University of South Florida

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCE (GIS)

Geographic Information Science is a broad term that covers all computer-based spatial analytical methodologies and technologies. It includes the technical fields of Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, as well as the methodological field of spatial statistics. Geographic Information Science has grown dramatically over the past twenty years, paralleling the growth in the processing power of computers, and, today, it forms the backbone of analytic methods within geography. It is also being used widely in many other fields such as archaeology, anthropology, business, civil engineering, criminology, ecology, environmental science, forestry, public health, transportation, and urban and regional planning.

Although many faculty and graduate students within our department use GIS in their research, some on an everyday basis, our core GIS faculty comprises Drs. Ma, Pu, and Reader. Dr. Ma’s interests are the application of GIS to the general areas of environmental research, regional planning, public health, and natural resource management, as well as the specific topic of renewable energy, particularly agriculture-based bioenergy, and its impact on biogeography, land use change and regional development. Dr. Pu applies the combined use of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and spatial statistics to his interests in natural hazard monitoring, specifically wildfire detection and monitoring, as well as land use/cover change detection, biophysical and biochemical parameters extraction, urban thermal environmental studies, and terrestrial ecosystem and environmental modeling. Dr. Reader’s interests are in using GIS and spatial statistics for social science applications. His current interest is in public health applications, specifically the two issues of cardiovascular death and low birth weight. Dr. Reader is also engaged in developing spatial statistical methodologies, particularly in the analysis of point pattern data.

Our department offers excellent facilities for teaching and research using GIS. It houses four 15-20 seat GIS laboratories that are upgraded on an ongoing and regular basis. The department also offers site-licensed software for geographic information systems (ESRI’s ArcGIS) and for remote sensing. The department also now houses (August ’07) the GIS and Cartographic Services Lab, whose Director, Pam Tingiris, is available for research consultation and map production. Finally, the department is an authorized training site for ESRI’s ArcGIS courses, and we can sometimes offer free seats in such courses to faculty and graduate students.