In our first lecture, we were introduced to three research applications that will be expanded on in the term:
- Landscape Ecology: the study of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment and how landscape structure affects the abundance and distribution of organisms.
- Health Geography: examines the role of place, space and community in shaping health outcomes and health care delivery (disease ecology, health and environment, etc.).
- Crime Analysis: A set of systematic, analytical processes directed at providing timely and pertinent information relative to crime patterns and trend correlations (environmental criminology, theories in criminology, etc.).
Although these three topics seem completely different and irrelevant, it is connected by geography. Specifically, we focus on the five p's that connect the three: patterns, processes, places, people, and perspectives. Further in the course, we will be exploring spatial analytical research methods used in each topic.
GIScience in research is essential to answer geographic questions that address location, distribution, spatial association, spatial interaction, and spatial change. Some questions that are asked in analyses include:
- Where do things happen? (patterns; clusters; hot spots; disparities)
- Why do they happen where they happened? (processes; location decisions; places)
- How does where things happen affect other things? (context; environment)
- How does context affect what happens? (interactions)
- Where should things be located? (optimization)
Learning Significance