Geographic information systems represent an exciting and rapidly expanding technology via which spatial data may be captured, stored, retrieved, displayed, manipulated and analyzed. Applications of this technology include detailed inventories of land use parcels. Spatial patterns of disease, geodemographics, environmental management and macroscale inventories of global resources.

The impetus for this book is the relative lack of research into the integration of spatial analysis and GIS, and the potential benefits in developing such an integration. From a GIS perspective, there is an increasing demand for systems that do something other than display and organize data. From a spatial analytical perspective, there are advantages to linking statistical methods and mathematical models to the database and display capabilities of a GIS.

Although the GIS may not be absolutely necessary for spatial analysis, it can facilitate such an analysis and moreover provide insights that might otherwise have been missed. The contributions to the book tell us where we are and where we ought to be going. They suggest that the integration of spatial analysis and GIS will stimulate interest in quantitative spatial science, particularly exploratory and visual types of analysis. They represent a unique statement of the state-of-the-art issues in integration and interface.