<i>‘A thought-provoking volume, condensing pressing and interesting issues in contemporary spatial analysis into one compact package, and, indeed, offering so much more than agenda setting: a bird’s eye perspective on key challenges in spatial analysis, a conversation starter, and a manifesto that will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners, alike.’</i>
- Rachel Franklin, Newcastle University, UK,
<i>‘This series of thought-provoking chapters offers a fresh perspective on core concepts and application areas in the evolving interdisciplinary field of spatial data science, situated in the context of the new era of big data and machine learning. An invaluable source of inspiration for anyone embarking on new research projects.’</i>
- Luc Anselin, University of Chicago, US,
<i>‘The editors have done a magnificent job of assembling insightful essays that present key themes in spatial analysis, such as scale, pattern, process and interaction, in ways that can be used to define many different geographies whilst enabling a synthesis of geospatial ideas to be established. This is important reading for everyone who has a concern for the application of geographical science to the grand challenges that manifest themselves spatially.’</i>
- Michael Batty, CASA, University College London, UK,
This Research Agenda explores the future of spatial analysis, and how the field informs and challenges the policy landscape. A wide range of contributors from different intellectual communities address the problem of causality in geographic analysis, arguing that diversity is crucial for the future success of the discipline.
Chapters define and explore specific concepts and practices within the field, for instance data science and geosimulation, providing perspectives on the current state of the art of these areas within geography, and how they will shift in the future. In the first section, contributors cover the fundamentals of the topic, as well as various ways to handle the ‘spatial variable’, including the concept of space, the scale of spatial patterns and what those patterns reveal. The book then analyses schools of practice, including geographical data science, causality, generative modelling and machine learning.
A Research Agenda for Spatial Analysis will prove an invaluable resource for spatial analysts and geographic information scientists interested in learning about the direction of future developments in the field. Additionally, scholars and students of human and urban geography and geographic research methods will benefit from this crucial overview of the topic.