The challenge of depicting nature and our place within it has always captured the imagination of humanity.

Geographers and Cartographers are especially concerned with representing, analyzing, and understanding real world places and processes. Geographic Information Science has developed from this traditional concern, with a special emphasis on the role of emerging technologies like geographic information systems.

Such technology has revolutionized the way spatial information is acquired, processed, analyzed, and represented, with substantial implications for scientific research and public policy ranging far beyond the traditional bounds of scientific geography. As with all great innovations, the use of technology has also raised many fascinating questions; here are just a few:

• How can real-world phenomena best be modeled digitally?
• What effect does spatial scale have on analysis?
• With the current flood of spatial data, how can we extract what's important?
• What role might the internet play in distributing spatial knowledge?
• How can new technology be employed to visualize spatial information?
• What are the ethical implications -- i.e. spatial privacy?
• What effect is data error and uncertainty having on my results?

These questions and many others are the purview of Geographic Information Science.