Geographical information and planning

Abstract

The 1990s have seen some remarkable changes in geographical information (GI) provision and computer technology that have impacted on many of the activities that constitute planning in all its different forms. However, relatively few texts in the field of geographical information systems (GIS) and planning have been published since Henk Scholten and John Stillwell edited Geographical Information Systems for Urban and Regional Planning in 1990. This volume seeks to redress the balance by showing how GI of various types is being used in urban, physical, environmental, socio-economic and business planning contexts at local, regional and national scales with the assistance of GIS and modelling methods, and how the uses of GI and GI technologies have evolved over the last decade. During this period, a number of meetings took place in Europe in different locations organised initially by European Geographical Information Systems (EGIS, 1990-94) and more recently by the Joint European Conference and Exhibition (JEC) on Geographical Information (1995-97). These meetings brought together members of the GI community from across the world to discuss GI research and GIS applications. One of the Special Interest Groups associated with the JEC gatherings was that on 'Geographical Information and Planning' and several of the contributions in this book have their origins in papers presented to the group's meetings. We are very grateful to our forty five contributors from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, for taking the time and making the effort either to convert existing papers into chapters for the book or for writing chapters from scratch. Together, these contributions provide a hugely diverse collection, reflecting the varied interests of those involved and the widespread developments and applications which they have undertaken. We are also grateful to Paul Longley who, as the book's external referee, gave some helpful suggestions on the manuscript. Finally we are indebted to Alison Manson in the Graphics Unit of the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, for the immense job that she has done in transforming the contents of our original files into high quality camera ready copy for the publishers and for maintaining her good humour throughout the project.