Introduction to the Varenius project

This paper introduces a special issue of the journal on the subject of Proj ect Varenius, a three-year effort funded by the US National Science Foundat ion to advance geographical information science. Geographical information i s first defined as an abstraction of primitive tuples linking geographical locations to general descriptors. Geographical concepts originate in the hu man mind, and are instantiated in geographical information. Geographical in formation technologies apply digital methods to geographical information. F inally, geographical information science is defined as the set of basic res earch issues arising from these technologies. Three motivations are present ed For research in this area: scientific, technological, and societal. With in the project, geographical information science is structured by a three-p art framework that includes cognitive, computational, and societal issues. The paper ends with an introduction to these three parts, which define the infrastructure of the project and are discussed at length by the subsequent three papers.