Scale and Geographic Inquiry: Nature, Society, and Method Paperback - 2004 - 1st Edition

First line

"Broadly defined, scale has four meanings: the spatial extent of a study, its data or image resolution, the spatial extent of a spatial process, and its representation through a map (Lam and Quattrochi, 1992; Cao and Lam, 1997)."

From the rear cover

This book is the first contemporary book to compare and integrate the various ways geographers think about and use scale across the spectrum of the discipline and includes state-of-the-art contributions by authoritative human geographers, physical geographers, and GIS specialists.

The editors place competing concepts of scale side by side, demonstrating how different aspects are significant for each, and providing a detailed comparative assessment. They set out from the premise that there is much acknowledged common ground between these different approaches and that valuable insight can be gained by exploring it.

In light of the increased interest in global change and globalisation, there has been a huge surge of interest in the environmental and human sciences in the relationship between the global, the regional and the local. For this reason, this cutting edge survey of how geographers conceptualise scale should be of interest across a broad range of disciplines.