Due to the increase in a necessity, operability, and data availability, spatio-temporal analysis has been gathering popularity. However, there are few studies focusing on systematic reviews of it. This paper first shows basic concepts for spatio-temporal analysis such as geometrical representation of entities and changeability of attribute values over time. Then the paper constructs a matrix showing the characteristics of earlier studies. The matrix consists of two stages, where the first stage concerns the temporal representation and types of the entities, and the second stage concerns spatial representation, changeability of location, shapes and attribute values. The matrix helps us to understand the characteristics of the studies and uniqueness or similarity when compared to others.

Relationship between Sect. Sasa distributions and climate was modelled by using a classification tree model and clarified at ca. 1-km² spatial resolutions in Japan. Occurrence probability was then predicted under both current climate and the future climate change scenario RCM20 (2081-2100) to assess the impact of climate change. Five climatic factors (warmth index: WI, minimum temperature of the coldest month: TMC, summer precipitation: PRS, maximum snow water equivalent: MSW, winter rainfall: WR) were used as predictor variables, and the species distribution data obtained from Phytosociological Relevé Data Base was used as a response variable. Deviance-Weighted Scores revealed that the most influential factor for the species distribution was MSW, followed by WI, PRS, WR and TMC. Predicted potential habitat was divided into “suitable habitat” and “marginal habitat”, based on the Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis. Climatic conditions for suitable habitat were WI ≥ 31.6°C·month and MSW ≥ 131.6mm. The area of suitable habitats was predicted to decrease 46.7% due to decrease in MSW, and 69.9% of marginal habitats were predicted to turn into nonhabitat due to increase in WI under the global warming.

Cooperation among different fields of study is an important component in developing effective GIS curricula. In this paper, we examined interdepartmental cooperation in general and cooperation between geography-related and engineering/information-related fields in particular in GIS education programs at US universities for the 2006-2007 academic year. We found that of 114 GIS education programs, 42 (37%) programs featured interdepartmental curricula comprising classes from multiple departments, and 25 (22%) programs involved cooperation among four or more departments. Cooperation between geography-related and engineering/information-related departments was found in 23 (20%) programs. The results provide useful data for developing GIS curricula in Japan.

Developing systematic GIS education programs is an important issue in Japan. This paper examined GIS education programs at US colleges and universities for the 2007-08 academic year. A majority (72%) of the GIS education programs awarded certificates while the remainder (28%) awarded degrees. Approximately 40% of the GIS education programs were based on interdepartmental cooperation. Among ten main classes (fields) of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the field of history & geography played the most important role in the GIS education programs, while the fields of computer science, information and general works, science, social sciences, and technology played relatively significant roles. Cooperation between any combinations of two of these five fields was found with similar frequencies in around 10% of all programs. GIS education programs are considerably more advanced in the US than in Japan.

GIS education in Japan lags far behind that in Western developed countries, and the development of systematic GIS education in Japanese universities such as the preparation of a GIS standard curriculum is an urgent issue. This paper examines the present situation and recent trends of GIS education in geography departments of Japanese universities. The results indicate that there are three mismatches between the third draft of the Japan Standard GIS Core Curriculum and the actual situation of GIS education: the length of courses, the number of classes, and course style. The results of this study provided useful information to facilitate the effective usage of the final core curriculum.

This paper examines utilities and obstacles of integrated GIS uses for the solid waste section, a typical section that does not need management administration of map drawings, in Uji City. The section has terminal environments for the use of integrated GIS maintained by the city hall and several detailed information with geographic references such as collected garbage amount at each pickup point. However, both of the GIS environment and the information with geographic references were not employed mainly due to the lack of sufficient knowledge about the contemporary digital mapping that the integrated GIS offers and various small area statistics of the local government in digital formats. This paper exemplified how the integrated GIS environment is potentially useful at the section by showing digital mapping of collected garbage amounts. This case study implies that general education of fundamental knowledge about GIS usage, identifying maintained geographic information and training of GIS coordinators who facilitate the GIS use for a sectional purpose are critical to make the use of such integrated GIS environments more practical at a section that does not need management administration of map drawings in a local government.

There are various types of spatial tessellations such as administrative units, electoral districts, school districts, land use, market area and climatic divisions. It often happens that there exist multiple spatial tessellations in an identical area. It is important for urban planning and understanding of urban structure to grasp relationship among spatial tessellations. This study proposes a method for quantitatively comparing spatial tessellations in an identical area. The similarity between two tessellations is evaluated by quantitative measures in this method. The indices consist of the local index and the global index. Moreover, this study proposes a method of classifying spatial tessellations and defining a representative spatial tessellation. The validity of the method is tested through the case study about area division plans of Dosyusei in Japan.