Spatio-temporal analysis of territorial changes from a multi-scale perspective

Abstract

The full integration of time dimensions in GIS still represents a research challenge. A number of systems provide ways to visualise harmonised timestamped geographical data onto maps, with interpolated curves representing how these data have changed over time. However, these systems frequently mask the concerns linked to changes in territorial organisations and the harmonisation of data. In fact, the development of a territory should be considered in connection with its neighbourhood, governance and genealogy relationships. This article focuses on the difficulties linked with the 'change of support problem', which can arise when conducting spatio-temporal analysis of data. First, we present a data model handling the changing relationships between territories. Then, we illustrate how this model can be instantiated using examples that have taken place in Europe. We show how the model can address questions such as that of change blindness. Finally, we explain how hierarchical and genealogical relationships can be used inside an interactive cartographic tool for spatio-temporal analysis. It provides various views of the same phenomena at multiple scales, through an approach that takes into account the changes in territorial organisation.

Geographic information science in historical landscape studies

“…Although geographic information science (GISc) has not yet been fully integrated in historical landscape studies, some examples can be found in the literature that apply it in several forms. Some theoretical-methodological publications also shed light on GIS-based spatio-temporal analyses (Plumejeaud et al 2011;Van de Weghe et al 2014), although their development is beyond the scope of this work. In addition, Svenningsen et al (2021) give some important insights into working with historical maps where context plays an essential role in the land use/cover categories.…”

A Survey of Modelling Trends in Temporal GIS

“…The spatio-temporal graph-based model for two-dimensional regions proposed by Del Mondo et al (2013), discussed in Section 2.5, also considers the identity-based approach as a key element in the modelling of evolving entities when defining a graph-based structure. Other relevant proposals are the fuzzy identity-based temporal GIS proposed by Sriti et al (2005), and the proposal for multi-scale spatio-temporal analysis of territorial changes by Plumejeaud et al (2011).…”

A Semantic Mediator for Handling Heterogeneity of Spatio-Temporal Environment Data

“…2. On another hand, territorial events, such as fusion, integration, scission, extraction, reallocation, and rectification [18], are desired to be pointed out. Analyzing these events allows discovering the correlation between land use decision and land fragmentation or aggregation in farm practice.…”