Within the realm of quantitative geography, systems modelling is specifically concerned with understanding those relationships that influence the attributes of phenomena located in space and time. The intention is to replicate the main processes influencing a system's behaviour and, thereby, assist its manage ment through a capability to estimate future change. Over the last few decades, one of the major institutional initiatives for promoting such research has been provided by specialised Study Groups and Commissions established by the International Geographical Union (IGU). These scholarly networks have aimed to co-ordinate international research agendas for geographical systems model ling and their activities have been recorded in both edited volumes (Fischer and Getis, 1997) and special issues of learned journals (Wilkinson and Boots, 2000; Leung and Okabe, 2001). Presently, this facilitative task is the charge of the Commission on Modelling Geographical Systems (CMGS) appointedat the IGU Hague Congress in 1996 and chaired by Barry Boots (1996-2000) and Richard Thomas (2000-present). Set against this background, this book provides a perspective on the work of the CMGS from 1996 until the IGU Seoul Congress in August 2000 through a collection of papers first presented to our sessions at this event. Moreover, a number of Japanese delegates were attracted to this Asian venue and their con tributions provide many new ideas concerning the implementation of systems analysis.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
Statistical Models of Spatial Systems.- Geographical Patterns of Urban Residential Development.- Using Local Statistics for Boundary Characterization.- Local Spatial Interaction Modelling Based on the Geographically Weighted Regression Approach.- Understanding Activity Scheduling and Rescheduling Behaviour: Theory and Numerical Illustration.- Geographical Model of a Self-Organising Megalopolis with Time-Space Convergence.- Epidemic Modelling of HIV/AIDS Transfers between Eastern and Western Europe.- Computational Methods.- A Spatial Microsimulation Model for Social Policy Evaluation.- Analysis of the Effect of Land Use Patters on the Anthropogetic Energy Discharged from Air Conditioning and Hot Water Supply Using a Modified CSU Mesoscale Model.- Generalised Thünen and Thünen-Ricardo Models for Asian Land Use.- Balancing Consensus and Conflict with a GIS-Based Multi-Participant, Multi-Criteria Decision Support Tool.- Grid-Based Population Distribution Estimates from Historical JapaneseTopograhical Maps Using GIS.- GIS Modelling for Rain-Induced Debris-Flow Hazards in a Small Watershed.- A Geographical Interpretation of Cyperspace: Preliminary Analysis on the Scaling Tendency of Information Spaces.- On Modelling Internet Transactions as a Time-Dependent Random Walk: An Application of the Retail Aggregate Space-Time Trip (RASTT) Model.- Development of Disaster Information Network System in the Asian Region: Internet GIS for Disaster Information Management.- Geographical Conceptualization of Cyberplaces.