This book covers various aspects of spatial data modelling specifically regarding three-dimensional (3D) modelling and structuring. The realization of "true" 3D geoinformation spatial systems requires a high input, and the developmental process is taking place in various research centers and universities around the globe. The development of such systems and solutions, including the modelling theories are presented in this book.

This book covers up-to-date methods and algorithms for the automated analysis of engineering drawings and digital cartographic maps. The Non-Deterministic Agent System (NDAS) offers a parallel computational approach to such image analysis. The book describes techniques suitable for persistent and explicit knowledge representation for engineering drawings and digital maps. It also highlights more specific techniques, e.g., applying robot navigation and mapping methods to this problem. Also included are more detailed accounts of the use of unsupervised segmentation algorithms to map images. Finally, all these threads are woven together in two related systems: NDAS and AMAM (Automatic Map Analysis Module).

Remote Sensing from Space Supporting International Peace and Security provides the reader with an overview of the state-of-the-art EO related research in the most relevant topics of security research. Whilst focusing on remote sensing technologies the book follows an interdisciplinary approach. It comprises management aspects (Issues and priority of security research, crisis response), applied methodologies and process chains (Treaty monitoring, estimation of population densities and characteristics, border permeability models, damage assessment) and the latest developments in generic tools (feature recognition, change detection and visualization). Contributing authors are leading researchers from private companies, national research institutions and international organizations working together in a European research project GMOSS (Global Monitoring for Security and Stability). Additionally the book tackles the issues of data sharing, data standards and new approaches of training security relevant techniques.

This book is tailored for the scientific community dealing with the application of EO data as well as for project managers and decision makers working in the field of security and having an interest in technical solutions. Many figures and sample images ease reading and allow to quickly grasping the technical background of modern technologies applied in people s security research.

This Volume collects a series of key-note lectures delivered at the fourth "Oceans from Space" Symposium, held in Venice, Italy, in 2010. The revisited postscript in the title identifies it as the ideal follow-up of the legendary Oceanography from Space, edited by J.F.R. Gower and published in 1980, following the very first edition of "Oceans from Space." This series of conferences, which are held every 10 years only, is designed as a periodical state-of-the-art review of satellite oceanography, providing both an outline of current research, as well as a forum to debate topical issues. The "Oceans from Space" Venice 2010 lectures, authored by a unique group of prominent scientists, address virtually every facet of oceanographic remote sensing. All salient marine applications of passive and active techniques are covered in the present collection. The main results already achieved, or soon to come, demonstrate the potential of Earth Observations to help explore the dynamical and bio-geo-chemical features of the World's Oceans. V. BARALE graduated in Physics in 1977, from the University of Milan, and then received both his M.S., in 1982, and Ph.D., in 1986, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, from the University of California at San Diego. Since 1990 he has been with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. His research focuses on the ecological assessment of marginal and enclosed (European) seas, using optical remote sensing. J.F.R. GOWER received his Ph.D. in Radio Astronomy in 1966 at the University of Cambridge, England, after graduating in Natural Sciences from the same University in 1962. He moved to Canada and joined the University of British Columbia in 1967. Since 1971 he has been at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, where he worked on optical, SAR and altimeter satellite data. He originated the "Oceans from Space" Conference series. L. ALBEROTANZA graduated in Geology in 1969 at the University of Padova. His career developed at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), in Venice, where he has done research on optical remote sensing of marine, coastal and lagoon areas. He has been Director of the Venice CNR Institute, Professor at the University of Venice, and is now President of the Venice City Council Tidal Forecasting and Early Warning Centre.

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.

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.

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 not only introduces the principles of INS, CNS and GNSS, the related filters and semi-physical simulation, but also systematically discusses the key technologies needed for integrated navigations of INS/GNSS, INS/CNS, and INS/CNS/GNSS, respectively. INS/CNS/GNSS integrated navigation technology has established itself as an effective tool for precise positioning navigation, which can make full use of the complementary characteristics of different navigation sub-systems and greatly improve the accuracy and reliability of the integrated navigation system. The book offers a valuable reference guide for graduate students, engineers and researchers in the fields of navigation and its control. Dr. Wei Quan, Dr. Jianli Li, Dr. Xiaolin Gong and Dr. Jiancheng Fang are all researchers at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

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.

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.

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.

This book provides a practical, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the use of spatial statistics in epidemiology - the study of the incidence and distribution of diseases. Used appropriately, spatial analytical methods in conjunction with GIS and remotely sensed data can provide significant insights into the biological patterns and processes that underlie disease transmission. In turn, these can be used to understand and predict disease prevalence. This user-friendly text brings together the specialised and widely-dispersed literature on spatial analysis to make these methodological tools accessible to epidemiologists for the first time.
With its focus is on application rather than theory, Spatial Analysis in Epidemiology includes a wide range of examples taken from both medical (human) and veterinary (animal) disciplines, and describes both infectious diseases and non-infectious conditions. Furthermore, it provides worked examples of methodologies using a single data set from the same disease example throughout, and is structured to follow the logical sequence of description of spatial data, visualisation, exploration, modelling and decision support. This accessible text is aimed at graduate students and researchers dealing with spatial data in the fields of epidemiology (both medical and veterinary), ecology, zoology and parasitology, environmental science, geography and statistics.

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.

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.

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.

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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"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.

GPS and GNSS Technology in Geosciences offers an interdisciplinary approach to applying advances in GPS/GNSS technology for geoscience research and practice. As GPS/GNSS signals can be used to provide useful information about the Earth's surface characteristics and land surface composition, GPS equipment and services for commercial purposes continues to grow, thus resulting in new expectations and demands. This book provides case studies for a deeper understanding of the operation and principles of widely applied approaches and the benefits of the technology in everyday research and activities.

The Workshop Proceedings reflect problems of advanced geo-information science as far as they are specifically concerned with the maritime environment at large. The Proceedings incorporate papers presented by leading scientists researching in the considered professional area and by practitioners engaged in GIS and GIS applications development. They pay close attention to the problems of scientific and technological innovations and the ensuing opportunities to make seas safer and cleaner. Furthermore, they periodically measure the ground covered and new challenges with respect to economic and shipping trends as related to Artificial Intelligence; GIS ontologies; GIS data integration and modelling; Underwater acoustics; GIS data fusion; GIS and corporate information systems; GIS and real-time monitoring systems; GIS algorithms and computational issues; Novel and emerging marine GIS research areas; Monitoring of maritime terrorist threat; Maritime and environmental GIS; Navigation-based and maritime transportation GIS; Human factors in maritime GIS; Coastal and environmental GIS.

Geomatics, the handling and processing of information and data about the Earth, is one geoscience discipline that has seen major changes in the last decade, as mapping and observation systems become ever more sensitive and sophisticated. This book is a unique and in-depth survey of the field, which has a central role to play in tackling a host of environmental issues faced by society. Covering all three strands of geomatics - applications, information technology and surveying - the chapters cover the history and background of the subject, the technology employed both to collect and disseminate data, and the varied applications to which geomatics can be put, including urban planning, assessment of biodiversity, disaster management and land administration. Relevant professionals, as well as students in a variety of disciplines such as geography and surveying, will find this book required reading.
This rapidly developing field uses increasingly complex and accurate systems. Today, technology enables us to capture geo-data in full 3D as well as to disseminate it via the Web at the speed of light. We are able to continuously image the world from space at resolutions of up to 50 cm. Airborne LiDAR (laser surveying) sensors can be combined with digital camera technology to produce geometrically correct images of the Earth's surface, while integrating these with large-scale topographic maps and terrestrial as well as aerial images to produce 3D cityscapes that computer users can explore from their desktops.

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.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have developed rapidly in recent years and now provide powerful tools for the capture, manipulation, integration, interrogation, modelling, analysis and visualisation of data - tools that are already used for policy support in a wide range of areas at almost all geographic and administrative levels. This holds especially for emergency preparedness and health risk reduction, which are all essentially spatial problems. To date, however, many initiatives have remained disconnected and uncoordinated, leading to less powerful, less compatible and less widely implemented systems than might otherwise have been the case.
The important matters discussed here include the probabilistic nature of most environmental hazards and the semi-random factors that influence interactions between these and human exposures; the effects of temporal and spatial scales on hazard assessment and imputed risk; the effects of measurement error in risk estimation and the stratification of risks and their impacts according to socioeconomic characteristics; and the quantification of socioeconomic differences in vulnerability and susceptibility to environmental hazards.
GIS are powerful analytical tools in their own right, but what is needed is much more effective communication between the many disciplines, professions and stakeholders concerned - something which this book helps to achieve.

For the sixth consecutive year, the AGILE conference promoted the publication a book collecting high-level scientific contributions from unpublished fundamental scientific research.
The papers published in the AGILE 2012 LNG&C volume contribute substantially to Geographical Information Science developments and to the success of the 15th AGILE conference (Avignon, France, 24-27April, 2012) under the title 'Bridging the Geographic Information Sciences'. This year's conference emphasizes that geoinformation science, geomatics and spatial analysis are fields in which different disciplines, epistemologies and scientific cultures meet.
Indeed, the scientific articles published in this volume cover a wide diversity of GIScience related themes, including: Spatio-temporal Data Modelling and Visualisation; Spatial Data Infrastructures; Geo Web Services and Geo Semantic Web; Modelling and Management of Uncertainty; Spatio-temporal Data Quality and Metadata; Mobility of Persons, Objects and Systems, Transports and Flows; Spatial Analysis, Geostatistics, and Geo Information Retrieval; Modelling and Spatial Analysis of Urban Dynamics, Urban GIS; GIS and Spatial Analysis for Global Change Modelling, Impact on Space; and Geographic Information Science: links with other disciplines and people.

This thesis presents a groundbraking methodology for the radar international community. The detection approach introduced, namely perturbation analysis, is completey novel showing a remarkable capability of thinking outside the box. Perturbation analysis is able to push forward the performance limits of current algorithms, allowing the detection of targets smaller than the resolution cell and highly embedded in clutter. The methodology itself is extraordinary flexibe and has already been used in two other large projects, funded by the ESA (European Space Agency): M-POL for maritime surveillance, and DRAGON-2 for land classification with particular attention to forests. This book is a perfectly organised piece of work where every detail and perspective is taken into account in order to provide a comprehensive vision of the problems and solutions.