Developments in Geographical Information and Planning

We are living in the ‘information age’; we are part of the ‘information society’. Information has value because it can be used to extend our knowledge, enhance our wisdom and reduce our uncertainty. It helps us to understand how the world around us works and assists us in making better decisions about developments that will affect our circumstances. The value of information is evident when there is an improvement in the outcome resulting from the decision that is made. Take the example of an educational planner seeking to establish the best site for a new school in a suburban neighbourhood. Such a location decision will be improved with the availability of information about the residential addresses of households with children in the area who are likely to attend the new school once it has been built. In this example, as in many others, the problem is a spatial one and the information has a geographical reference. Probably 85 per cent or more of all information is capable of being regarded as geographic information because it can be spatially referenced. Thus it can be called ‘geoinformation’. The adoption of the term geoinformation has been accompanied by the emergence or popularisation of a suite of ‘geo’ terms including geodata, geodemography, geomarketing, geoinformatics, geomatics and, most recently, geocomputation.