It has been suggested that Geoinformatics be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

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Geographic information science (GISc or GISci) is the academic theory behind the development, use, and application of geographic information systems (GIS). It is concerned with people, hardware, software, and geospatial data. GISc addresses fundamental issues raised by the use of GIS and related information technologies (Goodchild 1990, 1992; Wilson and Fotheringham 2007).

Three central issues of GISc are the modifiable areal unit problem, complete spatial randomness and spatial autocorrelation. GISc is relevant to researchers from many scientific disciplines because these three central issues are often ignored in the application of statistical hypothesis testing. GISc argues that both Bayesian and Traditional statistical inference should consider spatial structure of the data being analyzed.

Complete spatial randomness is also referred to as global spatial homogeneity. Spatial autocorrelation is also referred to as global spatial heterogeneity. These terms depend on scale. For example, a spatially homogeneous dataset at a global scale may be heterogeneous at a local scale. Likewise, globally heterogeneous spatial data can be locally homogeneous, data values at near places being more similar than values at further places.

[edit] See also

• Geographic information system
• Spatial Decision Support Systems
• Geovisualization
• Spatial analysis

[edit] References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (September 2009)

• Comber, Alexis J.; Fisher, Peter F.; Wadsworth, Richard A. (2005), "What is land cover?", Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 32, pp. 199–209, http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=b31135 
• Goodchild, Michael F. (1990), "Spatial information sciencePDF", Proceedings, Fourth International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (Zurich, Switzerland): 3–12 
• Goodchild, Michael F. (1992), "Geographical information science", International Journal of Geographical Information Systems 6 (1): 31–45 
• Longley, Paul A.; Goodchild, Michael F.; Maguire, David W.; Rhind (2005), Geographic Information Systems and Science (2nd ed.), Chichester: Wiley, ISBN 047087001X 
• Wilson, J.P.; Fotheringham, A.S. (2007), The Handbook of Geographic Information Science, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 3–12 
• Elangovan,K (2006)"GIS: Fundamentals, Applications and Implementations", New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi"208 pp.

[edit] External links

• The ERSI Guide to GIS Analysis
• The GIS&T Body of Knowledge
• Oginfo providing free GIS mapping software and information