Many advances in the integration of group spatial modeling, geographic information systems (GIS), and the Internet have occurred in recent years, however there is a lack of materials to highlight the transdisciplinary characteristics and impacts of this convergence while providing a uniform and consistent treatment of this expanding field of research. ""Collaborative Geographic Information Systems"" identifies unifying concepts in the field and presents them in a single volume, providing a comprehensive treatment of collaborative GIS focusing on system design, group spatial planning and mapping, Internet and wireless applications, and more. This book also details the theories, processes, and tools for designing and implementing collaborative GIS, and explores collaborative GIS methodologies currently being used or developed. ""Collaborative Geographic Information Systems"" is of immense value to academic researchers, planners and policy makers, graduate students, and individuals working in GIS, geography, environmental science, urban planning, computer supported cooperative work, and information technology.

New and more accurate techniques for satellite gravimetry will be available soon, with promising applications in Earth sciences. With this special issue the authors want to stimulate discussion among Earth scientists on objectives and preferences for future satellite gravimetry missions. This is an urgently needed discussion. Visions for follow-on missions have to be developed today, if they are to be realized within 10 years, given the required preparation time of such satellite missions.

This book is intended for the GIS Science and Decision Science communities. It is primarily targeted at postgraduate students and practitioners in GIS and urban, regional and environmental planning as well as applied decision analysis. It is also suitable for those studying and working with spatial decision support systems. The main objectives of this book are to effectivley integrate Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) into Geographic Information Science (GIScience), to provide a comprehensive account of theories, methods, technologies and tools for tackling spatial decision problems and to demonstrate how the GIS-MCDA approaches can be used in a wide range of planning and management situations.

This book focuses on visualization modules of GI software and systems, and tries to answer the specific question "How commonly is stereoscopic visualization supported in GI systems?." To achieve this, first whether such support exits or not in mainstream GI software is documented. The study is further detailed to assess which type of stereoscopic operations and viewing methods are supported. Motivated by improving efficiency of stereoscopic visualizations in cartographic do-main, within this survey, it is also examined whether these systems and software offer level of detail management support for stereoscopic data-sets. Findings from the study meant as a guide to researchers and practitioners to assess the cur-rent state of True 3D support in cartography and GI Systems.

The text explains the key concepts, issues and processes of spatial data implementation and provides a holistic management perspective that complements the technical aspects of spatial data stressed in other textbooks. The text first overviews the current state of spatial information technology and it concludes with a speculative account of likely future developments. Cutting edge research and practical workplace needs are defined and explained. Topics covered, among others, include strategies for end user education, current spatial data standards and their importance, legal issues and liabilities in the ownership and use of spatial data, spatial metadata use within distributed databases, the Internet and Web-based solutions to database deployment, quality assurance and quality control in database implementation and use, spatial decision support, and spatial data mining.

Precision farming is an agricultural management system using global navigation satellite systems, geographic information systems, remote sensing, and data management systems for optimizing the use of nutrients, water, seed, pesticides and energy in heterogeneous field situations. This book provides extensive information on the state-of-the-art of research on precision crop protection and recent developments in site-specific application technologies for the management of weeds, arthropod pests, pathogens and nematodes. It gives the reader an up-to-date and in-depth review of both basic and applied research developments. The chapters discuss I) biology and epidemiology of pests, II) new sensor technologies, III) applications of multi-scale sensor systems, IV) sensor detection of pests in growing crops, V) spatial and non-spatial data management, VI) impact of pest heterogeneity and VII) precise mechanical and chemical pest control.

This book presents cutting-edge remote sensing research, outlining the advanced use of European Space Agency (ESA) satellite data in the context of climate change. The ESA, through its Support to Science Element (STSE) Programme, funds a network of young post-doc scientists pursuing 2-year cutting-edge research projects in the field of remote sensing. This "Changing Earth Science Network" focuses on the exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) data to address major issues concerning the broader context of climate change in five scientific research domains: the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, land and solid earth.

In this landmark publication, leading experts detail how remote sensing and related geospatial technologies can be used for coastal ecosystem assessment and management.

This book is divided into three major parts. In the first part several conceptual and technical issues of applying remote sensing and geospatial technologies in the coastal environment are examined. The second part showcases some of the latest developments in the use of remote sensing and geospatial technologies when characterizing coastal waters, submerged aquatic vegetation, benthic habitats, shorelines, coastal wetlands and watersheds. Finally, the last part demonstrates a watershed-wide synthetic approach that links upstream stressors with downstream responses for integrated coastal ecosystem assessment and management.

This book presents a compendium of the urban layout maps of 2-mile square downtown areas of more than one hundred cities in developed and developing countries-all drawn at the same scale using high-resolution satellite images of Google Maps. The book also presents analytic studies using metric geometrical, topological (or network), and fractal measures of these maps. These analytic studies identify ordinaries, extremes, similarities, and differences in these maps; investigate the scaling properties of these maps; and develop precise descriptive categories, types and indicators for multidimensional comparative studies of these maps. The findings of these studies indicate that many geometric relations of the urban layouts of downtown areas follow regular patterns; that despite social, economic, and cultural differences among cities, the geometric measures of downtown areas in cities of developed and developing countries do not show significant differences; and that the geometric possibilities of urban layouts are vastly greater than those that have been realized so far in our cities.

Fundamentals of Inertial Navigation, Satellite-based Positioning and their Integrationis an introduction to the field of Integrated Navigation Systems. It serves as an excellent reference for working engineers as well as textbook for beginners and students new to the area. The book is easy to read and understandwith minimum background knowledge. The authors explain the derivations in great detail. The intermediate steps are thoroughly explained so that a beginner can easily follow the material. The book shows a step-by-step implementation of navigation algorithmsand provides all the necessary details. It provides detailed illustrations for an easy comprehension.

The book also demonstrates real field experiments and in-vehicle road test results with professional discussions and analysis. This work is unique in discussing the different INS/GPS integration schemes in an easy to understand and straightforward way. Those schemes include loosely vs tightly coupled, open loop vs closed loop, and many more.

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The key novelty of this book is first of all in the successful attempt to conduct jointly modeling of environment in terms of physical environment related parameters and measuring similar parameters by means of multispectral remote sensing, primarily by means of passive microwave remote sensing technology. Another new step is in the development and utilization of a multilevel approach which includes remote sensing of the land and water parameters like soil moisture, depth to water table, biomass of vegetation, temperature and salinity of water, in situ measurements of similar parameters and incorporation of GIS and data sets into the models of typical environments. The part of book, which contains remote sensing is focused on multipurpose observations from aircraft obtained in many soil-climatic zones in different countries and is reach of the examples of practical application. Applied mathematicians, geophysics, hydrologists, socio-economists, statesmans and other researchers of environmental changes will find a wealth of information and ideas in this book.

This book represents years of work by the ICA Spatial Data Standards Commission during the 1995-2003 ICA cycles.

It consists of an Introduction and six Regional Summary chapters that describe the spatial metadata activities happening in Europe, North America, Asia/Pacific, Latin America, Africa/Middle East, and the ISO community. These chapters provide the broader context and description of the milieu in which these standards operate, so that the reader can more easily understand the scientific and technical framework from whence a particular standard has emerged. The third section is a complete listing of all of the three levels of scientific and technical characteristics, and their meaning by the inclusion of a set of definitions for metadata terms used in the book. The fourth section, and by far the largest, contains 22 chapters that assess each of the major national and international spatial metadata standards in the world, and also contains a few representative subject matter profile derived from a major standard. They have been carried out in terms of all three levels of characteristics. Each assessment has been carried out by a Commission member who has been an active participant in the development of the standard being assessed in the native language of that standard. The fifth section contains a summary cross-table wall size summary chart that includes all 22 standards and profiles that are cross tabulated by 70 of the crucial characteristics. The columns provide a thumbnail sketch of each individual standard, while the rows facilitate a quick comparison of individual critical characteristics across all of the 22 standards and profiles. Many readers of our previous book have begun their standards evaluation process with this cross-table.

This current book on spatial metadata standards has been purposely designed to serve as a companion working volume to the 1997 book the Commission published on Spatial Data Transfer Standards, Moellering & Hogan, Editors, ISBN 008042433.
* Assesses the National and International Spatial Metadata Standards & Profiles in their native languages, and then reports the analysis in a scientifically consistent manner in a widely used scientific language (English).
* Provides a summary Crosstable of the 22 Spatial Metadata Standards/Profiles in a large wall-sized table highlighting 70 of the most important scientific characteristics
* Provides the scientific and technical detail for each of the 22 Standards/Profiles to 12 primary levels, 58 second levels, and about 278 tertiary levels. Scientific and technical characteristics can be used for a wide variety of uses with spatial metadata and associated standards

A variety of disciplines and professions have embraced geospatial technologies for collecting, storing, manipulating, analyzing, and displaying spatial data to investigate crime, prosecute and convict offenders, exonerate suspects, and submit evidence in civil lawsuits. The applications, acceptability and relevance, and procedural legality of each geospatial technologies vary. The purpose of this book is to explain the nature of geospatial technologies, demonstrate a variety of geospatial applications used to investigate and litigate civil and criminal activities, and to provide a reference of current acceptability of geospatial technology in the production of evidence. This book is an introductory overview designed to appeal to researchers and practitioners across disciplinary boundaries. The authors of this book are researchers and practitioners across disciplines and professions, experts in the field.

Due to their unique geophysical and geodynamic environment, both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions are often utilized for geodetic and geophysical observations. This book is a collection of papers on various aspects of the scientific investigation and observation techniques of the polar regions at both temporary and permanent observatories. Most papers focus on regional models based on data acquired in polar regions. Geodetic satellite positions systems (GNSS: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO) will also be discussed as well as other space techniques (DORIS, VLBI). Gravimetry, absolute gravimetry, and tidal gravimetry are also discussed, as well as seismology and meteorology. The book also touches on data analysis and geodynamic interpretation and discusses methods of constructing autonomous observatories.

Currently, spatial analysis is becoming more important than ever because enormous volumes of spatial data are available from different sources, such as GPS, Remote Sensing, and others.

This book deals with spatial analysis and modelling. It provides a comprehensive discussion of spatial analysis, methods, and approaches related to human settlements and associated environment. Key contributions with empirical case studies from Iran, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, and Japan that apply spatial analysis including autocorrelation, fuzzy, voronoi, cellular automata, analytic hierarchy process, artificial neural network, spatial metrics, spatial statistics, regression, and remote sensing mapping techniques are compiled comprehensively. The core value of this book is a wide variety of results with state of the art discussion including empirical case studies.

It provides a milestone reference to students, researchers, planners, and other practitioners dealing the spatial problems on urban and regional issues.

We arepleased to announce that this book has been presented with the 2011 publishing award from the GIS Association of Japan.
We would like to congratulate the authors

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This book presents a selection of conference contributions from CARO'13 (Conference on Aerospace Robotics), which was held in Warsaw from July 1 to 3, 2013. It presents the most important and crucial problems of space automation in context of future exploration programs. These programs could involve such issues as space situational awareness program, planetary protection, exploitation of minerals, assembly, manufacturing, and search for new habitable location for next human generations. The future exploration of Space and related activities will involve robots. In particular, new autonomous robots need to be developed with high degree of intelligence. Such robots would make space exploration possible but also they would make space automation an important factor in variety of activities related to Space.

This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of ongoing GIScience research that has been presented at the 10th Conference of the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE), held in Aalborg, Denmark. Included are 27 fully peer-reviewed papers not only covering basic GIScience research themes, but also ongoing research on technological advancements, as well as applied research on environmental modeling and management.

Since the first symposium in 1984 the International Symposia on Spatial Data Handling (SDH) has become a major resource for recent advances in GIS research. The International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling is regarded as a premier international research forum for GIS. All papers are fully reviewed by an international program committee composed of experts in the field.

This volume provides in-depth coverage of the latest in remote sensing of hydrological extremes: both floods and droughts. The book is divided into two distinct sections - floods and droughts - and offers a variety of techniques for monitoring each. With rapid advances in computer modelling and observing systems, floods and droughts are studied with greater precision today than ever before. Land surface models, especially over the entire Continental United States, can map the hydrological cycle at kilometre and sub-kilometre scales. In the case of smaller areas there is even higher spatial resolution and the only limiting factor is the resolution of input data. In-situ sensors are automated and the data is directly relayed to the world wide web for many hydrological variables such as precipitation, soil moisture, surface temperature and heat fluxes. In addition, satellite remote sensing has advanced to providing twice a day repeat observations at kilometre to ten-kilometre spatial scales. We are at a critical juncture in the study of hydrological extremes, and the GPM and SMAP missions as well as the MODIS and GRACE sensors give us more tools and data than were ever available before. A global variety of chapter authors provides wide-ranging perspectives and case studies that will make this book an indispensable resource for researchers, engineers, and even emergency management and insurance professionals who study and/or manage hydrological extremes.

During the last decade developments in 3D Geoinformation have made substantial progress. We are about to have a more complete spatial model and understanding of our planet in different scales. Hence, various communities and cities offer 3D landscape and city models as valuable source and instrument for sustainable management of rural and urban resources. Also municipal utilities, real estate companies etc. benefit from recent developments related to 3D applications. To meet the challenges due to the newest changes academics and practitioners met at the 5th International Workshop on 3D Geoinformation in order to present recent developments and to discuss future trends. This book comprises a selection of evaluated, high quality papers that were presented at this workshop in November 2010. The topics focus explicitly on the last achievements (methods, algorithms, models, systems) with respect to 3D geo-information requirements. The book is aimed at decision makers and experts as well at students interested in the 3D component of geographical information science including GI engineers, computer scientists, photogrammetrists, land surveyors, urban planners, and mapping specialists.

A Coming of Age: Geospatial Analysis and Modelling in the Early Twenty First Century Forty years ago when spatial analysis first emerged as a distinct theme within geography's quantitative revolution, the focus was largely on consistent methods for measuring spatial correlation. The concept of spatial au- correlation took pride of place, mirroring concerns in time-series analysis about similar kinds of dependence known to distort the standard probability theory used to derive appropriate statistics. Early applications of spatial correlation tended to reflect geographical patterns expressed as points. The perspective taken on such analytical thinking was founded on induction, the search for pattern in data with a view to suggesting appropriate hypotheses which could subsequently be tested. In parallel but using very different techniques came the development of a more deductive style of analysis based on modelling and thence simulation. Here the focus was on translating prior theory into forms for generating testable predictions whose outcomes could be compared with observations about some system or phenomenon of interest. In the intervening years, spatial analysis has broadened to embrace both inductive and deductive approaches, often combining both in different mixes for the variety of problems to which it is now applied.

"Remote Sensing of Urban and Suburban Areas" provides instructors with a text reference that has a logical and easy-to-follow flow of topics around which they can structure the syllabi of their urban remote sensing courses. Topics have been chosen to bridge the gap between remote sensing and urban studies through a better understanding of the science that underlies both fields. In so doing, the book includes 17 chapters written by leading international experts in respected fields to provide a balanced coverage of fundamental issues in both remote sensing and urban studies. Emphasis is placed on: theoretical and practical issues in contemporary urban studies and remote sensing; the spectral, spatial and temporal requirements of remotely sensed data in relation to various urban phenomena; methods and techniques for analyzing and integrating remotely sensed data and image processing with geographic information systems to address urban problems; and examples of applications in which applying remote sensing to tackle urban problems is deemed useful and important.

This book contains a selection of papers from the 16th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (SDH), the premier long-running forum in geographical information science. This collection offers readers exemplary contributions to geospatial scholarship and practice from the conference's 30th anniversary.