GIS in Science - location information as the key to scientific breakthrough?

We have recently launched an exciting new project about about the value of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for science. Through this WebLog we would like to invite you to participate - sharing your experiences, expertise and views.

Almost every scientific investigation has a spatial aspect: natural as well as cultural phenomenon always happen somewhere. It is not surprising therefore that scientists ever since Antiquity have shown an interest in location. A good example of this is the Illiad; Homer's classic account of the Greek-Persian wars, which gives a detailed description of the actual battles, as well as the sites at which they took place.

Although geographic or spatial aspects have been considered by scientists for many centuries, it has only recently become possible to take them into account systematically. This is largely due to the development of technological devices commonly known as Geographic Information Systems.

We believe that many scientific disciplines, now and in the near future, can benefit greatly from these systems because of the opportunities they offer for data integration and visualisation and spatial analysis. Inspired by a book by the American philosopher of science Joseph Pitt about the interaction between science and technology, however, we are also interested in the other side of the story: how can scientists, from the specific nature of their field, contribute to the further advancement of GIS?

Our first goal will therefore be to explore how GIS is currently being used in different sciences; how scientists benefit from their application; and to what extent they themselves add to the improvement of the systems. Through interviews with 'GIS'- specialists working in different fields and a study of the available literature, we hope to get a clear picture of this. Our findings are published in the Dutch magazine VI-Matrix. English translations of the first two articles - on historical GIS and GIS and Archaeology - can be found on our website.

More importantly, our project aims to invoke a debate among scientists about how GIS and science can benefit most from each other in the (near) future. We believe that this WebLog, serving as an online discussion forum, will be a crucial means of accomplishing just that. We therefore kindly invite you to share your experiences and expertise with us. For example, how do you feel about the use of location information in your discipline? Do you have any examples of surprising outcomes thanks to GIS? Which obstacles do you foresee on the way to a further integration of GIS in your field? Which contributions can you and your colleagues make to the further improvement of GIS?

Finally, we also try to see our project in the light of a more general discussion on the interaction between science and technology. Can we use GIS as a case study to model this interaction? What are the different stages of the integration of a technology (GIS) in a scientific discipline? Which are the requirements for a successful interaction between the two - science and technology? And what are the effects of innovative developments in each, on the other?

Through this WebLog we will notify you of interesting developments related to our project and put forward issues on which we would like to get your views.

We hope that our discussions will come together at the international conference that we are organising this Autumn. The results will be published in a book (in English).

Henk Scholten, Rob van de Velde and Niels van Manen

SPINlab, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands