Abstract
In global environmental studies, GIS-based computer environment (global GIS) is keenly demanded to support handling a huge amount of data, integration of a wide variety of global data and spatio-temporal analysis. A spherical tessellation scheme with which a spherical surface is tessellated into regular grid forms one of the important basis of a global GIS. Conventionally, many of global datasets are developed based on equal division of longitude-latitude coordinate system. However, area distortions and radial distortions especially in high-latitude areas may cause inconvenience and inefficiency in area calculations and neighborhood analysis. In this study a quantitative comparison of spherical tessellation schemes for global GIS is made with respect to a set of criteria to clarify their strengths and limitations. Through the comparison, North-Up ZOT projection proposed by the authors is found relatively suitable for global GIS especially when existing GIS software are used for global GIS.
