Uncertainty and context pose fundamental challenges in GIScience and geographic research. Geospatial data are imbued with errors (e.g., measurement and sampling) and various types of uncertainty that often obfuscate any understanding of the effects of contextual or environmental influences on human behaviors and experiences. These errors or uncertainties include those attributable to geospatial data measurement, model specifications, delineations of geographic context in space and time, and the use of different spatiotemporal scales and zonal schemes when analyzing the effects of environmental influences on human behaviors or experiences. In addition, emerging sources of geospatial big data – including smartphone data, data collected by GPS, and various types of wearable sensors (e.g., accelerometers and air pollutant monitors), volunteered geographic information, and/ or location- based social media data (i.e., crowd- sourced geographic information) – inevitably contain errors, and their quality cannot be fully controlled during their collection or production. Uncertainty and Context in GIScience and Geography: Challenges in the Era of Geospatial Big Data illustrates how cutting- edge research explores recent advances in this area, and will serve as a useful point of departure for GIScientists to conceive new approaches and solutions for addressing these challenges in future research. The seven core chapters in this book highlight many challenges and opportunities in confronting various issues of uncertainty and context in GIScience and geography, tackling different topics and approaches. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Geographical Information Science.

As Geographic Information Systems (GIS) develop, there is a need to demystify the complex geographical world to facilitate computerization in GIS by the inaccuracies that emerge from man-machine interactions in data acquisition and by error propagation in geoprocessing. Users need to be aware of the impacts of uncertainties in spatial analysis and decision-making. Uncertainty in Geographical Information discusses theoretical and practical aspects of spatial data processing and uncertainties, and covers a wide range of types of errors and fuzziness and emphasizes description and modeling. High level GIS professionals, researchers and graduate students will find this a constructive book.

This book outlines the characteristics and implications of a potential geography of uncertainty. In doing so, it analyses this concept in reference to both the origins of uncertainty in Early Modern Age and the current geopolitical situation. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to uncertainty, drawing on global perspectives and literature to define its meanings and characteristics. In order to develop a thorough and precise understanding of the geography of uncertainty, a broad perspective is adopted, which includes other forms of knowledge in which the concept of uncertainty is firmly established. As such the book creates temporal links, that may occasionally be far off from one another, to present a geographical perspective of uncertainty. It provides an interpretation of the phenomenon of globalization in a new way, relating it to the first European openness to global spaces, the Early Modern Age, and identifying the transition from the medieval world to the Modern Age as the first manifestation of uncertainty in geography. Uncertainty is more prevalent than ever in today's geopolitical, economic, financial and social reality, as well as the ongoing emergencies and crises. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach rooted in the geography of Early Modernity by referring to geopolitical scenarios, literature and philosophy, to target the historical roots and the prevailing configuration of the geography of uncertainty. It will appeal to scholars and students of human and political geography, politics, philosophy, international relations, economics and history.

Geomatics is a field of science that has been intimately intertwined with our daily lives for almost 30 years, to the point where we often forget all the challenges it entails. Who does not have a navigation application on their phone or regularly engage with geolocated data? What is more, in the coming decades, the accumulation of geo-referenced data is expected to increase significantly. This book focuses on the notion of the imperfection of geographic data, an important topic in geomatics. It is essential to be able to define and represent the imperfections that are encountered in geographical data. Ignoring these imperfections can lead to many risks, for example in the use of maps which may be rendered inaccurate. It is, therefore, essential to know how to model and treat the different categories of imperfection. A better awareness of these imperfections will improve the analysis and the use of this type of data.

This book features papers presented at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop, help in Kyiv, Ukraine, in July 2006. The workshop focused on how uncertainty and fuzziness can be better modeled and implemented in Geographic Information Science to help decision makers make more informed choices, especially as they pertain to environmental security and protection, and brought together top researchers from both NATO countries as well as partner countries.

When compared to classical sciences such as math, with roots in prehistory, and physics, with roots in antiquity, geographical information science (GISci) is the new kid on the block. Its theoretical foundations are therefore still developing and data quality and uncertainty modeling for spatial data and spatial analysis is an important branch of t