Automated Cartography and Electronic Geographic Information Systems

Locational Errors in Maps from Environmental Surveys and Their Implications for Information Extraction

“…It is essential to be aware of the likely magnitude of errors if quantitative information is to be abstracted from a map. With the increasing use of computer databases and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), it is a relatively simple process to integrate enormous quantities of information across large geographical areas to produce thematic maps which characterise the environment, or which can be used to model future states of the environment under different management conditions (Van der Zee and Huizing, 1988;Hoogart and Posthumus, 1993;Kienzle, 1993). However, inappropriate methods of information extraction and manipulation, which assume a high degree of accuracy, may produce misleading or faulty data as the errors of the source maps are enhanced and compounded .…”