SYMPOSIUM: QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN GEOGRAPHY-THEIR HARD- AND SOFT-WARES

Abstract

It is well-known that quantitative methods have made a remarkable progress in many disciplines and have brought the diversification of their study objects and the expansion of their applications. These tendencies have clearly appeared in geography. In this field it has been vigorously done to develop various kinds of techniques and appliances for obtaining geographic numerical data, to apply some of quantitative methods to them and to present the findings by these efforts in a form of model. The study along this line was made an accelerative progress by the quantitative revolution in the beginning of 1960's, so that it has greatly contributed toward the development of geography. On the other hand, this progress has met with some problems involving the limitation of quantitative techniques or methods. In addition, it has offered many important and basic themes to the discussion of geographical nature, for the techniques or methods twine closely with the geographical methodology. These themes are idiographic versus nomothetic approaches, quantitative nature as opposed to qualitative one of geographic phenomena, individual versus aggregative approaches, the distinction between correlation and causation, and the possibility for building geographic theory. Although none of these themes have been given adequate answers, it is obvious that they have set a new guideline to both fields of physical and human geography.
The quantitative works which were called Chorometry appeared in the geographical studies in Japan in 1930's. Some of these studies have continuously been done in the field of physical geography, wheares in the field of human geography they were ceased due to the insufficient research for data and the method of analysis. In the recent quantitative studies, however, this shortcoming is fairly but not completely swept off.
The aim of this symposium is to discuss the three questions described below.
(1) What kind of efficiency and limitation the quantitative methods have in terms of geographic studies?
(2) How should the study concerning methods to solve various geographical problems be located in the field of geography?
(3) How could the study mentioned above be related with the nature of geography?
The members of the symposium consisted of twenty-four reporters and commentators, four chairmen, two organizers and a great number of participants. Although there had been some discussions concerning with three questions through the session, there were much left to be discussed.
Twelve papers presented were in the following:
(1) K. Kashiwaya pointed out that model experiment was of much efficient in the case of being difficult to obtain the data of landform development, and he showed the model of gully evolution, which was characterized by considering two parameters, such as the inertial force of water and the resistant force of soil.
(2) M. Pukuda reviewed some applications of harmonic analysis to the landform studies and offered the results obtained in analyzing the spectral power densities of landforms in Hokkaido. He pointed out the relations of estimated spectrum to the interval of sample dots in topographic maps.
(3) M. Hirano and S. Yokota explained some possibilities of numerical analysis for geomorphological phenomena. They indicated the necessity to publish topographic digital maps and to establish a geomorphological data bank.
(4) I. Tsuchiya's concern was directed to suggest the advantages and weaknesses of measuring the surface temperature by the infrared radiation thermometer as a technique of remote sensing. He explained this direction by showing an example of measurements of snow surface temperature in the eastern slope of Mt. Hoken in Nagano Prefecture.
(5) K. Yamabe first showed a hydraulic model to evaluate the fluidity of sea water on the basis of the residence time of fresh water.