I recently interviewed Timothy Nyerges, a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, and the full interview will be posted on our home page next week. Among other things, Nyerges shared his passion to operationalize Carl Steinitz’s six phases of GIS modeling.
Nyerges recounts the phases as:
• The first phase is representation modeling (database design)
• The second phase is process modeling (pure process as in system and world processes, water flow, land use change, whatever temporality in geospatial processes)
• The third phase is scenario modeling (selecting out from process model the things you want to look at)
• The fourth phase is change modeling (before and after effects, differentiation of things that occur in the world)
• The fifth phase is impact modeling (risk assessment, impact from land use, transportation, water, etc.)
• Phase six is decision modeling
This was my first exposure to Steinitz’s work, and I’m intrigued by this line of thinking and its applicability to land planning, conservation and sustainable development. I did some searching online and uncovered a much more detailed outline of this framework from a 1993 paper that Steinitz presented at The European Conference on Geographic Information Systems in Genoa, Italy.
What strikes me as I read this work is the conceptual thinking of this GIS pioneer, and how many of the problems addressed in this framework are still lacking tools or certainly lacking process progression workflows.
In 1993, Steinitz states, “My view is that the next phase of GIS research and development must–refocus on the ever-present questions of theory and models.” Have we fulfilled that vision? I strongly encourage you to read the detailed framework and ponder this question further.
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good stuff! – Nyerges was the chair of my master’s thesis committee while i was at UW geography…
In my search for publications and articles for my proposed Ph.D studies, I came accross this work which is 100% what I was looking for. I am currently involved in a project (referred to as an ‘Environmental Management Framework’ in terms of South African Environmental Legislation) which I would like to use as a case study to explore the work of Nyerges and Steinitz. I would appreciate any support in terms of further references.