Geographic information science

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‘Truth, as in a single, incontrovertible and correct fact, simply does not exist for much geographical information’ (Comber et al., 2005)

Geographic information science(GIScience) is the academic theory behind the development, use and application of geographic information systems (GISystems). That is, it is concerned with how GISystems are used - hardware + software + spatial data.

It is useful to reflect on what it is we do with a GISystem and what we do it to. GISci is therefore concerned with issues relating to uncertainty, representation, ontologies, error, and inconsistency. Some examples of the issues addressed by GIScience are the following:

- Representation: it is tempting to think of the ‘data’ we use in a GISystem as reliable fact. However the ‘real world’ is infinitely complex, and we cannot have 1:1 model (yet) and so we have to make choices over how we abstract and aggregate the features we are interested – choices about how and what to map. The nature of geographic information is determined by these choices as choices result in different types of information loss and causing variability between different, but equally valid, mappings of the same real world objects. We may have to recognize that our (previously) factual information is really socially constructed. It depends on those decisions and choices, themselves influenced by the institutional and political context.

- Geographical data versus information: geographical data and geographical information are separate entities: data is the result of measurement of some process and information derives from interpretation, classification, or some other form of processing.

- Uncertainty: at almost every stage in the operation of a GISystem there are subjective choices to be made, not only about representation but also at every stage in the analysis: the application of thresholds, the allocation of individual geographic objects to classes. These are illustrated in the figure below.