Geocomputation
A Practical Primer
- Chris Brunsdon - National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
- Alex Singleton - University of Liverpool, UK
Spatial Analytics and GIS
Geocomputation is the use of software and computing power to solve complex spatial problems. It is gaining increasing importance in the era of the ‘big data’ revolution, of ‘smart cities’, of crowdsourced data, and of associated applications for viewing and managing data geographically - like Google Maps. This student focused book:
- Provides a selection of practical examples of geocomputational techniques and ‘hot topics’ written by world leading practitioners.
- Integrates supporting materials in each chapter, such as code and data, enabling readers to work through the examples themselves.
Chapters provide highly applied and practical discussions of:
- Visualisation and exploratory spatial data analysis
- Space time modelling
- Spatial algorithms
- Spatial regression and statistics
- Enabling interactions through the use of neogeography
All chapters are uniform in design and each includes an introduction, case studies, conclusions - drawing together the generalities of the introduction and specific findings from the case study application – and guidance for further reading.
This accessible text has been specifically designed for those readers who are new to Geocomputation as an area of research, showing how complex real-world problems can be solved through the integration of technology, data, and geocomputational methods. This is the applied primer for Geocomputation in the social sciences.
Supplements
This is a vital primer to what is ‘Big’ about geocomputation: new data (and lots of them), innovative methods of analysis, new geographic information technologies and, above all, an over-arching rethink of how we represent geography. It provides an important and strategic contribution to contemporary scientific geography and data analytics.
Brunsdon and Singleton offer a unique contribution to the zeitgeist of geocomputation. Geocomputation as a ubiquitous and quite novel field, is explored by the authors in a deductive and highly constructive fashion. The authors offer a wide array of applications brought by leading scholars in the field of Geographic Information Science, spatial analysis and spatial modelling. The role of new techniques that are revolutionizing the usage of geocomputation is well explored and the systematic approach the book adopts in envisioning available tools is appropriately constructed. This book is a great contribution for an advancing field, and a much welcomed achievement for the growth of a new kind of spatial science.
Great starting textbook for 3rd year students in Geography
This book is written assuming some exposure to modeling and displaying geo-referenced data in engineering and/or geography context. It would work well for advanced undergraduates in geography or master's level students in statistics, engineering, or geography.
This book provides up-to-date examples of geocomputation tools, methods and visualization ways. Authors provides several practical examples for researchers and student of geography or GIS. Current improvements in GIS and geocomputation involves open source GIS programs and new ways to produce spatial data. All examples and method descriptions provide good starting point to the world of current state of geocomputation.
My opinion is that this book is suitable course material for advanced GIS courses at university level. The best side in this book is the extensive use of colourful maps and figures. Example maps are essential when demonstrating GIS methodology and example studies. In this way the reader can absorb more knowledge.
short but comprehensive overview of contemporary geo-spatial problems and solutions
very useful are the practical examples of implementation
This is a very accessible text that helps students to understand the types of practical choices that need to be made when pursuing a geo-computational analysis. The geodemographics chapter was particularly good in talking the reader through the problem in a way that would make sense to anyone with modest maths while allowing them to feel like they could undertake a similar analysis for themselves. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it is really a great reference textbook for students (and lecturers!)
This is a very good text book. I particularly like that it relies on R as a software rather than other GIS software which is expensive and may not be available on university campuses. The textbook is an essential reading for students that would like to map inter-ethnic conflict as part of their research project on my course Race, Ethnicity and Migration. More and more students should be actively encouraged to use geocomputational techniques as they present a nice visualization of complex problems.
for MSc in GIS students
