Billen R., Joao E., Forrest D. (Eds.) Dynamic and Mobile GIS: Investigating Changes in Space and Time

CRC Press. Taylor & Francis Group. 2007. - 349 p.
This book’s title ‘Dynamic and Mobile GIS: Investigating Changes in Space and Time’, part of the Innovations in GIS book series, may need some explaining. The technology which will support Mobile GIS is rapidly gaining popularity and effectiveness (PDAs, wireless internet, internet-based GIS, 3G and 4G telecommunications). The application domain of Mobile GIS is wherever important geo-spatial events are taking place – not back at the office. That these events need to be recorded and analysed in situ implies that they are rapidly changing (hence dynamic) phenomena. This situation implies technological, databasing, display design and processing constraints requiring investigation and synergistic research and development. To us it seemed appropriate to produce a book linking these dynamic and mobile elements of Geographical Information Science. Dynamic and mobile GIS is a research area full of good ideas. Some of these emerge from the constraints of current technology; for example, those that seek to solve the problems of limited display (e.g. Anand et al. in Chapter 9) or high volume data transmission (e.g. Li in Chapter 2). Other ideas emerge despite these constraints (e.g. Tsou and Sun in Chapter 12; Laube et al. in Chapter 14). Nevertheless, dynamic and mobile GIS is now an established idea, and, for those researching it, a technology exists that must be acknowledged and understood. Excluding an Epilogue (Part V), there are four parts to this book. Each is briefly introduced below, although a fuller introduction is provided at the start of each part.