On the Relations between Spatial Concepts and Geographic Objects

In processing knowledge about spatial situations, spatial concepts are employed for representing objects, properties, and relations in the world. This article presents some fundamental difficulties encountered in representing and processing knowledge about the real geographic world and motivates the need for sophisticated conceptual structures for dealing with spatial knowledge. Consequently, semantic and structural aspects of spatial concepts are discussed. Specific attention is paid to relations among different concepts on one hand and to the relation between conceptual structures and structures in the real world on the other hand. Issues like discrete vs. continuous, crisp vs. fuzzy, fine vs. coarse, and top-down vs. bottom-up concept formation are discussed in the context of spatial representations. The article derives suggestions for task-specific concept formation for the use in future Geographic Information Systems. It concludes with a discussion about fuzzy boundaries of geographic objects.