GEOMATICS - THE INFLUENCE OF INFORMATICS ON SPATIAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING

The term Geomatics has recently been coined as representing a quantitative and computationally based approach to spatial information processing. What began as a combination of traditional land surveying and geography, has been influenced by theories and methods developed within the computing and information science disciplines, often collectively termed Informatics. This paper will describe the developments that have taken place within a global interdisciplinary movement towards the creation of a Geomatics research agenda The influence of Informatics on this agenda will be explored with examples from recent research projects. In addition, the development of undergraduate and postgraduate courses that reflect this new area and its integration with conventional computing courses will also be outlined. The paper concludes with some comments about the future for Geomatics within computing education and its incumbent resource requirements.