Spatial, Temporal and Social Scaling in Sparsely Populated Areas – Geospatial Mapping and Simulation Techniques to Investigate Social Diversity

Scale-dependence is a well-known phenomenon in geography with sophisticated theoretical approaches and techniques at hand to deal with the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). Geographical analyses are, however, predominantly focusing on urban spaces with a high level of small-scaled social diversity. While space is considered scale-sensitive less attention is paid to scale in a temporal and social context. The paper extends the MAUP discussion to time and social issues (modifiable temporal and social unit problems, respectively) and claims to take sparsely populated areas in investigations of diversity equally into account, since diversity in these regions in particular manifests more pronounced. This is illustrated by two empirical examples from Austria and Australia, applying raster maps and an agent-based modelling technique.