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Temporality


The time and space dimensions have some commonalities that should be taken into account in the overall design of a temporal GIS. Langran [4] [5] was the precursor who developed this temporal study in the GIS domain.

The time is a phenomena related to historical concepts and to the forecasting notion [5]. The concept leads to a more dynamic representation of geographical phenomena and allows a better analysis and comprehension of the changing factors that can act upon the studied landscape. These phenomena are highly dynamic in space and time. Thus Langran [5] emphasized the need for incorporating temporal information, since the geographical events have both spatial and temporal extent.

The forestry events can be treated as components of the forest state which change trough time. In [7] some interesting points about temporal models are noted. We want to model an approach able to handle the temporal information for analyzing and forecasting a region area. The passage of time is normally understood via changes we perceived occurring to objects in space: their transformations over time and their movements in relation to one another.

The scientific study of the spatial processes that influence these changes is also impossible without considering the sequencing of these changes through time. Geographical phenomena act over the region area analyses, producing changes in its state. The state of the region area analyses at any given time not only influences its possible future states, but is also a reflection of past states. In this approach, geographical phenomena are observed and recorded as a setting that includes spatial and temporal dimensions.


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