NEW APPROACHES IN GEOGRAPHY SUPPOTED BY GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

This paper aims to unveil the role of Cartography and forms of space analysis and depiction by means of qualitative and quantitative methods. There have been considered, mainly, new trends and challenges of the Geographic Information Technologies, facing the main paradigms focused by the present debate in Geography. Starting with the work of Kuhn, in 1970, many geographers and scholars in the field of evolution of geographic thinking have applied the paradigm change model to the conceptual development of this science. Nonetheless, when analyzing the evolution of Geography in 20th and the beginning of 21st centuries it has been observed a certain regularity of paradigmatic changes among the so-called "periods of normal science development", with cycles of 20 to 25 years (Buzai, 1999). But it has also been observed that at no moment a new paradigm has completely eliminated the previous one, merely displacing it in the time frame. So, we see the resurgence of Quantitative Geography, with a significant amount of work and new proposals for computing, analysis and complex thematic molding, derived from the impact that the information technologies have been exercising on this field, which have given place to the so-called Geographical Information Technologies, or Geotecnologies. However, we also perceive the active presence of the so-called Humanist Paradigm, through which it has been built an alternative and independent spatial vision, following certain basic foundations, based on the cultural studies of the geographical-anthropological branches (Sauer, 1925, 1927, 1963), and on those ones related to urban mental maps (Cauvin, 2002; Strauss, 1987; Lynch, 1960). Here, Human Geography focuses on the relationship between the inside and outside world of the human being, like perception, attitudes and valuation of the geographical environment. In this sense, we have analyzed diverse examples of GIS applied to a series of territorial problematical contexts, whose aims, strategies of investigation and obtained knowledge come together, reinforcing both the quantitative paradigm and the building of qualitative models, mental maps, participative and collaborative, which can be included in the Humanistic Paradigm. These models have shown options of solutions based on technological evolution and present-state Geography as a central discipline. Although the Geographical Information Systems, taken alone, are not considered part of the Geographical Information Science (Capel, 2005), recent (and growing) development of Geographical Information Technologies does indicate that a paradigmatic change is indeed taking place, a change that surely will, through the establishment of deep conceptual, theoretical and ontological foundations, bring to the consolidation of the Geographical Information Science. The unfolding of this process will, surely and undoubtly favor every expression of geographical knowledge, independently of its greater emphasis on physical or human aspects.