GIS & Geo-Information
Geo and GIS, data and application
Geographical Information Systems help us to to store and analyze Spatial Data. What is the response time in case of emergencies on location A? Where are the white spots in market B in relation to a certain demographic question? How does polution spread over time? Many spatial questions, that contain a location component can be solved by GIS application when they have the right data, data with a x and y coordinate: Geo-data. In my research and consultancy work GIS, as well as getting the data enriched with a location component, has played an important role.
GIS in a historical context
Mapping and analyzing the urban landscape
In 1960 the British geographer M.R.G.Conzen published his book on the urban transformation of the townplan of Alnwick. In his introduction he announced two other volumes on the building types and the land use patterns of the same town. When he died in 2000 these volumes where still not published. In his personal archives a number of notebooks were found containing surveys of several towns, including two surveys of Alnwick, the first one was carried out in 1953, the second one in 1964. With the use of a Geographical Information System the data from these surveys are now mapped. The main question is if specific queries can be used to answer the questions that Conzen asked in order to write the two missing volumes of Alnwick. A related question is how the urban landscape developed over the last 50 years, now a third survey is made in 2003.
'Recasting the Past: Digital Histories ', Ariadne Issue 42 www.ariadne.ac.uk, 18 Feb 2005