• Through the Macroscope: Geography’s View of the World
• A Role for Old-Fashioned Geographia in Education
• Zen and the Art of GIS Communication
• Ecosystem Services—Learning to Leverage Natural Capital
• Looking Forward: Five Thoughts on the Future of GIS
• The Future Looks Bright for Spatial Thinkers
• Scaling Up Classroom Maps
• Managing Our Man-Made Ecosystems
• GIS and Geography: Interactions with the Humanities
• The Challenge of Defining Geo-Literacy
• Let’s Exchange Competition for Cooperation
• A National GIS Infrastructure for Health Research
• The Intersection of GIS and Gaming
• Understanding Our World
• From Maps to GeoDesign
• Making Sense of Our Sensored Planet
• Hand in Hand—Spatial Information for Latin America
• Delivering GIS in a Period of Unsustainable Growth

Read Vol. 4 [PDF]

The first three volumes are also still available:

• Read Vol. 1 [PDF]
• Read Vol. 2 [PDF]
• Read Vol. 3 [PDF]

GSDI World Conference

Stéphane Roche, Nashid Nabian, Kristian Kloeckl, and Carlo Ratti

“In our contemporary societal context, reconfigured by wide spread impact of Geolocalization and wikification on urban population’s everyday work and life, two related concepts, “spatially enabled society” and “smart city”, have emerged from two different but related fields: the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure community drives the former while practitioners and researchers in urban planning, urban studies and urban design are more concerned with the latter. We believe that technology enhanced, ICT‐driven solutions that spatially enable the members of urban populations, contribute to smart operation of cities, and we suggest that a dialogue between the communities that foster these two notions needs to be established. We seek to provide an ontology of categorically different, but still related, spatial enablement scenarios along with speculations on how each category can enhance the Smart City agenda by empowering the urban population, using recent projects by the MIT SENSEable City Lab to illustrate our points.”

• Read the paper [PDF]

Joshua H. Goldstein, Giorgio Caldarone, Thomas Kaeo Duarte, Driss Ennaanay, Neil Hannahs,
Guillermo Mendoza, Stephen Polasky, Stacie Wolny, and Gretchen C. Daily

“Recent high-profile efforts have called for integrating ecosystem-service values into important societal decisions, but there are few demonstrations of this approach in practice. We quantified ecosystem-service values to help the largest private landowner in Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, design a land-use development plan that balances multiple private and public values on its North Shore land holdings (Island of O’ahu) of ∼10,600 ha. We used the InVEST software tool to evaluate the environmental and financial implications of seven planning scenarios encompassing contrasting land-use combinations including biofuel feedstocks, food crops, forestry, livestock, and residential development.

Maps of study region showing provision for the base landscape of (A) water-quality improvement (nitrogen export reduction), (B) carbon storage (in above- and belowground pools), and (C) annual financial return from the agricultural fields.

“All scenarios had positive financial return relative to the status quo of negative return. However, tradeoffs existed between carbon storage and water quality as well as between environmental improvement and financial return. Based on this analysis and community input, Kamehameha Schools is implementing a plan to support diversified agriculture and forestry. This plan generates a positive financial return ($10.9 million) and improved carbon storage (0.5% increase relative to status quo) with negative relative effects on water quality (15.4% increase in potential nitrogen export relative to status quo). The effects on water quality could be mitigated partially (reduced to a 4.9% increase in potential nitrogen export) by establishing vegetation buffers on agricultural fields. This plan contributes to policy goals for climate change mitigation, food security, and diversifying rural economic opportunities. More broadly, our approach illustrates how information can help guide local land-use decisions that involve tradeoffs between private and public interests.”

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Due to its great success and in an attempt to enrich and improve data resolution, the Ocean Basemap  is now open to receive bathymetric data contributions from data providers such as Hydrographic Offices and academia,  for bathymetry and named features. If you want to learn more details please contact oceanbasemapteam@esri.com.

“For our ancestors, geographic knowledge was crucial for survival. For our own survival today, geographic knowledge plays an equally important role. GIS technology drives a new relationship between humans and the environment, leading to a better understanding of our Earth

• Read the e-book [PDF]

The Professional Geographer

Matthew W. Wilson and Sarah Starkweather

“The pervasiveness of the Internet in society has brought about changes in academia and shifts in the day-to-day practices of many academics. Here, the web practices of academic geographers are specifically examined through an Internet-based survey, to better understand how these geographers both present themselves through the Internet and perceive the importance of such practices around web presence. Situated within this increasing importance of the Internet as part of professional practice and the neoliberalization of the university, the changes in the teaching and research of academics are overviewed. We then discuss our findings, which indicate a relationship between generation and web practices, and which further reinforce the need for a more central discussion of the importance of web presence within the context of a knowledge economy.”

• Read the paper [PDF]

Tomaž Podobnikar

“The detection of peaks (summits) as the upper parts of mountains and the delineation of their shape is commonly confirmed by inspections carried out by mountaineers. In this study the complex task of peak detection and shape delineation is solved by autometric methodological procedures, more precisely, by developing relatively simple but innovative image-processing and spatial-analysis techniques (e.g., developing inventive variables using an annular moving window) in remote sensing and GIS domains. The techniques have been integrated into automated morphometric methodological procedures. The concepts of peaks and their shapes (sharp, blunt, oblong, circular and conical) were parameterized based on topographic and morphologic criteria.

“A geomorphologically high quality DEM was used as a fundamental dataset. The results, detected peaks with delineated shapes, have been integratively enriched with numerous independent datasets (e.g., with triangulated spot heights) and information (e.g., etymological information), and mountaineering criteria have been implemented to improve the judgments. This holistic approach has proved the applicability of both highly standardized and universal parameters for the geomorphologically diverse Kamnik Alps case study area. Possible applications of this research are numerous, e.g., a comprehensive quality control of DEM or significantly improved models for the spatial planning proposes.”

• Read the paper [PDF]

Oumar Allafouza Loni, M. Tahir Hussein and Ayman M. Alrehaili

“Landfilled wastes manifest slow decomposition, producing emanation of gases, and outflow of leachate. Waste mass shows various chemical reactions and complex evolutions that occur under the influence of natural agents, as rain and microorganisms. These reactions lead to biological, physical, and chemical transformations of wastes. The intensity of the phenomenon is related to the air and the humidity. These factors originate from the initial composition of the solid waste, the operating mode of the landfill, and the geological and hydrogeological conditions. Leachate is considered a major source of groundwater pollution. It has a complex nature; it typically contains high concentrations of chemical hazardous including heavy metals, chemical compounds that may severely pollute the environment. These challenges are faced all over the world by environment protection agencies and waste management bodies. The challenge differs according to the specific situation of the site, the climatic, environmental, and geological factors. The international literature is rich with studies in this concern. Each country or region of the world has its own legislation and laws governing waste management, e.g., the European Commission Legislation, the US Environmental Agency, and so forth. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the environmental consequences of a landfill site located in the southeast of Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. It constitutes a peculiar case because of its situation, its exploitation mode, and nature of buried wastes. The study made use of satellite MSS, TM, ETM and SPOT image 2007, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM), respectively. Geological, morphological, hydrological, hydrochemical, and detailed drainage analyses were performed. Records of meteorological stations were also used in this study. The satellite images illustrate the evolution of the site through time since its start in the 1990s of the twentieth century. The main geological units outcropping in the area are the Sulaiy Formation, the Yamama Formation, Khabra deposits, floodplain deposits, alluvium, and sheet gravel. Drainage analyses shows a dendritic nature for the network, a total area of 2,113 km2, basin slope of 0.016, perimeter of 430 × 103, and a mean elevation of 635 m. Annual rainfall is around 100 mm, evapotranspiration is about 2,900 mm, wind speed averages at 5.1 km/h, and runoff peak is within 2.7–4.7 m3/s. A plume of total dissolved solids and nitrates was observed to initiate from the landfill site. Heavy metal concentration confirms the same result. Planners, environmentalists, decision makers, and other interest groups can use the findings of this study for environmental management of the landfill and protection of the downstream part of the Sulaiy tributary from leachate contamination. The results indicate the importance of monitoring landfills through the combined use of ground and satellite monitoring.”

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Evolution: Education and Outreach

A. Townsend Peterson and Bruce S. Lieberman

“Species’ ranges are often treated as a fixed characteristic, rather than a fluid, ever-changing manifestation of their ecological requirements and dispersal abilities. Paleontologists generally have had a better appreciation of the changeable nature of species’ ranges than neontologists, but each perspective can improve by appreciating the other. Here, we provide an overview of paleontological and neontological perspectives on species’ geographic distributions, focusing on what can be learned about historical variations in distributions. In particular, we focus on enriching the field of phylogeography with a more explicit view of geography, taking into account variation through time in the geographic distribution of different environments, effectively integrating information from the fossil record, molecular genetics, and paleoclimatology. The cross-disciplinary view that would result offers novel perspectives on biogeography and macroevolution.”

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David Mansfield

“This paper seeks to explore what factors have driven recent reductions in poppy cultivation in Helmand and how sustainable they are. It finds that while household concerns about food security because of high wheat prices were key in driving down poppy cultivation between 2008 and 2009, the coercive power of the Afghan state and international military forces has been significant in determining levels of cultivation in central Helmand in 2010 and 2011. Sustainability of these effects will vary among different communities.

Eradication delivery by year and force on ten year double cropping ability

“Broadly speaking, this research suggests that reductions in poppy cultivation are:

• most sustainable among communities close to urban centres with access to diverse income opportunities, government support programmes and better security;
• least sustainable among communities that have responded to the government’s poppy ban but lack viable alternatives and remain exposed to violence and intimidation by both sides in the conflict;
• and non-existent among a growing number of communities in the desert north of the Boghra Canal where opium production has provided the means to own and cultivate land, and the Taliban is increasingly seen to provide a relatively secure environment for households to secure income and accumulate assets.”

Read the paper [PDF]