Preface

Preface

GeoComputation 2003, held at the School of Geography, University of Southamp-

ton (SoG, UoS) and the Ordnance Survey on September 8–10, 2003, was the sev-

enth in a series of successful international meetings concerned with solving

geographical problems through the use of computers. The conference was organ-

ized by Peter Atkinson, Giles Foody, and David Martin. However, to take full ad-

vantage of the enthusiasm and interest of the large number of quantitative

geographers in the institution, the conference was advertised both as a whole

and as a series of special interest sessions organized by individual staff at the SoG,

UoS. One of those special interest sessions was on ‘‘interpolation.’’

The conference itself was a great success both academically and socially and

all those involved will no doubt have fond memories. Through very generous

sponsorship, we were able to attract three very high-profile academics as keynote

speakers. First, John C. Davis (Kansas Geological Survey) opened the conference by

giving the International Association for Mathematical Geology (IAMG) Distin-

guished Lecture. On the second day, during the afternoon session (organized by

and held at the Ordnance Survey, Southampton), Mike Batty (Centre for Advanced

Spatial Analysis, University College London) delivered the Ordnance Survey key-

note lecture and, on the final day, Peter Burrough (Utrecht, the Netherlands) pre-

sented the Taylor and Francis keynote lecture. All presentations were fascinating

and maintained the ‘‘buzz’’ of the conference.

The conference was also successful as a social event. The conference dinner

was held at the Hampshire County Cricket ground at the Rose Bowl, Southampton.

Equally memorable was the quiz night (organized by Gary Llewellyn and Matt

Thornton) held the evening before. Delegates enjoyed answering a bizarre range of

‘‘pub quiz’’-style questions on the subject of (believe it or not) GeoComputation!

One question involved actually deciphering some MATLAB code that drew the

letters GC in raster image format. More than one team answered correctly!

Organizing and running a major international conference is a huge task and it

would not have been possible without the help of many individuals. On behalf of

my colleagues (Giles Foody, David Martin), I would now like to take the oppor-

tunity to thank these individuals. First, I would like to thank our sponsors. These

included Taylor and Francis, John Wiley and Sons, the Royal Geographical Society

with the Institute of British Geographers Quantitative Methods Research Group

(RGS-IBG QMRG), the Association for Geographic Information (AGI), and PCI

Geomatics. I am very grateful to these bodies for their generous support. Second,

many individuals helped with the actual day-to-day running of the conference. In

particular, Karen Anderson, Richard Breakspear, Marie Cribb, Jana Fried, Pete

Gething, Nick Hamm, Gary Llewellyn, Nguyen Quang Minh, Ajay Mathur, Aidy

Muslim, Nick Odoni, Sally Priest, Isle Steyl, Matt Thornton, Debbie Wilson, and

Geographical Analysis 37 (2005) 111–112 r 2005 The Ohio State University 111

Matt Wilson provided invaluable assistance as the conference helpers. These in-

dividuals, all graduate students at the SoG, UoS, are consistently generous with

their time and effort. Their help is vital to running any sizeable conference and a

great debt of gratitude is owed to them. I thank the Ordnance Survey for help with

the smooth running of the conference at Ordnance Survey on the Tuesday after-

noon. I thank, in particular, Vanessa Lawrence, Toby Wicks, Nick Groome, and

David Holland. Also, I wish to thank the Geodata Institute and, in particular, Julia

Branson, who played a crucial role in handling the conference registration and the

delegate packs, as well as liaising with the UoS Conference and Hospitality Office.

Finally, I wish to thank all others who contributed to the production of the special

issue. In particular, Alan Murray is thanked for his support of this special issue.

Peter Atkinson

School of Geography

University of Southampton

Highfield

Southampton S017 1BJ

U.K.

e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

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Geographical Analysis

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Preface