ABSTRACT
In the past ten chapters examples have been provided that illustrate what maps can do in analysing and communicating geospatial data. By providing them, readers will have become familiar with many aspects of, for example, Maastricht municipality in the Netherlands or the Lake District in Britain. Without these maps it would have been difficult to decide on answers to the questions or problems stated, or to decide upon a course of research, or to understand the spatial impact of environmental factors. Maps help one in deciding what to analyse, and later on they support one in formulating decisions in issues with a spatial impact, and in communicating these decisions. Maps can help in explaining patterns (see Section 9.4.1), in comparing (see Section 9.4.2), in analysing them (Section 9.4.3 and Chapter 10), in using them as an interface with databases (see Section 9.4.4), and let them act as stimulus for visual thinking (Chapter 10). But in order to do so, maps have to answer a number of requirements, relating to their quality (see Section 1.3) which includes the aspect of whether the data are up to date), their being reformatted so that they can be exchanged according to widely accepted standards (see Section 1.5 ) such information on the data files need to be welldocumented. That caution is needed here as demonstrated in Section 11.3, with the example of the DCW. But even if the data are up to date, they are not always accessible, and that is where nowadays spatial information policies come in (see Section 11.4). And even if the information can be made available everywhere, anytime, it might come at a price one cannot afford. That is why copyright is such an important aspect of dealing with spatial data (Section 11.5). Finally, if all conditions for technical and organisational exchange of data have been met, there still remains the usability aspect: can the data actually be applied for one’s objectives (Section 11.6)? In Section 11.7 using the example of Minard a synthesis of these issues is presented.
