What is the shortest route between one point and another in a road network? Where is the incidence of disease the highest? How does rainfall correlate with altitude? How does the concentration of a pollutant vary in space, and where do high concentrations correlate with densely populated areas?
Geographical or spatial data play a vital role in many parts of daily life. We are dependent on information about where things are located and about the attributes of those things, either directly, as in the use of a map for navigating around a city, or indirectly, where we use resources like water...