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A principal focus in GIS higher education has been with developing curricula or accommodating new technologies to reflect the needs of the developing discipline. Pedagogy has largely reflected traditional metaphors of acquisition and transfer in the context of formal education, and this extends to preparation of students for the workplace. In this paper, the authors explore the potential for communities of practice, and in particular virtual communities of practice as a complement to more formal GIS education to provide a route to more situated, participatory learning. In so doing, the emphasis towards creating a GIS professional community of practice offers both the recognition of the role of situated knowledge in developing professional GIS expertise, and provides an important bridge from higher education to the workplace.

The arrival of the term Geographical Information System (GIS) in the 1960s soon created a demand for training and education in the use of this specialist hardware and software. Initially the main focus was on training people to use GIS, formal named degree programmes leading to postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications arrived later. This paper explores the changing landscape of U.K. degree level GIS education drawing on contemporary information from Higher Education Institution websites and a case study of the first single honours degree in GIS in Europe. The paper identifies a rise and fall in the number of named undergraduate “GIS” degrees since the late 1980s sandwiched between the continuation and development of postgraduate qualifications. In parallel with this trend the teaching and learning of GIS skills has emerged as a core component of undergraduate degree programmes with “Geography” in their title and in national school and degree level benchmarking statements for the discipline.

Traditional knowledge about fire and its effects held by indigenous people, who are connected to specific landscapes, holds promise for informing contemporary fire and fuels management strategies and augmenting knowledge and information derived from western science. In practice, however, inadequate means to organize and communicate this traditional knowledge with scientists and managers can limit its consideration in decisions, requiring novel approaches to interdisciplinary and cross-cultural communication and collaboration. We propose that Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) is one platform for the assemblage and communication of traditional knowledge vital to fire and fuels management, while preserving linkages to broader cultural contexts. We provide summaries of four preliminary case studies in the Intermountain West of North America to illustrate different potential applications of a PGIS tool in this context and describe some remaining challenges. Management and Policy Implications: Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) can offer a powerful approach for enhancing current decisionmaking by allowing for the integration of traditional and scientific knowledge systems with spatial environmental data in an interactive participatory process. Integrated data sets can allow traditional and scientific knowledge experts to share, explore, manage, analyze, and interpret multidimensional data in a common spatial context to develop more informed management decisions. Such combined data sets could provide a more comprehensive assessment of fire-related ecological change than is currently used in decisionmaking and enhance inclusion of effects on local resource utility values and areas of cultural significance. The use of a PGIS interface creates opportunities for traditional knowledge holders to share information and potential prescriptions while maintaining confidentiality. Knowledge integration efforts using PGIS as an organizational tool would help to bridge the communication gap that commonly exists between scientists, managers, and traditional knowledge holders as ecosystems continue to be altered through processes of land management and climate change.

Participatory GIS (PGIS) was borne out of the cauldron of the GIS and Society debates and the social theoretic critique of GIS. The form and practice of PGIS continues to reflect its origins. At its core PGIS remains focused on integrating local knowledge that is multivalent, equivocal, and often conflictual within a reductionist GIS technology and extensive Spatial Data Infrastructure. Recent conceptual developments in deep mapping and spatial storytelling have the potential to advance the representation of community knowledge through participatory deep mapping. Deep mapping explicitly recognizes that social life is contingent, implicated, and unpredictable. In representing a critical engagement between Geographic Information Science (GISc) and community knowledge and representation, deep mapping potentially challenges the misalignment in representing community knowledge in GIS and in bending geospatial technologies to the needs of communities.

Academic libraries increasingly offer geospatial services to support the teaching and research activities of all university disciplines. Ironically, services tend to be most used by those who are already routinely using geographic information systems (GIS) in their research and similar activities. We present a workflow by which library-based GIS service providers can identify, connect, and foster relationships with potential GIS users who stand to benefit the most from their services. Potential users include those who are not currently aware of GIS and its potential contribution to their particular discipline. The workflow begins with a bibliometric analysis to assess trends in the usage of GIS across a variety of disciplines. The result of the bibliometric analysis is a categorized list of those departments that stand to benefit the most from GIS services, based on Diffusion of Innovation Theory. Library-based GIS service providers can partner with liaison-librarians who serve as “change agents” to bring...

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a digital technology that integrates hardware and software to analyze, store, and map spatial data. GIS allows users to visualize (i.e., map) geographic aspects of data including locations or spatial concentrations of phenomena of interest. Though public health and other social work related fields have embraced the use of GIS technology in research, social work lags behind. Recent technological advancements in the field of GIS have transformed what was once prohibitively expensive, “experts only” desktop software into a viable method for researchers with little prior GIS knowledge. Further, humanist and participatory geographers have developed critical, non-quantitative GIS approaches that bring to light new opportunities relevant to social workers. These tools could have particular utility for qualitative social workers because they can help us better understand the environmental context in which our clients reside and give credence to their assessments of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for intervention. This article provides an introductory overview of the history of GIS in social work research and describes opportunities to use spatially informed approaches in qualitative social work research using a case study of a participatory photo mapping research study.

Critical GIS recognizes that GIS technology is socially constructed and emphasizes the key role of various socio-political and institutional contexts in shaping GIS knowledge production. This article focusses on the use of GIS in the context of e-governance in India. In recent years the massive proliferation of ICTs in India has led to a transformation from traditional governance to e – governance. Several planning projects have been launched under the rubric of e-governance and have witnessed novel use of various information technologies, GIS being one of them. The theoretical framework used in this study draws from the Critical GIS body of literature that calls for taking a holistic approach to GIS examination by coupling the internal contexts with the external contextual environment shaping an organization's GIS planning and management. In order to achieve this goal qualitative methods of inquiry are adopted to investigate a municipal e-governance project launched by the Government of Karnataka to address issues of urban development using GIS.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are being applied with increasing frequency, and with increasing sophistication, in international relations and in political science more generally. Their benefits have been impressive: analyses that simply would not have been possible without GIS are now being completed, and the spatial component of international politics—long considered central but rarely incorporated analytically—has been given new emphasis. However, new methods face new challenges, and to apply GIS successfully, two specific issues need to be addressed: measurement validity and selection bias. Both relate to the challenge of conceptualizing nonspatial phenomena with the spatial tools of GIS. Significant measurement error can occur when the concepts that are coded as spatial variables are not, in fact, validly measured by the default data structure of GIS, and selection bias can arise when GIS systematically excludes certain types of units. Because these potential problems are hidden by the technical details of the method, GIS data sets and analyses can sometimes appear to overcome these challenges when, in fact, they fail to do so. Once these issues come to light, however, potential solutions become apparent—including some in existing applications in international relations and in other fields.

History and geography have a close relationship. Historical research cannot is not complete without geography, especially historical geography, which studies past geographic matters and phenomena as well as the laws of geographic development and evolution. Thanks to the rapid development and wide application of geographic information systems (GIS), GIS has attracted the attention of researchers in the field of historical studies, especially historical geography. A series of eye-catching accomplishments has been achieved in this field. However, although the concept of historical GIS has been known for many years, there have been no great breakthroughs in some of the related fundamental theories and key techniques, and the general methodology and software platform for historical GIS have not yet taken shape. With a focus on these problems, this thesis, following the sequence of methods and functions of GIS applied in historical studies, especially historical geographic studies, analyzes the literature from the following perspectives: visualization, organization, management, and spatial analysis of historical geographic data. Furthermore, this thesis introduces the major accomplishments of GIS applications in historical geography and in other historical studies and discusses the functions and influence of GIS in current historical studies as well as the problems and development trends of the current research; the goals of this study are to promote the profound integration and innovative development between GIS and historical studies and to lead historical GIS research to deeper development.

Wildlife conservation is increasingly approached through socioecological lenses, where communities are fully involved and local development is integrated in conservation action. In this context, local beliefs and practices based on traditional knowledge are a crucial source of information for the development of sustainable management practices. Indeed, modern forest-dependent people have partially inherited from the traditional knowledge of their ancestors and continue to develop modern knowledge through more contemporary local innovations, and practices, which also become the part and parcel of their culture. Understanding how local beliefs and practices still influence the use of biodiversity is essential to incorporate traditional knowledge and practice into sustainable use and conservation policies. In this chapter we describe two examples of how traditional ecological knowledge may be incorporated in more formal management plans for wildlife in an indigenous community called Puerto Narino, Amazonas, Colombia: (1) The understanding of local taboos on wildlife to discuss management rules; (2) The traditional practice of calling animals and their use in the context of participatory monitoring.

Human activities and surrounding environments dynamically change over space and time. Geographers have long studied this change by describing patterns and processes across spatial and temporal scales in domains such as human migration, transportation, environmental change, and socio-economic dynamics. In the last two decades, the geographic information system (GIS) and geographic information science (GISci) research communities have witnessed a growing interest in studying spatiotemporal data. These data are available largely due to advancements in remote sensing and location-aware technologies and can be used to advance geographic knowledge over time. By incorporating the temporal dimension into the conventional GIS framework, researchers in many fields have contributed toward the development of space-time GIS (ST-GIS). This chapter provides a review of research trends in ST-GIS using dynamic topic modeling, a text mining method to analyze the evolution of topics in the ST-GIS literature.

Participatory GIS (PGIS) has been prescribed by scholars who sought to find a means to enable more equitable access to GIS data, diversifying the types of knowledge captured by a GIS and re-engineering GIS software. The popularity of PGIS is evident in the various studies and contexts in which it has been utilised. These include studies in risk assessment, land administration, resource management, crime mapping and urban design to mention but a few. Despite the popularity of PGIS as a body of research, little has been done in the analysis of the quality of PGIS information. The study investigated the use of data quality criteria commonly used in traditional GIS systems and shows that it is possible to apply the criteria used in traditional GIS to PGIS. It provides a starting point for PGIS studies to assess the quality of the product. Notably, this a reflective exercise on one case study, but the methodologies used in this study have been replicated in many others undertaken by Community Based Organisations as well as Non-Governmental Organisations. Therefore the findings are relevant to such projects.

This article aims to expand on existing justifications for geographical indications (GIs) protection in a way that combines the economic and cultural dimensions of GIs-based proprietary claims in protecting traditional knowledge-related resources. Conceptualized as tools for cultural protection in the economic milieu, it is argued that GIs can be seen as instruments that respond to challenges that indigenous and local communities face in agricultural production. These challenges include the loss of biological diversity, the challenges to food security and the threat of cultural homogenization. The article demonstrates the need for broader conceptualization of the role of GIs as instruments to pursue the goals of biodiversity, food security, and cultural identity.

The rise of web-based GIS resources has expanded the scale and scope of spatial information seeking in most, if not all, academic libraries. Even without formal GIS training, users can search for spatial information, create customized maps, as well as perform simple spatial analysis. However, few systematic evaluations have been conducted to summarize common web GIS functionalities as GIS moving from traditional desktop applications to the web. In this study, we evaluated and assessed the major functionalities of web GIS applications and their potential value for information discovery and access, using six most popular applications in the academic libraries. In addition, since web GIS targets non-GIS professionals, we also conducted an empirical usability evaluation of the six GIS applications in academic libraries. As the result, we identified eight major GIS functionalities that web GIS offers for information seeking purposes. The usability evaluation suggested that a user-friendly web GIS application should provide users a clear starting point, predictable map interaction, flexible customization capabilities, and familiar web experiences. Our study is one of the first studies to examine web-based GIS functionalities and their associated usability in a systematic way. The results will serve as an important reference for web GIS developers.

Land use changes are a key driver in global environmental changes and had a significant impact on the climate at all scales. Various human activities that took place thousands of years ago have an impact on the earth's surface. Today, with the limited supply and high demand, land use crisis became a big issue for the most countries. Changes in land use are not actually only providing a history of the area, but it also describes the way of life of its local communities. In the interdisciplinary research for land use study, cultural values, knowledge and perceptions of knowledge has been recognized as a major factor in determining the adopted approach applied in land use management in that area. Therefore, this paper tries to evaluate the role and potential of the integration of TLEK and GIS in mapping the series of changes in land use.Keyword: Local knowledge, TLEK, land use mapping & conceptual framework

Recent years, the studies on global climate change, local traditional knowledge (TK) – especially traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) have attracted a lot of attention. Local traditional knowledge can reflect the ethnic groups’ specific understandings of climate change and its impact. However, studies on the relationship between traditional knowledge and climate change have not achieved such significant result thus far. This paper examines the perspectives, knowledge, and classification of climate change based on local Tibetan traditional knowledge in Deqin County of Yunnan, China. It analyses the local actions how to “cope with” climate change, and further discusses the relationship between traditional knowledge and ecological environment. The suggestion to establish the database of climate change, then, there will be a new system if the database can be connected with TK database. From the new system, we can analyze and choose the appropriate farming practices and “climate-ready” crops to respond to different predicted weather.

Geographic information is of key importance in promoting sustainable development in the rural and urban areas of the global South. Within the broader framework of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), geographic information systems (GIS) include a wide range of tools used for landscape representation, including community produced paper maps, participatory mapping, and computer based systems. The prominent role of GIS in the global South is acknowledged by many scholars and institutions. This entry explores applications relevant to global development, such as crisis mapping and location based services, presents methodologies and approaches for the deployment of GIS in the global South and highlights the main sustainability issues. Keywords: crisis mapping; community mapping; GIS; global development; ICT4D; location based services; participatory GIS

Since the 1980s, geographic information systems (GIS) have developed rapidly and have been applied widely in the social, natural, and space sciences. In line with this explosive development and use, thousands of articles have been published on GIS, detailing both technical development and application-oriented research. Given this flood of material over the past thirty years, the purpose of this article is to apply a suite of scientometric and bibliometric approaches to help discover and benchmark the most important and highly cited papers in this burgeoning field. Not only do these techniques facilitate the connection of research themes and authors in the GIS community, but the approaches help highlight how research interests and foci evolve over time, greatly contributing to our understanding of the GIS knowledge domain. Although the scale and scope of this analysis are somewhat limited, the outlined method is highly generalizable and its results show that several key publications have helped forge the f...

The past 20 years have witnessed the emergence of a plethora of research themes in GIS that are quite different from conventional GIS practices. This article develops a preliminary framework to loosely knit together the diverse intellectual threads for the emerging GIS themes. It is found that the framework for the six senses of the whole new mind (design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning) captures the six major emerging GIS themes remarkably well. Conventional GIS practices have been predominantly concentrating on automated cartography/map-making, spatial modelling, geocomputation and database development with the goal for efficiency, which tend to be closely associated with the left-side/slow thinking capabilities of the human brain. In contrast, the emerging GIS themes focus more on geonarratives, qualitative/mixed methods, storytelling and synthesis with the goal for achieving equity and social justice, which tend to be more closely associated with the right-side/fast thinking capabilities o...

The purpose of this paper is to develop a practical method which integrate the mighty function of GIS with KBS (Knowledge Based System) .It emphatically bring forward a prototype of KBGIS. The research is an example of GIS-KBS integration in which the elements of KBS techniques are actually integrated with GIS. The idea of the prototype KBGIS system design was to put the model, data, domain knowledge, and the system's knowledge acquisition and reasoning mechanism and GIS together into a same environment.

Various researchers have proposed different approaches for implementing GIS in developing countries. One of them is an integrative framework from which the GIS implementation is typically linked with the implementation of other policies or programs. There is little discussion on benefits and risks of this approach particularly in health. Therefore, this case study aims at exploring this approach, particularly challenges being associated with it because there are observations of such practices in Malawi. It has been observed that it is possible to link GIS implementation activities with those of other programs or projects. This link helps to share resources: e.g. human, tools and time but more attention should be on priorities of implementation activities and utilization of such resources. However, it is not all activities that can be linked due to some factors. Some decisions need to be made ensuring that the linking is possible.

Field courses are essential for subjects like Earth Sciences, Geography and Ecology. In these topics, GIS is used to manage and analyse spatial data, and offers quantitative methods that are beneficial for fieldwork. This paper presents changes made to a first-year Earth Sciences field course in the French Alps, where new GIS methods were introduced. Students use GIS in preparation to explore their research area using an elevation model and satellite images, formulate hypotheses and plan the fieldwork. During the fieldwork, a pilot group managed their field-observations using GIS and made digital maps. Students praise the use of quantitative digital maps in the preparation. Students made use of the available techniques during the fieldwork, although this could be further intensified. Some students were extra motivated due to the technical nature as well as the additional analytical possibilities. The use of GIS was experienced as a steep learning curve by students, and not all staff members are confident in supervising students using GIS, which calls for a sufficient preparation and training of both students and staff. The use of GIS adds abstract analyses and quantitative assessment, which is a complementary learning style to fieldwork that mostly focuses on practical skills.

This entry, describing the world of geographic information systems (GIS), begins with a synopsis of the considerable academic debate over the classification of GIS as a tool or a science. The state of the art for GIS technology is described along with the current concern over the teaching of spatial thinking, a necessary prerequisite for the successful use of GIS. The importance of spatial autocorrelation in the statistical analysis of geographic data is explained. Recent developments including public participation GIS (PPGIS) and volunteer geographic information are recounted. The second part of the entry describes GIS applications and software packages along with the anticipated future for GIS. This entry concludes with a resource section that includes information on GIS Day and GIS conferences, journals, books, and organizations

Human knowledge of the polar region is a unique blend of Western scientific knowledge and local and indigenous knowledge. It is increasingly recognized that to exclude Traditional Knowledge from repositories of polar data would both limit the value of such repositories and perpetuate colonial legacies of exclusion and exploitation. However, the inclusion of Traditional Knowledge within repositories that are conceived and designed for Western scientific knowledge raises its own unique challenges. There is increasing acceptance of the need to make these two knowledge systems interoperable but in addition to the technical challenge there are legal and ethical issues involved. These relate to ‘ownership’ or custodianship of the knowledge; obtaining appropriate consent to gather, use and incorporate this knowledge; being sensitive to potentially different norms regarding access to and sharing of some types of knowledge; and appropriate acknowledgement for data contributors. In some cases, respectful incorporation of Traditional Knowledge may challenge standard conceptions regarding the sharing of data, including through open data licensing. These issues have not been fully addressed in the existing literature on legal interoperability which does not adequately deal with Traditional Knowledge. In this paper we identify legal and ethical norms regarding the use of Traditional Knowledge and explore their application in the particular context of polar data. Drawing upon our earlier work on cybercartography and Traditional Knowledge we identify the elements required in the development of a framework for the inclusion of Traditional Knowledge within data infrastructures.

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an introduction to core geographic information systems (GIS) concepts, prominent GIS software, the role of libraries in providing GIS services and support and resources for professional library staff to increase GIS knowledge and skills to fulfill the mission of serving the information needs of library patrons. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an overview of GISs core concepts and terminologies, Library GIS services and resources for library staff development. Findings – As GISs are being used by researchers in an ever-growing number of disciplines, librarians must increase their proficiency with geospatial technologies. Originality/value – While GISs have been used by certain researcher populations for some time, the increased use of such geospatial technologies creates a need for librarians who possess the skills and knowledge to assist patrons with their GIS needs. This paper introduces professional library staff to important GIS concepts, potential GIS services and resources to increase library staff’s competence with GISs.

The value of mixed-methods research has recently re-gained impetus among geographers interested in the production of knowledge (Elwood, 2010). Key conversations have centred on efforts to blend traditionally viewed quantitative tools such as GIS with more qualitative practices and data. While discussions in qualitative GIS have demonstrated the value of merging the qualitative in GIS, we highlight the unexplored potential of GIS in the enactment of qualitative research, specifically as visual method. Our argument is based on research which explored the role of the state in urban change in Dublin City. We conclude that there is significant potential to better incorporate GIS into visual methods, particularly through photo-elicitation style interviews. Contrary to some of the existing literature, the persuasive power of the map as visual resource can prove particularly successful in engaging elite stakeholders. Further, we conclude that the methodological approach we took, facilitated the production of different kinds of knowledge around processes of urban governance.

The technological advantages of GIS make it be a useful tool in city and regional planning, such as planning data analysis, spatial analysis and decision making .This paper introduced the specific use of GIS in regional planning and summarized the use of GIS in different aspect of regional planning. Forecasting the way to use GIS in G3 and G4times and the tend ,the development of GIS in the future.

This article presents a methodological and technical reflection on an innovative and interactive qualitative geographic information systems (GIS) tool and method created to gauge people's images and perceptions of their neighbourhood. Knowledge gained from the critical GIS debates has led to the development of qualitative GIS and public participation GIS (PPGIS) methods, which aim to counteract the adverse effects of GIS as predominantly top-down. Drawing from critical and qualitative GIS arguments, the authors tried to create an accessible, bottom-up GIS data-collection method that involved conducting qualitative interviews while presenting digital maps on a tablet. This digital tool allowed users to change scales by zooming in and out on the map and also offered a selection of base maps affording numerous views of the city. This method not only allowed residents to generate GIS data about their neighbourhood but was also used as a visual support tool to stimulate dialogue during the interviews. With the aid of examples from a study in Geneva, Switzerland, this article discusses the relevance, strengths, and limitations of this method in the field of neighbourhood research.

This paper focuses on spatial data characteristics of coalfield geological information and uses GIS technology to analyze and manage geological information resources of the coalfield efficiently. It also designs the geographic information system of coalfield and receives the secondary development of GIS database system using ArcGIS. In the development and design process of database system, this paper uses the ArcEngine component and develops data system in the Net platform of MircoSoft Company and uses programming control method of C # programming language to manage coalfield geology data. Finally, this paper establishes the contact between the data content, data attribute and geographic information system. It designs visual information view mode of coalfield geology. It improves management efficiency of coalfield’s geological information and provides technical reference for the study of coalfield’s geology information.

Geographic information systems (GIS) represent more than a tool for spatial data handling. Qualitative and mixed-methods approaches with GIS value the suite of spatial methods and technologies, while typically showing a marked sensitivity toward issues of subjectivity, knowledge production, exclusion, reflexivity, and power relations. Although recent research in the use of qualitative GIS demonstrates the ways in which spatial representations and analyses can be used as part of critical geographic inquiry, there remain significant opportunities to demonstrate and synthesize the particular affordances of these approaches. Alongside broader developments in public scholarship and the digital humanities, mixed-methods research with GIS is coming of age, as technological innovations are easing access to data and access to visualization and analytical tools for some. The implications of these developments at the level of knowledge construction within community-based, critical research have been underexplored, h...

Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (QGIS) refers to an array of methodological efforts to incorporate into Geographic Information System (GIS) more qualitative data than have traditionally been included. The majority of critical geographers have focused on the advantages of QGIS as an innovative method in feminist geography; however, little attention has been given to its limitations, particularly in non-Western contexts, where sociocultural subjectivity appears to be more difficult to access. The exciting prospect QGIS fosters, along with its conceptual and technical limitations, is the central focus of this article. This article represents an attempt to go beyond the first generation of QGIS literature and to critically explore its limitations. It draws on insights from my fieldwork studying Iranian women's sociospatial behaviors in Tehran's public spaces. Photographs, sketches, and narratives were linked to GIS data gathered from the Iranian Census Organization, National GIS Database, and Tehra...

It is time to make a critical appraisal of the application of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to historical research. In this article I briefly review the promises and achievements of the use of this technology in history and I also consider some of its possible developments. Based on the experience of a project on the Iberian Peninsula, a special emphasis is put on transnational GIS. In the last section, the new avenues opened by GIS to historical research and the difficulties that its application also involves are considered in the light of the evolution of historiography and of the experience of using databases in history. I argue that although the application of this tool in historical research represented an important innovation, GIS did not bring about a revolution in knowledge production in history. I also raise doubts about the notion of a spatial turn in this field. I finally suggest that the emphasis should be put, not on the technology, but on the historical problems.

The field of GIS (S for Systems, Sciences, Services, and Studies) is at a cross-road in the early 2010s. Aiming to link the multiple visions for the next phase of GIS development, this article suggests that the emerging open GIS should serve as a guiding concept. Contextualized in the broader literature of open science, this article proposes open GIS should include eight dimensions related to data, software, hardware, standards, research, publication, funding, and education. For the GIS community, open GIS offers four exciting opportunities: (1) technology-driven opportunities for addressing challenges posed by the (spatial) big data deluge; (2) application-led opportunities for confronting the problems of a rapidly changing planet; (3) curiosity-inspired, crowd-powered opportunities for the development of an open and geographic citizen science; and (4) education-focused opportunities for implementing the vision of a spatial university. Although there are academic, legal, social/political, and environmental impediments for the practice of open GIS, open GIS will become increasingly important in shaping our research and educational agendas in the future.

The paper is based on a study whose objective is to provide an understanding of the extent to which traditional knowledge and indigenous institutions for natural resource governance remain relevant to solving current land degradation issues and how they are integrated in formal policy process in Kilimanjaro Region. Data collection for this study combined qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 221 individuals from households were interviewed using a structured questionnaire; 41 in-depth interviews and 24 focus group discussions were held. Findings indicate that the community acknowledges that there is traditional knowledge and indigenous institutions regarding sustainable land management. However, awareness of the traditional knowledge and practices varied between districts. Rural-based districts were found to be more aware and therefore practiced more of traditional knowledge than urban based districts. Variations in landscape features such as proneness to drought, landslides and soil erosion have also attracted variable responses among the communities regarding traditional knowledge and indigenous practices of sustainable land management. In addition, men were found to have more keen interest in conserving the land than women as well as involvement in other traditional practices of sustainable land management. This is due to the fact that, customarily, it is men who inherit and own land. This, among other factors, could have limited the integration of traditional knowledge and indigenous institutions in village by-laws and overall policy process. The paper concludes by recommending that traditional knowledge and indigenous institutions for sustainable land management should be promoted among the younger generations so as to capture their interest, and ensure that successful practices are effectively integrated into the national policies and strategies.

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) has been steadily increasing since initial applications first appeared in the social work literature in the mid-1990s. However, this increase is not as substantial as one might think. A possible cause for this is the seeming lack of content on GIS that is included in the social work curriculum. In 2003, an elective course in GIS application was developed at a school of social work in the Northeast region of the United States. The course objective was to promote the use of GIS in the field for social services planning, practice, and research. Through hands-on tutorials, the course introduces students to the basic functions of a variety of GIS software including online programs, such as SocialExplorer and BatchGeo, as well as the commercial software package ArcGIS. Participants also learn to locate and manage data from public domain sources and are introduced to advanced spatial analysis tools. This training allows social work students and professionals to pur...

34 pág., 1 mapa, gráf., The resilience of a social–ecological system largely depends on its capacity to learn by absorbing new information to cope with change. But, how resilient are traditional knowledge systems? We explore the resilience of the traditional agricultural knowledge system of home gardeners in the Iberian Peninsula (n = 383). We use multivariate analysis to explore the co-existence of agricultural information derived from two different knowledge systems: (i) knowledge and use of landraces (representative of traditional agricultural knowledge) and (ii) knowledge and use of commercial crop varieties (representative of modern agricultural knowledge). Our analyses show a positive association between both types of knowledge: overall gardeners who are more knowledgeable about commercial crop varieties are also more knowledgeable about landraces. Despite this overall tendency, results from hierarchical cluster analysis showed different groups of traditional and modern knowledge holders. Our results suggest that (a) traditional knowledge is not a frozen and static corpus of knowledge and (b) modern and traditional agricultural knowledge are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Both maintenance of some aspects of the traditional knowledge and incorporation of some aspect of the modern knowledge seem to be core elements of home gardeners’ body of agricultural knowledge which is constantly evolving in response to changing environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Changes in traditional knowledge can be seen as a part of the general self-organizing process of this knowledge system., Research was funded by the Programa de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) (SEJ2007-60873/SOCI and CSO2011-27565).

Digital cartography offers great potential for mapping the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities. This is particularly so because of the close relationship between such knowledge and traditional lands. Yet the mapping of traditional knowledge also raises distinct legal and ethical considerations which should be at the forefront in the design and implementation of indigenous digital cartography projects. This paper examines these considerations through the lens of digital atlases jointly created by Inuit communities and Carleton University’s Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC).

Knowledge maps for science and technology are used extensively in the research projects. However, they are not organized systematically and are not necessarily suitable to be used in the research projects. Therefore, this study aims to organize the knowledge maps in order to support scientific research projects. To this end, the existing knowledge maps for science and technology are classified as one of four types based on data representation methods; the frequency summary map, trend summary map, distribution-based knowledge map and network-based knowledge map. Additionally, by summarizing and classifying the knowledge maps through the principle of `five w`s and one h`, the unexplored area are investigated. Finally, some examples of useful knowledge maps in terms of data analysis are provided with details such as definitions, components and utilization purposes. These findings may be a starting point for future research into a better understanding of knowledge maps for science and technology.

The progressive consolidation of information technologies on a large scale has been facilitating and progressively increasing the production, collection, and diffusion of geographic data, as well as facilitating the integration of a large amount of external information into geographic information systems (GIS). Traditional GIS is transforming into a consolidated information infrastructure. This consolidated infrastructure is affecting more and more aspects of internet computing and services. Most popular systems (such as social networks, GPS, and decision support systems) involve complex GIS and significant amounts of information. As a web service, GIS is affected by exactly the same problems that affect the web as a whole. Therefore, next generation GIS solutions have to address further methodological and data engineering challenges in order to accommodate new applications’ extended requirements (in terms of scale, interoperability, and complexity). The conceptual and semantic modeling of GIS, as well as the integration of semantics into current GIS, provide highly expressive environments that are capable of meeting the needs and requirements of a wide range of applications. [...]

This study analyzes the status of GIS in schools in thirty-three countries and proposes recommendations for advancing the implementation and effectiveness of GIS in secondary education from an international perspective. Thirty-three countries have been evaluated in the study to assess the global landscape of educational GIS by analyzing how GIS is recognized, approached, and used across the world with chief challenges, opportunities, and case studies. As the study revealed, the current global landscape of GIS remains small for secondary education; however, the convergence of citizen science, emphasis on spatial thinking, mobile devices, open data, and Web-based map services could cause a significant increase in the numbers of schools, educators, and students teaching and learning with GIS.

Geographic information science (GIS) features a wide range of disciplines and has broad applicability. Challenges associated with rapidly developing GIS technology and the currently limited teaching and practice materials hinder universities from cultivating highly skilled GIS graduates. Based on the idea of “small core, big network,” a comprehensive and interesting approach to GIS teaching practice is introduced in which a variety of key knowledge areas and technologies are effectively incorporated into a single project. A year-long assignment based on this approach was conducted, providing the students with practical training and successfully resulting in a digital three-dimensional representation of the campus.

This paper proposes a solution for storing and conjugating the traditional knowledge archives system which draws international attention. The world’s traditional knowledge is disappearing so fast that its documentation and archives should be considered urgently and significantly. We have created the traditional knowledge archives system based on the Web 2.0 platform to enhance the preservation of traditional knowledge. The major contributions of our system in the areas of both digital archives and traditional knowledge are twofold: an integrated archive structure using high technical mechanism and a multi-functional application for the public.

Geographic information system (GIS) Education is booming up in China, GIS applications have already exceeded their areas of expertise driven by the needs of the community and promote the rapid development of GIS education in non-GIS expertise. The necessity and feasibility of application of GIS in the border defense teaching were discussed based on the introduction of GIS functions and some ideas about applications of GIS in the border defense teachingbased on the teaching of the border defense in , and the corresponding ideas were proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the perspectives of the use of traditional knowledge in national socio-economic development in general and in the development of local communities of aboriginal nations of Siberia in particular. This study aims to analyze the traditional economic activity with the help of the questionnaire of 1500 respondents (from different ethnic groups) in different parts of the Siberian region—Khakasia. The results of empirical research have shown that in Khakas communities traditional kinds of activity are extended and they are of great importance for people as earlier. The comparative analysis of labor productivity in animal husbandry and wildlife management allows to draw a conclusion of the positive influence of traditional knowledge in these fields of activity. Some clusters of traditional economic institutions of the indigenous people of Southern Siberia have been identified such as: institutions for corporate property of land, institutions for private property of cattle, institutions for labor mutual aid, institutions for wandering, institutions for communal managements. The results of evolution of traditional institutions and their current state are presented. Even the transformed institutions are accepted by members of national communities as earlier. Therefore they can become the effective instrument of social and economic development of indigenous people territories. The spiraling process of traditional knowledge of Khakas people is explained in the SECI Model. According to the research, regarding the Khakas community, the management process of knowledge has to include three types of economic agents: local government authorities, entrepreneurs, members of Khakas community. Three strategies to manage the traditional knowledge are recommended such as: animal husbandry development, commercialization of traditional wildlife management, realization of a state policy taking into consideration the existence of traditional institutions. The research demonstrates the traditional knowledge may be the factor of economic increase and social development for local society. Moreover, it is a national heritage and it needs to be managed.

Objective: Geospatial Information System (GIS) is predominantly used in urban planning, and improves quality of people living in an area in many ways. Even though so many hardware and software systems are employed in GIS, the database gains the greatest significance. The intension is to progress a spatial database that should be used as a representation or model of the world, particularly to design for a very specific application. Analysis: The GIS data framework is the methodology proposed to promote an application specific spatial database. It comprises of integrating heterogeneous type of data, followed by constructing a semi-structured multi dimensional data model which directs to design a spatial database. Findings: The novelty in this GIS data framework is Building Information Model (BIM) integrated with the traditional data in support of answering indoor spatial queries. Moreover, this framework worked with BigData to support heterogeneous type of data and to automate decision support system. Enhancements: The views focused on the case studies in this paper help to travel in a new direction of GIS specification, utilization and research from the routine methodologies. This paper widens the scope of research directions in order to establish new techniques in each diverse field.

Traditional knowledge is a valuable asset for any country as it plays a vital role in making the nation more progressive and transforming its society. This paper discusses the need for preserving traditional knowledge. The paper describes the role of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library and its activities in preserving traditional medicinal knowledge in India.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is classified as an information technology to solve various spatial problems in civil engineering. GIS provides spatial information to the system and therefore, complex spatial analysis of problem could be carried out. The objective of this paper is to promote the use of GIS as a tool for civil engineering problem solving. This paper describes the work undertaken to demonstrate the potential use of GIS in civil engineering via a prototype project. The presentation of this article is mainly focused on the applications of GIS in transportation engineering including transportation, highway and traffic. Moreover, this study could also contribute relevant and benefit guidance to the public and private sectors with techniques in determining potential activity using the GIS software. The utilisation of GIS can prepare and contributes towards a profitable cost and effective service. The end product should be an effective information system and a final potential GIS map. With GIS support, it could assist user to make a more effective and efficient decision on any difficulties that will arise. Compared to the conventional methods, the system provides a proper and an effective, update and accessible result of spatial analysis.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a technology that deals with location to support better representations and decision making. It has a long tradition in several planning areas, such as urbanism, environment, riskiness, transportation, archeology or tourism. In academics context higher education has followed that evolution. Despite of their potentialities in education, GIS technologies at the elementary and secondary have been underused. Empowering graduates to learn with GIS and to manipulate spatial data can effectively facilitate the teaching of critical thinking. Likewise it has been recognized that GIS tools can be incorporated as an interdisciplinary pedagogical tool. Nevertheless more practical examples on how GIS tools can enhance teaching and learning process, namely to promote interdisciplinary approaches. The proposed paper presents some results obtained from the project “Each thing in its place: the science in time and space”. This project results from the effort of three professors of Geography, History and Natural Sciences in the context of Didactics of World Knowledge curricular unit to enhance interdisciplinarity through Geographic Information Technologies (GIT). Implemented during the last three years this action-research project developed the research practice using GIS to create an interdisciplinary attitude in the future primary education teachers. More than teaching GIS the authors were focused on teaching with GIS to create an integrated vision where spatial data representation linked the space, the time and natural sciences. Accumulated experience reveals that those technologies can motivate students to learn and facilitating teacher’s interdisciplinary work.