The Changing Face of GIS
Michael F. Goodchild
University of California
Santa Barbara

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Two topics• New data sources• Critical spatial thinking

2Volunteered geographic information (VGI)•A phenomenon of the 21st Century– recent months••••

User-generated content
Crowdsourcing
Asserted information
The empowerment of millions of private citizens– largely untrained– no obvious reward– no guarantee of truth– no authority

www.openstreetmap.org

http://www.directrelief.org/Flash/HaitiShipments/Index.html

www.flickr.com

www.wikimapia.org

www.wikimapia.org

Types of VGI• Asserted or authoritative– hybrids• Tomtom• Egocentric or allocentric– whose location?
• location-based social networking• http://vgi.spatial.ucsb.edu/inventory• Structured or unstructured– accuracy

VGI quality• Spatial context– automatic checks• Crowdsourcing mechanism– how many eyes?

• Authoritative data often older– standards of inaccuracy• The VGI cycle– initial enthusiasm– popularity attracts misuse
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Emergency management• Recent fires in Santa Barbara– Zaca Fire (July 07)• burned for 2 months• no houses lost– Gap Fire (July 08)• burned for 7 days
• no houses lost– Tea Fire (November 08)• burned for 2 days
• 230 houses lost– Jesusita Fire (May 09)• burned for 2 days
• 75 houses lostHits

Source595673Jesusita Fire (Ethan)

188308SBC Jesusita Fire Santa Barbara, CA (Robert O'Connor - fire news blog)

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Jesusita Fire Map (Randy - Independent.com)

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Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara - LA Times map (Los Angeles Times)

27777

Map of burned homes in Santa Barbara (Los Angeles Times)

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Jesusita Fire Evacuation Areas: Approximation (COSB)

25454

Santa Barbara 'Jesusita Fire' (ABC7 Eyewitness News)

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Jesusita Fire - Santa Barbara (lanewspace)

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Santa Barbara Damaged Homes 2008 (Los Angeles Times, note: mapped for comparison with Jesusita)

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Jesusita Fire (longhairedhippy)

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Santa Barbara Fire Evacuation (Gary);962

Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara (ABC30 Action News)

788

Wildfire ~ Santa Barbara (Buffalo)

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Closure map - Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara (Los Angeles Times)

461

Untitled (Matthew, note: discovered via google.com.mx);

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Jesusita Fire Structure Damage (Paul Bartsch);16

Lessons learned• Authoritative information– must be verified by officials– too slow for the Tea and Jesusita Fires• Asserted information– carries risk of false positives• false rumor of Tea Fire in Mission Canyon• some unnecessary evacuations– people are willing to accept false positives– lack of authoritative information amounts to false negatives– false negatives are far less acceptable than false positives• there were some posted false negatives

Critical spatial thinking• Larger than GIS– now that the technology is easier to use• What every Google Earth user needs toknow• Focus on fundamental spatial concepts– from simple, acquired in early childhood– to advanced, acquired in college• One of Gardner’s seven types of intelligence– almost entirely neglected in education

“1. Linguistic
Children with this kind of intelligence enjoy writing, reading, telling stories or doing
crossword puzzles.
2. Logical-MathematicalChildren with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories andrelationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments.
3. Bodily-Kinesthetic
These kids process knowledge through bodily sensations. They are often athletic,dancers or good at crafts such as sewing or woodworking.
4. Spatial
These children think in images and pictures. They may be fascinated with mazes orjigsaw puzzles, or spend free time drawing, building with Lego or daydreaming.
5. MusicalMusical children are always singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite
aware of sounds others may miss. These kids are often discriminating listeners.
6. InterpersonalChildren who are leaders among their peers, who are good at communicating and whoseem to understand others' feelings and motives possess interpersonal intelligence.
7. Intrapersonal
These children may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are selfmotivated.”

Howard Gardner
http://www.professorlamp.com/ed/TAG/7_Intelligences.html

What is spatial thinking?
“Three aspects of spatial ability:•Spatial knowledge– symmetry, orientation, scale, distance decay,etc.

•Spatial ways of thinking and acting– using diagramming or graphing, recognizingpatterns in data, change over space fromchange over time, etc.

•Spatial capabilities– ability to use tools and technologies such as
spreadsheet, graphical, statistical, and GIS
software to analyze spatial data”

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11019.html

UCSB is spatial

What fundamental concepts exist in
spatial intelligence?
• Are they sophisticated and abstract enoughto warrant a place in the curriculum?
– like mathematics, statistics, language, music– can spatial intelligence gain more respect?
– where in the curriculum?

• Are they an appropriate basis for improved
GIS user interface design?
– does the interface need improvement?

1. Location• Defining and measuring location– the impossibility of exact measurement••••

From infinitesimal point to extended area
Location as context
Location as common key
It is important to know where events occur

2. Distance, direction• Measurement– plane, globe– buffers• Distance decay– decline of interaction with distance– cost, time impediments– footprints of human behavior

3. Neighborhood/region/territory• The context of individuals– action space• Homogeneous areas• The reporting zone containing the individual– arbitrarily imposed on a continuous Earth• The ecological fallacy– the modifiable areal unit problem• Competition for space– trade areas, bird territories– functional regions

4. Scale• Level of detail– the inevitability of generalization• Methods of upscaling, downscaling• Fractal concepts• Scale is always important– many properties cannot be defined independently of scale• length of a coastline• slope of a topographic surface• land use class• “the flattest spot in the US”

Conclusions• Web 2.0 is creating novel sources ofgeospatial information– that can complement traditional sources– that can play a key role in time-critical situations• It is possible to enumerate the fundamental
concepts of a spatial approach– four broadly defined concepts– 27 in De Smith, Goodchild, and Longley (2006)
Geospatial Analysis• www.spatialanalysisonline.com– 186 in www.teachspatial.org ontology

Conclusions (2)• Critical spatial thinking is more than GIS– an enveloping conceptual framework for many
new technologies and disciplines– phenomena embedded in space and time– many drivers• One of a minimal set of intelligences– part of everyone’s education