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Encyclopedia of GIS pp 1147–1150Cite as

Temporal GIS and Applications

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Synonyms

Spatio-temporal information systems; Spatio-temporal informatics; Process; Snapshots; Matrices, geographic; Interaction, space-time; Timestamps; Event; Movement; Activity; Ontology, spatio-temporal; SNAP; SPAN; Reasoning, spatio-temporal

Definition

Geographic information is inherently spatial and temporal. Geographic applications often demand an integrative approach to examine changes and interactions over space and time. Temporal geographic information systems (GIS) are defined here as GIS capable of incorporating temporality into geospatial databases and enabling spatiotemporal query, analysis, and modeling. Adding time into geospatial databases is a far from trivial task. Currently, commercial or public‐domain temporal GIS support cell-based spatial data (i. e., rasters) or spatial data objects with one or restricted sets of simple geometries, mostly point- or line-based data only. Research-grade temporal GIS remain limited to pilot studies or prototypes....

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The SNAP ontology is consistent with the map metaphor that addresses reality through a series of snapshots. Hence, geographic entities are occurrents at a given point in time. On the other hand, the SPAN ontology applies the idea of 4‐dimensionalism in which geographic entities are defined by their volumes in 3D space and 1D temporal occupancy as space-time continuants.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Center for Spatial Analysis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    May Yuan

Authors
  1. May Yuan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Shashi Shekhar (McKnight Distinguished University Professor) (McKnight Distinguished University Professor)

  2. Management Science and Information Systems Department, Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Hui Xiong (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Yuan, M. (2008). Temporal GIS and Applications. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35973-1_1373

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