Novel Sources of Geographical Data and Old Planning Problems: New Challenges and Novel Approaches

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of our Special Issue on “NeoGeography and WikiPlanning” (launched in 2011), we are calling for a new issue. Turner in 2006 wrote: “Neogeography means ‘new geography’ and consists of a set of techniques and tools that fall outside the realm of traditional GIS, Geographic Information Systems.” More than a decade passed and all the tools and techniques that were a novelty then, are now an integral part of spatial analysis and planning.

Turner’s definition of NeoGeography helps in defining a transition period in the history of GIS, a period where Desktop GIS lost its central role in favour of different architectures and platforms. Nowadays, Desktop GIS is part of a more complex technical infrastructure that leverages distributed computational and storage power. The techniques have increased their computational load and the data have increased in size and availability, demanding fast and scalable storage architectures.

With more analytical techniques, more data, and more power we are now able to answer old and new questions on the nature of geography, as well as to propose planning policies adequate to the times and consistent with the huge amount of data and tools to-date available. But as scholars we must not forget that the scientific credibility of such answers depends on the same techniques and data we used as inputs. While one can learn techniques, knowledge of the data is contextual, subjective, and anchored to the semantic domain of application and research. Knowing the data, however, it is not enough. The lack of official sources impacts the validation process and requires alternative datasets or data driven approaches. Now more than ever, we need new research, new tools, and new models to understand and organise the space around us.

This Special Issue welcomes contributions from scholars coming from different fields of expertise in the fields of the different sciences applied to space and ICT, willing to enhance the understanding and knowledge of the possibilities and opportunities given by coupling consolidated theories and disciplines with the potentials of technologies to solve spatial issues.

Dr. Maurizio Gibin
Prof. Dr. Beniamino Murgante
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Borruso
Guest Editors

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