Category: Publications

  • Mapping cultural ecosystem services 2.0 – using machine learning annotated photos to learn how humans perceive landscapes and ecosystems

    Ecosystems provide many different services to mankind. Services provided depend on how the land is used – land use decisions lead to trade-offs that with respect to the ecosystem service provided by ecosystems and landscapes. This trade-offs vary in many situations in space and time. Therefore, it is essential to quantify and map service provisioning…

  • GSIS Special Issue on Crowdsourcing for Urban Geoinformatics has been published

    GSIS Special Issue: Crowdsourcing for Urban Geoinformatics. Geo-Spatial Information Science (GSIS), Volume 23, Issue 3. Taylor & Francis. Guest Editors: Hongchao Fan, Rene Westerholt, João Porto de Albuquerque, Bernd Resch and Alexander Zipf TOC: Do people communicate about their whereabouts? Investigating the relation between user-generated text messages and Foursquare check-in places Ming Li, Rene Westerholt & Alexander…

  • Capturing Flood Risk Perception via Sketch Maps

    The flood risk perception of people living in areas at risk can be a valuable source of information for mitigation and preparedness within disaster management. We apply a method based on sketch maps and questionnaires to capture this flood risk perception during case studies in Santiago de Chile. Results of our study can be found…

  • Today & tomorrow GIScience Heidelberg Talks in Africa and Australia

    This Wednesday and Thursday we have presentations from the GIScience research group Heidelberg on two remote contintents – both in Africa and in Australia: On Wednesday: First down under at GIScience Melbourne in Australia Rene Westerholt will present the work related to our PLATIAL18 workshop: Westerholt, R., Gröbe, M., Zipf, A. and Burghardt, D. (2018): Towards the statistical…

  • GIScience Heidelberg @ GIScience Melbourne

    Two papers from GIScience Heidelberg have been contributed to and accepted for the 10th International GIScience Conference 2018 in Melbourne, Australia. They will be presented on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. Looking forward to a fruitful discussion! Westerholt, R., Gröbe, M., Zipf, A. and Burghardt, D. (2018): Towards the statistical analysis and visualization of places. 10th…

  • The Dimension of a Space Can Be Inferred From the Abstract Network Structure

    Study shows that spatial reference can be structurally identified in a number of datasets F.-B. Mocnik: The Polynomial Volume Law of Complex Networks in the Context of Local and Global Optimization. Scientific Reports (2018) 8:11274, doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29131-0 Networks describe relations between objects. They show how objects relate to one another and which ones are mutually…

  • Deep Learning from Multiple Crowds: A Case Study of Humanitarian Mapping

    Satellite images are widely applied in humanitarian mapping which labels buildings, roads and so on for humanitarian aid and economic development. However, the labeling now is mostly done by volunteers. In a recently accepted study, we utilize deep learning to solve humanitarian mapping tasks of a mobile software named MapSwipe. The current deep learning techniques…

  • Towards the statistical analysis and visualization of places

    The concept of place recently gains momentum in GIScience. In some fields like human geography, spatial cognition or information theory, this topic already has a longer scholarly tradition. This is however not yet completely the case with statistical spatial analysis and cartography. Despite that, taking full advantage of the plethora of user-generated information that we…

  • Perspective Article: Volunteered Geographic Information for Disaster Risk Reduction

    Over the past few years, the Missing Maps approach has repeatedly proved its potential for humanitarian assistance and disaster management. While the project was launched by only four organizations, there are now 17 member organizations in Missing Maps, and nearly 60,000 mappers. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have recognized the potential of the…

  • Meet us at State of the Map 2018 Milan: Ohsome talks and workshop ahead!

    In a few days – THIS Saturday July, 29. – the State of the Map 2018 Conference in Milan will opening its doors with many interesting talks and workshops related to OpenStreetMap. HeiGIT and the GIScience Research Group at Heidelberg University will be there with several persons and give the following presentations and even a…

  • 3D WebGIS: From Visualization to Analysis. An Efficient Browser-Based 3D Line-of-Sight Analysis

    3D WebGIS systems have been mentioned in the literature almost since the beginning of the graphical web era in the late 1990s. The potential use of 3D WebGIS is linked to a wide range of scientific and application domains, such as planning, controlling, tracking or simulation in crisis management, military mission planning, urban information systems,…

  • Coupling maximum entropy modeling with geotagged social media data to determine the geographic distribution of tourists

    Modeling the geographic distribution of tourists at a tourist destination is crucial when it comes to enhancing the destination’s resilience to disasters and crises, as it enables the efficient allocation of limited resources to precise geographic locations. Seldom have existing studies explored the geographic distribution of tourists through understanding the mechanisms behind it. In a…