GIS Representation for Visualizing and Mining Geographic Dynamics

Geographic dynamics refers to the development of processes that shape our environment. While geographic dynamics is central to geographic understanding, the current GIS technology is incapable of capturing information that reflects the working of geographic processes, such as spread of a wildfire, development of a weather system, and propagation of a disease. Inability to represent geographic dynamics excludes GIS capability to mine information about spatiotemporal behaviors which can lead to new insights into understanding evolution and influences of geographic processes. Since geographic dynamics is, by definition, spatial and temporal, GIS data models must be able to handle temporal information to represent geographic dynamics. The current GIS data models organize data based on how data are collected. Because geographic data are collected at a location or from an area, GIS data objects are centered at location and geometry. Geographic semantics (meanings) of a location are considered as attributes of the location. When time becomes necessary, geographic semantics of the location will be updated accordingly.