GeoComputation in the grid computing age

Abstract

This paper first discusses some challenges that current GeoComputation faces in terms of usability, feasibility, applicability and availability, and the opportunities that will arise when new computing technologies, especially Grid Computing, emerge and prevail. A Grid-based geospatial problem-solving architecture is proposed to provide a solution for building an easy-to-use, widely accessible and high-performance geospatial problem-solving environment that integrates multiple complicated GeoComputational processes at an acceptable cost. A parallel geographic cellular automata model is given as an example to address some distinguishing issues when designing and implementing parallel algorithms for GeoComputation to effectively and efficiently utilize the computational Grid. © 2006 Springer-Verlag.