Longley P.A., Goodchild M.F., Maguire D.J., Rhind D.W. Geographical Information Systems and Science

Barcelona: John Wiley & Sons. – 2005. – 537 p. This is a book that recognizes the growing commonality between the concerns of science, government, and business. The examples of GIS people and problems that are scattered through this book have been chosen deliberately to illuminate this commonality, as well as the interplay between organizations and people from different sectors. To differing extents, the five sections of the book develop common concerns with effectiveness and efficiency, by bringing together information from disparate sources, acting within regulatory and ethical frameworks, adhering to scientific principles, and preserving good reputations. This, then, is a book that combines the basics of GIS with the solving of problems which often have no single, ideal solution – the world of business, government, and interdisciplinary, mission-orientated holistic science. In short, we have tried to create a book that remains attuned to the way the world works now, that understands the ways in which most of us increasingly operate as knowledge workers, and that grasps the need to face complicated issues that do not have ideal solutions. As with the first edition of the book, this is an unusual enterprise and product. It has been written by a multinational partnership, drawing upon material from around the world. One of the authors is an employee of a leading software vendor and two of the other three have had business dealings with ESRI over many years. Moreover, some of the illustrations and examples come from the customers of that vendor. We wish to point out, however, that neither ESRI (nor Wiley) has ever sought to influence our content or the way in which we made our judgments, and we have included references to other software and vendors throughout the book.Foreword
AddendumList of Acronyms and AbbreviationsSystems, science, and study
A gallery of applications
Principles
Representing geography
The nature of geographic data
Georeferencing
Uncertainty
Techniques
GIS Software
Geographic data modeling
GIS data collection
Creating and maintaining geographic databases
Distributed GIS
Analysis
Cartography and map production
Geovisualization
Query, measurement, and transformation
Descriptive summary, design, and inference
Spatial modeling with GIS
Management and Policy
Managing GIS
GIS and management, the Knowledge Economy, and information
Exploiting GIS assets and navigating constraints
GIS partnerships
Epilog