地理信息科学中尺度问题的30年研究现状

尺度在地学中无处不在，地理信息科学也不例外。自Abler 1987年将尺度列为地理信息的几个重要科学问题之一，30年来，各国学者为尺度问题做了大量的研究工作。试图对这30年的研究作一简单的回顾，明析已解决的部分问题和尚需进一步努力的方向。讨论的重点是Goodchild等提出的5大关键问题，即尺度不变量、改变尺度的能力、尺度效应的度量、尺度作为过程模型中的参数及多尺度方法的实施。通过讨论发现，尺度效应得到了很好的研究，但主要是针对数据尺度，多种尺度（如数据尺度和分析尺度）的联合效应研究仍然严重贫乏；现在有很多转换模型可供使用，但是有些方法的理论基础不够完美；"尺度作为过程模型中的参数"这一问题最任重道远；尺度变换引起的信息量变化缺乏系统研究。这些问题需要引起高度的重视。

Scale in Geo-information Science: An Overview of Thirty-year Development

Scale is everywhere in all geosciences, with geographic information science being unexceptional. It has been 30 years since Abler published an article in 1987 which lists scale as one of several key research topics in geographic information science. Over the past 30 years, a lot of researches on this topic has been carried out by researchers from different countries. It seems to be appropriate time to have a close examination into the issues of this topic. This paper attempts to make a brief review of these researches. The discussions will be focused on the five key issues raised by Goodchild and his collaborators, i.e., scale invariants, ability to change scale, measure of the impact of scale, scale as a parameter in process models and implementation of multiscale approaches. It has been found that the impact of scale has been well studied, but the joint effect of scales at multiple stages (e.g., data scale and analysis scale) is still poorly investigated; various transformation models have become available, but the theoretical basis of some methods is not sound enough; the issue of "scale as a parameter in process model" has a long way to go. It is also noted that the effect of scale on information is rarely touched. All these issues deserve great attention from geo-information community.