Hélène Mathian – författare

With the increasing proliferation of data and the systematization of geographic information referencing, maps are now a major concern – not only for specialists, but also for urban planning and development organizations and the general public. However, while producing a map may seem straightforward, the actual process of transforming data into a useful map with a specific purpose is characterized by a series of precise operations that require knowledge in a variety of fields: statistics, geography, cartography and so on.Handling and Mapping Geographic Information presents a wide range of operations based on a variety of examples. Each chapter adopts a different approach, explaining the methodological choices made in relation to the theme and the pursued objective.This approach, encompassing the entire map production process, will enable all readers, whether students, researchers, teachers or planners, to understand the multiple roles that maps can play in the analysis of geographical data.

Spatio-temporal Approaches presents a well-built set of concepts, methods and approaches, in order to represent and understand the evolution of social and environmental phenomena within the space. It is basedon examples in human geography and archeology (which will enable us to explore questions regarding various temporalities) and tackles social and environmental phenomena. Chapter 1 discusses how to apprehend change: objects, attributes, relations, processes.Chapter 2 introduces multiple points of view about modeling and the authors try to shed a new light on the different, but complementary approaches of geomaticians and thematicians. Chapter 3 is devoted to the construction of spatio-temporal indicators, to various measurements of the change, while highlighting the advantage of an approach crossing several points of view, in order to understand the phenomenon at hand. Chapter 4 presents different categories of simulation model in line with complexity sciences. These models rely notably on the concepts of emergence and self-organization and allow us to highlight the roles of interaction within change. Chapter 5 provides ideas on research concerning the various construction approaches of hybrid objects and model couplings.