UB Takes Lead Role In Creating Geographic Information Group

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Geographers at the University at Buffalo have taken a leading role in the formation of a national consortium of academic and research organizations dedicated to advancing the understanding of geographic information systems (GIS), one of the fastest growing research fields in the geographic and earth sciences.

The concept of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science was developed by geographers at UB and its sister institutions in the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis -- the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Maine at Orono -- as well as researchers at the Ohio State University and the universities of Minnesota, South Carolina and Washington. This founding group extended invitations to representatives of 26 other institutions and the Association of American Geographers. The entire group held its organizational meeting last month in Boulder, Colo.

GIS is a generic name for various computer software packages that store and use date pertaining to space and location. Among the operations are computer graphics -- the drawing or superimposing of maps -- and statistical analysis.

GIS has become more than a $1 billion industry, with the commercial side growing 10 percent to 20 percent each year, says David Mark, UB professor of geography and the university's representative to the Boulder meeting.

Moreover, geographic information became increasingly important on a national level last spring when President Clinton issued an executive order creating the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, Mark adds. The infrastructure -- a recommendation of the National Performance Review -- will support public- and private-sector applications of geospatial data in such areas as transportation, community development, agriculture, emergency response, environmental management and information technology.

A major objective of the consortium, Mark notes, will be to advise and inform the executive and legislative branches of the federal government on issues regarding geographic information. "We hope to influence science policy at the national level, to be a collective voice for the basic research community," he says.

The consortium also will advance the understanding of geographic processes and spatial relationships through improved theory, methods, technology and data. In addition to reviewing and setting national research priorities in GIS and related specialties, its objectives include organizing partnerships with the private sector, expanding and strengthening geographic- information science education, providing an organizational infrastructure to foster interdisciplinary research in GIS, and promoting the ethical uses of, and access to, geographic information for the benefit of society.

The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis -- of which UB is a member -- already addresses many of these issues, Mark says. But the center's advisory board had suggested the consortium be formed specifically to pursue this agenda, as well as broaden the base of support by including other institutions with interests in geographic information.

The new consortium will be housed on an interim basis in the Washington, D.C., offices of the Association of American Geographers. John Bossler, director of the Center for Mapping at The Ohio State University, is interim director.