Human beings have been making maps for millennia, but the birth of geographic information systems (GIS) in the late 1960s ushered in an era of tech-infused cartography. Nowadays, GIS is a ubiquitous part of life; it even powers your mobile phone’s mapping app.
A growing academic discipline known as geographic information science, or GIScience, meanwhile, combines traditional GIS technology with statistical data to support scientific research and solve complex problems related to resource management, governmental policy, and industry, among other areas.
Launched in late September, the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Geospatial Sciences (CGS) is the campus’s new hub for GIScience research and spatial analysis. Overseen by Founding Director Sergio Rey, a professor of public policy, the center is stationed inside Room 159 of UCR’s Tomás Rivera Library and designed to be a university-wide resource....continued ...