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Geographical Information Science Research Themes
The Department is renowned for its research in Geographical Information Science having maintained a dedicated Chair in this sub-discipline since 1998 and attracted considerable funding for both research and teaching (particularly from HEFCE) in support of Geographical Information Science. The Department led the HEFCE Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning SPLINT (Spatial Literacy in Teaching). We also offer the longest running MSc in GIS in England. Members of the GIS group have an international reputation for the analysis of remotely sensed data for a wide range of applications. Working with optical, radar and laser scanner data sets, they are involved in projects funded by the European Commission, European Space Agency, NERC and Ordnance Survey.
Members of this group collaborate with the Departments of Chemistry and Physics through the Earth Observation Science group and with Geology and Archaeology through the Leicester LiDAR research unit. The department is the lead of the European Centre of Excellence in Earth Observation Research Training GIONET (€3.5m funded by the European Commission).
Research Themes
Nature, Environment and Society
| Staff | Research |
|---|---|
| Dr Lex Comber | Analysis of the spatial interactions between people and their environment with links to land use and public health, including greenspaces, neighbourhoods, residential density. |
Spatial Analysis
| Staff | Research |
|---|---|
| pure and applied research in spatial analysis including development of the Geographically Weighted Regression spatial analysis tool, with applications in social science (e.g.,crime mapping, service/greenspace accessibility work) and physical science (mapping pollen rain, accessibility modelling, location allocation problems, critical load modelling and the laser scanning of river bed features) |
Uncertainty and Data Quality
| Staff | Research |
|---|---|
| development of methods suitable for analysis and representation of uncertainty and data quality in GI, including the concept of semantic uncertainty in the context of land cover mapping, and the application of type 2 fuzzy set; the analysis and modelling of uncertainty and error in digital elevation models, the analysis of both airborne and terrestrial LiDAR data, and landscape planning evaluations. |
Visualisation and Spatial Literacy
| Staff | Research |
|---|---|
| HEFCE SPLINT funding has given rise to pedagogic research on GI education, the use of podcasts in teaching, and Virtual Reality modelling. |
