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83-596: Although they date to the Hellenic Period, spatial reference systems are now a crucial basis for the sciences and technologies of Geoinformatics , including cartography , geographic information systems , surveying , remote sensing , and civil engineering . This has led to their standardization in international specifications such as the EPSG codes and ISO 19111:2019 Geographic information—Spatial referencing by coordinates , prepared by ISO/TC 211 , also published by

166-534: A compound coordinate system for representing three-dimensional and/or spatio-temporal locations. There are also internal systems for measuring location within the context of an object, such as the rows and columns of pixels in a raster image , Linear referencing measurements along linear features (e.g., highway mileposts), and systems for specifying location within moving objects such as ships. The latter two are often classified as subcategories of engineering coordinate systems. The goal of any spatial reference system

249-485: A "stack" of dependent specifications, as exemplified in the following table: Examples of systems around the world are: A Spatial Reference System Identifier ( SRID ) is a unique value used to unambiguously identify projected, unprojected, and local spatial coordinate system definitions. These coordinate systems form the heart of all GIS applications. Virtually all major spatial vendors have created their own SRID implementation or refer to those of an authority, such as

332-494: A consequence of cartography shifting from simply producing maps to producing spatial information, influenced by a culmination of information theory and technology like the World Wide Web . Attempts at subdividing geography have often been met with criticism. Geography has a history spanning cultures and thousands of years and is described as a "mother science" from which more specialized disciplines emerge, resulting in

415-740: A core focus of technical geography. In statistics, frequency refers to the number of occurrences of a particular event or value within a dataset. When dealing with spatial and temporal datasets, the concept of frequency can be applied to understand how often certain events or values occur across different locations (spatial) or over time (temporal). Spatial datasets contain data points that are associated with specific geographic locations, and frequency in spatial datasets can be used to analyze patterns and distributions across different areas. Temporal datasets involve data points that are associated with specific time points, and frequency in temporal datasets helps analyze trends and patterns over time. Analyzing how

498-460: A deep understanding of the map's use case, the audience's needs, and the geographical context. Technological advancements, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), Geographic information systems (GIS), and information theory have greatly aided cartographers in generalizing maps more efficiently and consistently. These tools can apply generalization rules systematically, ensuring high-quality outputs even as data volume increases. Cartographic generalization

581-417: A different model. More controversially, others deny the idea that the thought and techniques of geography constitute a new branch. This argument asserts that geography must be applied and, therefore, must focus on some subset of human or physical geography. They also argue that there is not enough well-established peer-reviewed literature to back the term as a new branch. Some have brought allegations that

664-474: A distinct category vary. When subdividing the discipline within the literature, similar categories—such as "the Spatial Tradition", "techniques of geographic analysis", "geographic information and analysis", "geographic information technology", "geography methods and techniques", "geographic information technology", "scientific geography," and " quantitative geography " —are used to describe

747-417: A fragmented discipline. Other existing models to subdivide the discipline of geography into categories and focuses, including William Pattison's four traditions of geography , vary dramatically between publications and cultures. While the term technical geography has been put forward as a distinct branch and umbrella for these wider concepts, the terms used to describe the study of spatial information as

830-449: A general sense, geoinformatics can be understood as "a variety of efforts to promote collaboration between computer scientists and geoscientists to solve complex scientific questions". More technically, geoinformatics has been described as "the science and technology dealing with the structure and character of spatial information, its capture, its classification and qualification, its storage, processing, portrayal and dissemination, including

913-509: A particular subject or activity and involving practical skills, and " geography ", from the Greek γεωγραφία (geographia, a combination of Greek words ‘Geo,’ The Earth, and ‘Graphien,’ to describe. Literally "earth description"), a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Technical geography as a distinct term in the English language within

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996-686: A remote corner of the country knows its value." Remote sensing technology again advanced rapidly during World War II , and the techniques employed were rapidly assimilated as aids in geographical studies. During the Cold War , advancements in photography, aircraft, and rockets only increased the effectiveness of remote sensing techniques. As the technology became available to the general public, geographers were soon overwhelmed with large volumes of satellite and aerial images. New techniques were required to store, process, analyze, and use this new data source, birthing remote sensing scientists. Coinciding with

1079-409: A signal with a delayed copy of itself over successive time intervals. Autocorrelation is the foundation of Tobler's first law of geography . Spatial autocorrelation is measured with tools such as Moran's I or Getis–Ord statistics . Autocorrelation is fundamental to technical geography because it provides critical insights into the spatial and temporal structure of geographical data. It enhances

1162-484: A subdiscipline within technical geography, focusing exclusively on new quantitative methods, such as spatial statistics, time geography (including visualizations such as the space-time prism and continuous transportation modeling approach), and GIS, for handling spatial-temporal data generated by novel technology like GPS and remote sensing. This part of technical geography focuses on spatial statistics and visualizing spatial information, emphasizing quantitative data and

1245-463: A three-branch model of technical, human, and physical geography, referring to human and physical as the primary two. The benefit of this wording is that it is consistent with the other two branches and clearly places the discipline within geography. The categorization of technical geography in the EOLSS as a branch is expanded upon by Ionel Haidu in his 2016 paper What is technical geography as being

1328-401: Is a scientific field primarily within the domains of Computer Science and technical geography . It focuses on the programming of applications, spatial data structures , and the analysis of objects and space-time phenomena related to the surface and underneath of Earth and other celestial bodies. The field develops software and web services to model and analyse spatial data , serving

1411-603: Is about geographic information." GIScience is mentioned explicitly as being separate from quantitative geography, but under the branch of technical geography. In 1995, the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) was established in the United States to support the field of GIScience, such as the creation of a "model curricula" by geographer Duane Marble to help educators teach GIScience. There has been significant debate around

1494-494: Is foundational in technical geography because it ensures that maps are functional, readable, and tailored to their intended use. It balances the need for detail with the practical limitations of scale and medium, enhancing the effectiveness of maps as tools for communication, analysis, and decision-making. The term "technical geography" is a combination of the words " technical ", from the Greek τεχνικός (tekhnikós, translated as artistic, skillful, workmanlike), meaning relating to

1577-442: Is impractical and can overwhelm the map reader. The primary goal of cartographic generalization is to balance detail with readability, ensuring that the map serves its intended purpose without sacrificing essential information. By placing data in a spatial context, even though it is generalized, cartographic generalization creates additional information by revealing patterns and trends in the data. Effective generalization requires

1660-489: Is only possible through cartographic generalization. More than just reducing the overall level of information, cartographic generalization helps discover patterns and trends in data that underlie many techniques and technologies employed and investigated by technical geographers. Autocorrelation is a statistical measure used to assess the degree to which a given data set is correlated with itself over different time intervals or spatial distances. In essence, it quantifies

1743-441: Is the branch of geography that involves using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, understand, and communicate spatial information . The other branches of geography, most commonly limited to human geography and physical geography , can usually apply the concepts and techniques of technical geography. However, the methods and theory are distinct, and a technical geographer may be more concerned with

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1826-450: Is theoretically grounded in information theory , or the study of mathematical laws that govern information systems. There are several concepts related to technical geography that are considered central attributes of the discipline. In one paper, autocorrelation and frequency are listed as the concepts that technical geography is based upon. Central to technical geography are the technologies surrounding cartography and map production, which

1909-418: Is to create a common reference frame in which locations can be measured precisely and consistently as coordinates, which can then be shared unambiguously, so that any recipient can identify the same location that was originally intended by the originator. To accomplish this, any coordinate reference system definition needs to be composed of several specifications: Thus, a CRS definition will typically consist of

1992-1389: Is used to support global and local environmental, energy and security programs. The Geographic Information Science and Technology group of Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by various government departments and agencies including the United States Department of Energy . It is currently the only group in the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory System to focus on advanced theory and application research in this field. A lot of interdisciplinary research exists that involves geoinformatics fields including computer science, information technology, software engineering, biogeography, geography, conservation, architecture, spatial analysis and reinforcement learning. Many fields benefit from geoinformatics, including urban planning and land use management, in-car navigation systems, virtual globes, land surveying, public health, local and national gazetteer management, environmental modeling and analysis, military, transport network planning and management, agriculture, meteorology and climate change , oceanography and coupled ocean and atmosphere modelling, business location planning, architecture and archeological reconstruction, telecommunications, criminology and crime simulation, aviation, biodiversity conservation and maritime transport. The importance of

2075-670: The Bulletin of the American Geographical Society (now the Geographical Review ) introduced the concept of "scientific geography" and discussed employing the scientific method to geographic concepts. This publication proposed how a field of scientific geography could be organized, and specified that "Phytogeography," "Zoogeography," and "Anthropogeography" could be areas where scientific principles could be applied. While this publication did not use

2158-701: The EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset . SRIDs are the primary key for the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) spatial_ref_sys metadata table for the Simple Features for SQL Specification, Versions 1.1 and 1.2 , which is defined as follows: In spatially enabled databases (such as IBM Db2 , IBM Informix , Ingres , Microsoft SQL Server , MonetDB , MySQL , Oracle RDBMS , Teradata , PostGIS , SQL Anywhere and Vertica ), SRIDs are used to uniquely identify

2241-477: The Open Geospatial Consortium as Abstract Specification, Topic 2: Spatial referencing by coordinate . The thousands of spatial reference systems used today are based on a few general strategies, which have been defined in the EPSG, ISO, and OGC standards: These standards acknowledge that standard reference systems also exist for time (e.g. ISO 8601 ). These may be combined with a spatial reference system to form

2324-886: The cyberinfrastructure ecosystem. Geoinformatics has at its core the technologies supporting the processes of acquisition, analysis and visualization of spatial data. Both geomatics and geoinformatics include and rely heavily upon the theory and practical implications of geodesy . Geography and earth science increasingly rely on digital spatial data acquired from remotely sensed images analyzed by geographical information systems (GIS), photo interpretation of aerial photographs, and Web mining . Geoinformatics combines geospatial analysis and modeling, development of geospatial databases, information systems design, human-computer interaction and both wired and wireless networking technologies. Geoinformatics uses geocomputation and geovisualization for analyzing geoinformation . Areas related to geoinformatics include: Research in this field

2407-401: The "Model curricula" of the mid 90s. The GISTBoK is designed to inform curriculum teaching GIS and other geospatial technologies. This book is noted as having expanded the term "GIScience" to "GIScience and technology" (GIS&T). In 2009, UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) employed the term technical geography to organize their literature related to geography, establishing

2490-413: The "Ptolemaic tradition" of geography started by Ptolemy , scholars have identified distinct "technical elements" in "Ptolemaic cartographic theory" such as map projection, lines of latitude and longitude, coordinates, grids, scales, and the theory of astronomically defined climates. Islamic geographers later adopted these technical elements when Ptolmey's book, Geographia , was translated into Arabic in

2573-458: The 1891 International Geographical Congress at Berne would have five divisions in it program, with the first being technical geography listing topics like mathematical geography, geodesy , and cartography as examples of content within this division In 1902, geodesy was suggested as a discipline supporting technical geography by supplying the "backbone, that main axis of indisputable values from which our network of triangulations may spread during

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2656-541: The 1930s Michigan-Wisconsin Boundary Case in the Supreme Court of the United States, where the border was not defined with specific technical geographic concepts. During the 1940s, Oregon State University began focusing on technical geography as part of an applied geography program. Technical geography differentiated more clearly during the quantitative revolution in the 1950s and 1960s. Before this,

2739-741: The European Union's Galileo navigation satellite system . During the quantitative revolution, several terms originated from the concept that the technologies developed during this period are a focus of independent study, including quantitative geography , geomatics , geoinformatics , and geographic information science . These terms all overlap to some degree, but at least one study indicates they differ substantially enough to continue using. The proliferation of these new terms may have been detrimental to their popularity, and it has been suggested that they were possibly created carelessly or hastily. This has led to some confusion, and properly defining

2822-568: The United States military launched the first satellites to enable the modern Global Positioning System (GPS), and the system's full capability was made available to the general public in 2000. This facilitated a level of rapid acquisition of spatial coordinates that previously would have been expensive. Geographers began studying methods and applications for this data. In subsequent years, other countries have launched satellite constellations enabling Satellite navigation , including Russia's GLONASS , China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System , and

2905-507: The United States, geomatics in France, and geoinformatics in Sweden. Three major technologies, remote sensing (RS), Geographic information systems (GIS), and the global positioning system (GPS) are highlighted as examples of technologies characterizing technical geography. Along with computers and GIS , new spatial data sources emerged during the quantitative revolution. Air photo technology

2988-472: The ability to model, analyze, and interpret spatial patterns and relationships, supporting various applications from environmental monitoring and urban planning to resource management and public health. By understanding and leveraging autocorrelation, geographers can make more informed decisions, improve the accuracy of their analyses, and contribute to solving real-world geographical problems. The techniques and technologies used to leverage this understanding are

3071-413: The areas covered by each term is an active field of research. One paper on the topic stated the following: With the appearance of the next new technologies, immediately, new proposals of new sciences, new subdisciplines, appear. Many authors with great ease announce the origination of a new science, frequently not caring for the proper justification of its name definition. The old definitions, developed in

3154-700: The associated concept of spatial autocorrelation, as central concepts to technical geography. The 20th century saw the rapid emergence of technologies such as computers, satellites, and the corresponding software to operate them. These technologies rapidly changed how geographers operated, and significant effort went into considering how best to incorporate them into the discipline. With these technologies came new disciplines and terms like analytical cartography , which focus on mathematical modeling and theoretical implications of cartography. These terms often compete and overlap with each other and often originate in separate countries, such as geographic information science in

3237-463: The best word choice has been debated in the literature since at least the 1700s when Cave defended the use of technical geography over practical geography. However, many of these alternative terms or phrases are "grammatically awkward" and do not link the discipline explicitly as a branch of geography in the same way as technical geography. This is an area of active scholarly debate, and any word choice will be inevitably met with criticism by others using

3320-461: The branch is distinct in theory and methods. This publication defines technical geography with the following: "The Description confider'd as to Form is of three Sorts; The first exhibits the Earth, by a Draught or Delineation; the second by Tables, or Registers; and the third by Treties or Discourse. Hence Technical Geography may be divided into Representatory, Synoptical, and Explanatory." While when

3403-857: The branches of both human and physical geography. Historically, technical geography was focused on cartography and globe-making. Today, while technical geographers still develop and make maps, the Information Age has pushed the development of information management techniques to handle spatial data and support decision-makers. To this end, technical geographers often adapt technology and techniques from other disciplines to spatial problems rather than create original innovations, such as using computers to aid in cartography. They also explore adapting techniques developed for one area of geography to another, such as kriging , originally created for estimating gold ore distributions but now applied to topics such as real estate appraisal . Technical geography today

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3486-544: The common thread being the techniques and philosophies employed. To accomplish this, technical geographers often create their own software or scripts, which can then be applied more broadly by others. They may also explore applying techniques developed for one application to another unrelated topic, such as applying Kriging , originally developed for mining, to disciplines as diverse as real-estate prices. In teaching technical geography, instructors often need to fall back on examples from human and physical geography to explain

3569-406: The context of previous technological conditions, remain in the shadow of new technologies, and are not modernised. The lack of specific terminological conditions, determined boundaries, or scopes of such definition use, encourages one to define the next terms, and the next science and research disciplines. During the early days of the quantitative revolution, the term quantitative geography emerged as

3652-753: The coordinate systems used to define columns of spatial data or individual spatial objects in a spatial column (depending on the spatial implementation). SRIDs are typically associated with a well-known text (WKT) string definition of the coordinate system (SRTEXT, above). Here are two common coordinate systems with their EPSG SRID value followed by their WKT: UTM, Zone 17N, NAD27 — SRID 2029: WGS84 — SRID 4326 SRID values associated with spatial data can be used to constrain spatial operations — for instance, spatial operations cannot be performed between spatial objects with differing SRIDs in some systems, or trigger coordinate system transformations between spatial objects in others. Geoinformatics Geoinformatics

3735-443: The country. To address this, geographers began to debate the merits of more scientific and methods-based approaches to the discipline and advocate for the benefits these methods had to other technical courses. Some, such as the preeminent cartographer George Jenks went as far as to suggest that cartography should be a separate academic discipline from geography entirely, even if only at a few academic institutions. This approach

3818-432: The culture in technical geography has introduced gender bias into geography departments as the discipline is disproportionately practiced by men and seen by some as more masculine. Nadine Schuurman states that while there is not one reason for this discrepancy, but may be related to the broader perception of science as a "masculine domain," and the perception that tools, like GIS, employed by technical geographers are part of

3901-469: The discipline concerned with handling geographic data or geographic information. In Canada, an effort was made to replace and absorb the term geodesy with geomatics; however, this was not successful, and globally, geodesy is generally considered "immutable" as a term. Geomatics was included in the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems under technical geography. In the late 1980s,

3984-403: The discipline of computer science, while other sources place it under the branch of technical geography. Sources have noted that there is no universally accepted definition of geoinformatics. In the 1990s, the term Geographic Information Science (GIScience) was coined and popularized in the United States by geographer Michael Frank Goodchild to describe "the subset of information science that

4067-473: The discipline of geography dates back at least as far as 1749 to a book published by English printer Edward Cave at St John's Gate, Clerkenwell . This 1749 book was divided into four parts, one of which was named "containing technical geography", which focused on both globes and maps , including concepts of cartographic design , and projection . In this book, they chose to use the term "technical geography" rather than "practical geography" to clarify that

4150-503: The discipline. Terms such as "techniques of geographic analysis", "geographic information technology", are used synonymously with the term within textbooks. As technology such as GIS began to dominate geography departments, the need to develop new curriculum to teach the fundamental concepts became apparent. In response to this in 2006 the UCGIS published Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge (GISTBoK), building on

4233-660: The early criticisms of quantitative methods have been addressed with advances in technology, and persist due to ignorance of quantitative geography. Geographer William Graf noted that some physical geographers suspect several of the philosophies underlying critical geography are "fundamentally anti-scientific ." As new technologies and methods applied by geographers, such as spatial analysis, cartography/GIS, remote sensing, and GPS, are widely applicable to various disciplines, concern grew among geographers that these other non-geographers in other disciplines might become better at using them than geographers. In response to this, in 2006,

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4316-578: The first geographic information system , which allowed for storing and analysis of spatial data within a computer. These tools revolutionized the discipline of geography by contributing to the positivist scientific approaches to the discipline during the quantitative revolution. In the 1985 book Technological Transition in Cartography , Mark Monmonier speculated that computer cartography facilitated by GIS would largely replace traditional pen and paper cartography. Geographers began to heavily debate

4399-413: The first paper detailing the use of computers in the map-making process titled "Automation and Cartography" in 1959. While novel in terms of application, the process detailed by Tobler did not allow for storing or analyzing of geographic data. As computer technology progressed and better hardware became available, geographers rapidly adopted the technology to create maps. In 1960, Roger Tomlinson created

4482-435: The first steps in geographical map-making.". In 1908, geography professor George D. Hubbard included technical geography alongside regional geography , physical geography , and general research as courses that should be taught at in U.S. university geography departments. Hubbard specifies that technical geography refers to topics such as "mathematical or astronomical geography," as well as cartography. A 1910 publication in

4565-400: The frequency of events changes across both space and time can reveal dynamic patterns. Spatial and temporal frequency are core concepts in technical geography because they are fundamental to understanding and analyzing geographic phenomena. Geography is inherently concerned with the distribution and dynamics of features across space and over time, and technical geography researches and develops

4648-416: The geographic space as their subject of study and research becomes a serious challenge for geographers. Geographers need to test and adapt to the new methods, models and procedures and implement them in all fields and development trends of Geography. By these also, Technical Geography as a new line of research and professional training becomes a necessity." Technical geography as a concept re-emerges to correct

4731-441: The historical trend in geography of adapting rather than developing new methods, technologies, and techniques for conducting geographic research by encouraging trained geographers to pursue this line of inquiry. While the use of the term "technical geography" itself has been debated since at least the 1700s, concepts within technical geography are often separated from the rest of geography when organizing and categorizing subfields in

4814-433: The ideas and philosophies advanced during the quantitative revolution, particularly positivism and the emphasis on quantitative methods, the term critical geography was applied to ideological and theoretical criticisms of the methods and ideas of technical geographers. Other geographers, such as Yi-Fu Tuan , have criticized that geography for moving away from the abstract, unquantifiable aspects of place that are essential to

4897-411: The infrastructure necessary to secure optimal use of this information" or "the art, science or technology dealing with the acquisition, storage, processing production, presentation and dissemination of geoinformation". Along with the thriving of data science and artificial intelligence since the 2010s, the field of geoinformatics has also incorporated the latest methodology and technical progress from

4980-494: The late 1800s, the term "technical geography" was in use to some capacity in American public education and academia. For example, an article in the 1889 edition of the journal School and Home Education stated that "we never hear teachers questioning whether technical geography shall be taught in the schools" and defined the term "technical" to mean "especially appropriate to any art or science." An 1890 publication advertised that

5063-399: The needs of geosciences and related scientific and engineering disciplines. The term is often used interchangeably with Geomatics , although the two have distinct focuses; Geomatics emphasizes acquiring spatial knowledge and leveraging information systems, not their development. At least one publication has claimed the discipline is pure computer science outside the realm of geography. In

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5146-461: The ninth century, often mixing them with elements of traditional Islamic cartography. For example, the Kitab al-Buldan , written by Ibn al-Faqih between 902 and 903 C.E., was described by Henri Massé as "technical geography [including] themes of adab ." Technical geography as a term is more than place name recollection and toponymy ; it involves spatial relationships between points and theory. By

5229-456: The peer-reviewed journal Geographia Technica was established to serve as an outlet for research employing quantitative, technical, and scientific methods within geography. In a 2016 paper within this journal, Ionel Haidu stated: "The risk is that non-geographers mastering these methods analyze the spatiotemporal data and information better than the geographers. That is why the need to deal with competition induced by other sciences claiming

5312-476: The place of GIS in geography, with some rejecting its methods and others heavily advocating for it. In response to critics, British geographer Stan Openshaw stated: ...if geographers reject GIS then it could fundamentally affect the outside world's perception of what geography is all about. Certainly, these external perceptions may well be based on a picture of geography as it once was, but nevertheless they cannot be ignored. "How could they be so foolish as to disown

5395-419: The quantitative revolution was the emergence of early computers. The interdisciplinary nature of geography forces geographers to look at developments in other fields, and geographers tend to observe and adapt technological innovations from other disciplines rather than developing unique technologies to conduct geographic studies. More than a decade after the first computers were developed, Waldo Tobler published

5478-497: The same, or similar, concepts as technical geography. Some of the discrepancy in terminology is due to different cultures and languages having their own method of organization; for example, the term "information geography" is popular in research from China to describe similar concepts. It is closely associated with and sometimes used interchangeably with, the subfields of geographic information science and geoinformatics . Each term has slightly differing definitions and scopes, and

5561-558: The scientific method. In 1960, Bernard Dubuisson coined the term "géomatique" in French. English-speaking Canadians Pierre Gagnon and David Coleman translated the term as "geomatics", which was popularized in Canada through the 1980s and early 1990s. Today, it is defined by the ISO/TC 211 , an International Organization for Standardization committee focused on geographic information, as

5644-417: The similarity between observations as a function of the time lag or spatial distance between them. Autocorrelation can be positive (indicating that similar values cluster together) or negative (indicating that dissimilar values are near each other). Spatial autocorrelation involves the correlation of a variable with itself across different spatial locations. Temporal autocorrelation involves the correlation of

5727-951: The spatial dimension in assessing, monitoring and modelling various issues and problems related to sustainable management of natural resources is recognized all over the world. Geoinformatics becomes very important technology to decision-makers across a wide range of disciplines, industries, commercial sector, environmental agencies, local and national government, research, and academia, national survey and mapping organisations, International organisations, United Nations, emergency services, public health and epidemiology, crime mapping, transportation and infrastructure, information technology industries, GIS consulting firms, environmental management agencies), tourist industry, utility companies, market analysis and e-commerce, mineral exploration, Seismology etc. Many government and non government agencies started to use spatial data for managing their day-to-day activities. Technical geography Technical geography

5810-533: The techniques and methods of handling spatial information were primarily focused on supporting human or physical geography, rather than a subject of study itself. World War II , which saw the extensive use of cartography and air photos, revolutionized these techniques and brought a new focus on the benefits they offered. In the years before the quantitative revolution, geography was generally fragmented and focused on descriptive approaches, and many United States universities were eliminating geography departments around

5893-518: The techniques to deal with this data. Cartographic generalization is the process of simplifying the representation of geographical information on maps, making complex data more understandable and useful for specific purposes or scales. This process involves selectively reducing the detail of features to prevent clutter and ensure that the map communicates the intended information effectively. The need for generalization arises because maps often depict large areas and scales, where including every detail

5976-414: The technological and theoretical concepts than the nature of the data. Further, a technical geographer may explore the relationship between the spatial technology and the end users to improve upon the technology and better understand the impact of the technology on human behavior. Thus, the spatial data types a technical geographer employs may vary widely, including human and physical geography topics, with

6059-455: The term geoinformatics was coined by Swedish scientist Kjell Samuelson and later defined in the 1990s as the science of integrating spatial data derived from various technologies, such as remote sensing, GPS, and GIS. It was later defined by geographer Michael DeMers to include processing of spatial data through the use of computers. This term has been described as being outside the branch of geography entirely and instead placed fully under

6142-421: The term GIScience, including questioning if it can be considered a science. Many geographers, including Michael Goodchild, continue to advance the use of the term today. In the same 1749 publication in which Cave discussed technical geography (Geography reformed: a new system of general geography, according to an accurate analysis of the science in four parts. The whole illustrated with notes) critical geography

6225-415: The term technical geography first entered the English lexicon may be difficult to ascertain, technical geography as a concept crosses cultures, and techniques date back to the origins of cartography, surveying, and remote sensing . Eratosthenes has been called the "founder of mathematical geography," and his activities are described as "little different from what we expect of a technical geographer." Within

6308-503: The term technical geography in its description, several later publications explicitly link scientific and technical geography. By 1917, technical geography was included among courses taught at some British schools, alongside mathematics, chemistry, and other natural sciences. As techniques and concepts in technical geography advanced, geographers began to lament the lack of understanding and use of more advanced geographic concepts in society and law. Specifically, this became an issue during

6391-583: The theoretical concepts. While technical geography mostly works with quantitative data, the techniques and technology can be applied to qualitative geography , differentiating it from quantitative geography . Within the branch of technical geography are the major and overlapping subbranches of geographic information science , geomatics , and geoinformatics . Technical geography is highly theoretical and focuses on developing and testing methods and technologies for handling spatial-temporal data. These technologies are then applied to datasets and problems within

6474-440: The understanding of geography. In the history of geography since the quantitative revolution, theorists from critical geography are often viewed as in direct confrontation with those of technical and quantitative geography. Some, such as Peter Gould , argued that these criticisms were largely due to the difficulty in learning the emerging novel technologies. Some geographers, including Stewart Fotheringham , argue that many of

6557-456: The very core of their discipline?" With the emergence of GIS, researchers rapidly began to explore methods to use the technology for various geographic problems. This led some geographers to declare the study of the computer-based methods their own science within geography. GIS serves as the primary technology driving the field of geodesign by enabling real-time feedback in considering geography and landscape with community planning. In 1978,

6640-667: Was considered an important part of the process within geography to correct errors on maps and other products to improve models of the world. In the 1970s, critical geography took on the framework of critical theory and Marxist philosophy , and became an umbrella uniting various theoretical frameworks in geography, including Marxist geography , feminist geography , and radical geography (a branch of geography that advocates that geographic research should focus on social issues transforming society). These frameworks were mostly advanced mostly by human geographers, leading to an observed gap between human and physical geographers. In response to

6723-451: Was proposed by Waldo Tobler in a 1970 paper, and more have been proposed since. Some geographers argue against the idea that laws in geography are necessary or even valid. These criticisms have been addressed by Tobler and others. Examples of these laws include Tobler's first law of geography , Tobler's second law of geography , and Arbia's law of geography . French geographer Ionel Haidu noted Tobler's first law of geography, and

6806-549: Was shunned by more traditional geographers, who viewed it as a deviation from how geographers had always viewed and interacted with maps. While the best approach to the technical aspect of geography was heavily debated among geographers, geography departments at universities across the United States began to teach a more scientific approach to geography. The quantitative revolution is primarily credited with shifting descriptive, or idiographic , geography to an empirical law-making, or nomothetic , geography. The first of these laws

6889-528: Was widely used in World War I and, in subsequent years, was applied to civilian endeavors. A 1941 textbook titled "Aerophotography and Aerosurverying" stated the following in the first line of its preference: "There is no longer any need to preach for aerial photography-not in the United States- for so widespread has become its use and so great its value that even the farmer who plants his fields in

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