Geographic data is a valuable source of information in modern society. By utilizing alternative sources of this data, the availability and potential applications of geographic information systems can be increased. Volunteered Geographic Information and the Future of Geospatial Data is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on information gathering from volunteers, as opposed to official agencies and private companies, to compile geospatial data. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as regional landscape mapping, road safety, and land usage, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academics, students, professionals, and practitioners interested in the growing area of volunteered geographic information.

Geographic data is a valuable source of information in modern society. By utilizing alternative sources of this data, the availability and potential applications of geographic information systems can be increased. Volunteered Geographic Information and the Future of Geospatial Data is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on information gathering from volunteers, as opposed to official agencies and private companies, to compile geospatial data. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as regional landscape mapping, road safety, and land usage, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academics, students, professionals, and practitioners interested in the growing area of volunteered geographic information.

The phenomenon of volunteered geographic information is part of a profound transformation in how geographic data, information, and knowledge are produced and circulated. By situating volunteered geographic information (VGI) in the context of big-data deluge and the data-intensive inquiry, the 20 chapters in this book explore both the theories and applications of crowdsourcing for geographic knowledge production with three sections focusing on 1). VGI, Public Participation, and Citizen Science; 2). Geographic Knowledge Production and Place Inference; and 3). Emerging Applications and New Challenges. This book argues that future progress in VGI research depends in large part on building strong linkages with diverse geographic scholarship. Contributors of this volume situate VGI research in geography’s core concerns with space and place, and offer several ways of addressing persistent challenges of quality assurance in VGI. This book positions VGI as part of a shift toward hybrid epistemologies, and potentially a fourth paradigm of data-intensive inquiry across the sciences. It also considers the implications of VGI and the exaflood for further time-space compression and new forms, degrees of digital inequality, the renewed importance of geography, and the role of crowdsourcing for geographic knowledge production.

We live in a changing world with multiple and evolving threats to national security, including terrorism, asymmetrical warfare (conflicts between agents with different military powers or tactics), and social unrest. Visually depicting and assessing these threats using imagery and other geographically-referenced information is the mission of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). As the nature of the threat evolves, so do the tools, knowledge, and skills needed to respond. The challenge for NGA is to maintain a workforce that can deal with evolving threats to national security, ongoing scientific and technological advances, and changing skills and expectations of workers. Future U.S. Workforce for Geospatial Intelligence assesses the supply of expertise in 10 geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) fields, including 5 traditional areas (geodesy and geophysics, photogrammetry, remote sensing, cartographic science, and geographic information systems and geospatial analysis) and 5 emerging areas that could improve geospatial intelligence (GEOINT fusion, crowdsourcing, human geography, visual analytics, and forecasting). The report also identifies gaps in expertise relative to NGA's needs and suggests ways to ensure an adequate supply of geospatial intelligence expertise over the next 20 years.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) within the Department of Defense has the primary mission of providing timely, relevant, and accurate imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information-collectively known as geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)-in support of national security. In support of its mission, NGA sponsors research that builds the scientific foundation for geospatial intelligence and that reinforces the academic base, thus training the next generation of NGA analysts while developing new approaches to analytical problems. Historically, NGA has supported research in five core areas: (1) photogrammetry and geomatics, (2) remote sensing and imagery science, (3) geodesy and geophysics, (4) cartographic science, and (5) geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. Positioning NGA for the future is the responsibility of the InnoVision Directorate, which analyzes intelligence trends, technological advances, and emerging customer and partner concepts to provide cutting-edge technology and process solutions. At the request of InnoVision, the National Research Council (NRC) held a 3-day workshop to explore the evolution of the five core research areas and to identify emerging disciplines that may improve the quality of geospatial intelligence over the next 15 years. This workshop report offers a potential research agenda that would expand NGA's capabilities and improve its effectiveness in providing geospatial intelligence.

Maps are a fundamental resource in a diverse array of applications ranging from everyday activities, such as route planning through the legal demarcation of space to scientific studies, such as those seeking to understand biodiversity and inform the design of nature reserves for species conservation. For a map to have value, it should provide an accurate and timely representation of the phenomenon depicted and this can be a challenge in a dynamic world. Fortunately, mapping activities have benefitted greatly from recent advances in geoinformation technologies. Satellite remote sensing, for example, now offers unparalleled data acquisition and authoritative mapping agencies have developed systems for the routine production of maps in accordance with strict standards. Until recently, much mapping activity was in the exclusive realm of authoritative agencies but technological development has also allowed the rise of the amateur mapping community. The proliferation of inexpensive and highly mobile and location aware devices together with Web 2.0 technology have fostered the emergence of the citizen as a source of data. Mapping presently benefits from vast amounts of spatial data as well as people able to provide observations of geographic phenomena, which can inform map production, revision and evaluation. The great potential of these developments is, however, often limited by concerns. The latter span issues from the nature of the citizens through the way data are collected and shared to the quality and trustworthiness of the data. This book reports on some of the key issues connected with the use of citizen sensors in mapping. It arises from a European Co-operation in Science and Technology (COST) Action, which explored issues linked to topics ranging from citizen motivation, data acquisition, data quality and the use of citizen derived data in the production of maps that rival, and sometimes surpass, maps arising from authoritative agencies.

Uncertainty and context pose fundamental challenges in GIScience and geographic research. Geospatial data are imbued with errors (e.g., measurement and sampling) and various types of uncertainty that often obfuscate any understanding of the effects of contextual or environmental influences on human behaviors and experiences. These errors or uncertainties include those attributable to geospatial data measurement, model specifications, delineations of geographic context in space and time, and the use of different spatiotemporal scales and zonal schemes when analyzing the effects of environmental influences on human behaviors or experiences. In addition, emerging sources of geospatial big data – including smartphone data, data collected by GPS, and various types of wearable sensors (e.g., accelerometers and air pollutant monitors), volunteered geographic information, and/ or location- based social media data (i.e., crowd- sourced geographic information) – inevitably contain errors, and their quality cannot be fully controlled during their collection or production. Uncertainty and Context in GIScience and Geography: Challenges in the Era of Geospatial Big Data illustrates how cutting- edge research explores recent advances in this area, and will serve as a useful point of departure for GIScientists to conceive new approaches and solutions for addressing these challenges in future research. The seven core chapters in this book highlight many challenges and opportunities in confronting various issues of uncertainty and context in GIScience and geography, tackling different topics and approaches. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Geographical Information Science.