NASA NTRS1998
Scale is an "innate" concept in geographic information systems. It is recognized as something that is intrinsic to the ingestion, storage, manipulation, analysis, modeling, and output of space and time data within a GIS purview, yet the relative meaning and ramifications of scaling spatial and temporal data from this perspective remain enigmatic. As GISs become more sophisticated as a product of more robust software and more powerful computer systems, there is an urgent need to examine the issue of scale, and its relationship to the whole body of spatiotemporal data, as imparted in GISS. Scale is fundamental to the characterization of geo-spatial data as represented in GISS, but we have relatively little insight on the effects of, or how to measure the effects of, scale in representing multiscaled data; i.e., data that are acquired in different formats (e.g., map, digital) and exist in varying spatial, temporal, and in the case of remote sensing data, radiometric, configurations. This is particularly true in the emerging era of Integrated GISs (IGIS), wherein spatial data in a variety of formats (e.g., raster, vector) are combined with multiscaled remote sensing data, capable of performing highly sophisticated space-time data analyses and modeling. Moreover, the complexities associated with the integration of multiscaled data sets in a multitude of formats are exacerbated by the confusion of what the term "scale" is from a multidisciplinary perspective; i.e., "scale" takes on significantly different meanings depending upon one's disciplinary background and spatial perspective which can lead to substantive confusion in the input, manipulation, analyses, and output of IGISs (Quattrochi, 1993). Hence, we must begin to look at the universality of scale and begin to develop the theory, methods, and techniques necessary to advance knowledge on the "Science of Scale" across a wide number of spatial disciplines that use GISs.