Spatial science

From Geography

Spatial Science is an approach in the human geography, starting in the 1950’s. Geographers in North America and Britain were convinced that geography could be treated as any other science. Their aim was to specify the laws of spatial organization, by looking at the spatial patterns in landscapes and the human activity in these landscapes.

With the use of gravity models equivalent to Newtons ‘laws of gravitational attraction’, spatial scientists tried to explain and predict patterns of human interaction (migration flows, traffic flows, information flows) between settlements of differing sizes and distances from one another.

Cloke, P., Philo, C. & Sadler, D. (1991). Approaching Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary and Theoretical Debates. New York: Guilfort Press.