Focus teams of researchers who need powerful data acquisition and management systems coupled with sophisticated tools for handling both space and time. Goodchild also believes that science must have a more active role in society and engage with policy making. To do this, the scientific community must package the results of science for general consumption. GIS is well suited to the task of bringing all the pieces of scientific understanding together in a way that can be comprehended by the public to influence policy. Policy and public interest are driven by change. This means getting and holding the public’s interest is difficult with static maps. Incorporating the time dimension in GIS will make it more captivating. In addition, every major issue has an associated time scale. Climate change occurs over decades, climate tipping points over years, and economic meltdowns occur in a matter of months, while infectious diseases span weeks and disasters are framed in days. The analysis and response to events has to speed up and occur in near real time. One approach Goodchild suggested for developing spatiotemporal tools in GIS was to consider space-time as a collection of “sandboxes” or domains based on the tools, data, and assumptions of the team working in that area. How many areas or sandboxes are there? He introduced seven sandboxes for examining application areas for space and time. His remarks served as a starting point for much of the discussion over the following two days. Workshop presentations explored the wide-ranging work being done across many fields, particularly transportation and health. David Maidment, director of the Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin, described the ambitious work of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) on space-time for hydrology. CUAHSI represents more than 100 universities that develop infrastructure and services that advance hydrologic science and promote education in this area. Integrating GIS, which describes the water environment of watersheds, streams, gauges, and sampling points, with water resources observation data that describes the water itself and consists of measurements such as flow, water level, and concentrations, is made most challenging because this observation data is not standardized at all. “Connecting GIS data with observational data is connecting space and time,” said www.esri.com Maidment. The point water observations time series CUAHSI developed combines a point location in space with a series of values in time and uses WaterML invented by CUAHSI for transmitting water data on the Internet. Using Web services, the consortium has the world’s largest water data catalog, which accesses 4.3 billion data values. This system lies over existing water data systems and allows them to be seen as a whole. CUAHSI built a hierarchy of concepts to reconcile the meaning of variables used in observational data so data can be located without requiring special knowledge of the naming conventions of each organization that might supply that observational data. In closing, Maidment identified the complex challenges of space-time. He noted that time is subtle: although it’s really continuous, the data collected about time is discrete. Time stamps play a key role, and time has dimensions (e.g., hour, day, month) that interact. Finally, time has two forms—Universal Time (UTC), which is like geographic coordinates, and local time, which is like projected coordi- nates. He concluded that space-time reference frames and tools for moving data between them were needed. The GeoDesign and spatiotemporal tools being developed will magnify the impact of GIS on society’s understanding of the world that can inform human behavior to act in a more sustainable manner. As Paul Torrens, an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University and director of its Geosimulation Research Laboratory, has observed, “This is a wonderful time to be working with or developing geographic information technologies, at the cusp of some very exciting future developments that will bring GIS farther into the mainstream of information technology and will infuse geography and spatial thinking into a host of applications.” The current integration of design and space-time into GIS processes and software represents a significant step in the ability of GIS to enable geographic knowledge. NS_THIRDPGAD:Layout 1 1/6/10 11:56 PM Page 1 Setting the stage for a global green economy with solutions to manage climate change in New Zealand Improving maritime commerce, security and operational efficiency at ports in the United States Protecting the fragile marine environment in the Persian Gulf, in balance with the energy needs of the world www.northsouthgis.com info@northsouthgis.com 800-866-5013 (US) • 310-606-2783 (Int’l) USA • NEW ZEALAND • INDIA ArcUser Spring 2010 15