. The design of the user interface, data management and data analysis within the model are outlined, with particular emphasis on the advanced facilities for which implementation is simplified by the architecture. A prototype applications system, BANKSIA, is also described.     

Evaluating field-based GIS for environmental characterization,modelling and decision support

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the potential of using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) in the field for environmental characterization, modelling and decision support particularly in isolated areas where data collection is difficult. Observations are based on experiences gained during two Anglo-Russian expeditions to the Altai Mountains of south central Siberia aimed at evaluating proposals for a new national park in the Katunsky Ridge area of the Belukha Massif. The use of GIS together with GPS (Global Positioning Systems) for primary data collection and verification/update of existing data is described and the use of field-based systems for on-the-spot environmental modelling and decision support is evaluated.     

J.R. Logan's 1846 observations on Pulau Ubin, Singapore: Their significance for landscape interpretation

J.R. Logan was an amateur naturalist who migrated to, and lived his working life in, the Malay Peninsula during the mid-nineteenth century. His taste for travel was insatiable and he made perceptive observations from which he derived significant general conclusions concerning the granite landforms of the Singapore area. In particular, he recognized what are today called unequal activity and reinforcement effects – the suggestion that, once in train, contrasts in activity are maintained and enhanced. But probably he did not appreciate the significance of the conclusions he had drawn and the concepts he had anticipated, with the result that when they were independently discovered or rediscovered Logan received no credit.     

GIS-cartography: visual decision support for spatio-temporal data handling

Abstract

This paper describes a new joint Dutch research initiative ‘GIS-cartography’, combining the research efforts of the cartographers of Utrecht University, Delft University of Technology and the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) in Enschede. The research initiative focuses on the quantification and visualization of data quality, which will be placed in the context of providing automated visual decision support in specific map use strategies. As these map use strategies can only be performed if the relevant cartographic images can be created, studies of both physical access to the data, user interfaces and the provision of sufficient support to allow the user to understand and to derive sensible conclusions from the data are included in the project. Before modules automatically visualizing data quality can be implemented, data documentation, standardization and integration have to be effected, therefore these issues are also covered.     

Spatial practices and imaginaries: Experiences of colonial officers and development professionals

This paper explores the spatiality of colonial and postcolonial power and discourse as produced, performed and imagined by former British colonial service officers and contemporary UK international development professionals. It focuses on two key aspects of spatial practices. The first addresses the spaces inhabited by these colonial officers and development professionals overseas and how their locatedness, embedded or enclavic, shapes relationships to others. The second explores this distinctive social and spatial distancing through their relationship to, and imagined geographies of, home and away and how these are embodied in their institutional and cultural capital. The paper examines the regularities and consistencies that stand out from numerous individual practices through which both former colonial officers and development professionals negotiate the situations in which they live and work. It also specifies how authoritative management, privilege and distance informs their spatial practices despite changing global contexts and a more diverse composition of those who articulate contemporary relationships between 'first' and 'third' worlds. Finally, the paper suggests that the cultures which travelled over colonial space through being performed by colonial officers have been reworked throughout the postcolonial period, belying epochal historical periodizations that conjure up a clear disjuncture between colonial and development eras.