FROM CONVENTIONAL TO KNOWLEDGE-BASED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION-SYSTEMS

Artificial intelligence (AI) has received an explosion of interest dur ing the last 5 years in various fields. There is no longer any questio n that expert systems and neural networks will be of central importanc e for developing the next generation of more intelligent geographic in formation systems. Such knowledge-based geographic information systems will play an especially key role in spatial decision and policy analy sis related to issues such as environmental monitoring and management, land use planning, motor vehicle navigation, and distribution logisti cs. This paper sketches briefly the major characteristics of conventio nal geographic information systems, and then looks at some of the pote ntials of AI principles and techniques in a GIS environment where emph asis is laid on expert systems and artificial neural networks technolo gies and techniques.