Geography

Geography

Dr Femke Reitsma

Position

Lecturer in Geographical Information Systems

Qualifications

PhD, University of Maryland

Contact Details

Room: 503
Phone: +64 3 364 2987 ext. 4180
Fax: +64 3 364 2907
Email: femke.reitsma@canterbury.ac.nz
Personal Website: www.femker.org

Postal address:
Department of Geography
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
New Zealand

Research

I like thinking about how we represent geographic data, information and knowledge and what we do or don't represent. Thus far my research has focussed on issues related to data, information and knowledge representation for the geosciences, and in particular for processes and dynamic models.

While steeped in existing theory or involved in developing new theory, I take a pragmatic approach to research and work towards testing theories and methodologies within a computational environment. For example, I have developed a new data model for representing physical processes as output data from dynamic models and have prototyped it in an Agent Based Modeling environment for a watershed runoff modeling scenario.

More broadly my research interests include complexity theory, agent based modeling, geosensors, systems theory, applied process philosophy, ontologies, and wider issues in GIScience, as well as the application of GIS and the development of GIScience in sustainability research.

virtualCampus

Teaching

Selected Publications

  • Brodaric, B., F. Reitsma, and Y. Qiang. SKIing with DOLCE: toward an e-Science Knowledge Infrastructure. Accepted to FOIS-08.
  • Reitsma, F., J. Laxton, S. Ballard, W. Kuhn, and A. Abdelmoty. Semantics, ontologies and eScience for the GeoSciences: reporting on the European Geoinformatics Workshop. Forthcoming in Computers and Geosciences.
  • Reitsma, F. Review of Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies and Scholarship. Forthcoming in the New Zealand Geographer.
  • Howard, A. S., B. Hatton and F. Reitsma. Developing a geoscience knowledge framework for a national geological survey organization. Forthcoming in Computers and Geosciences
  • Reitsma, F. and R. Dubayah (2007). Simulating Watershed Runoff with a New Data Model. Hydrological Processes, 21(18): 2447 - 2457.
  • Reitsma, F. and J. Albrecht (2006). nen, a Process-oriented Data Model. Chapter in Drummond, J., Billen, R., Forrest, D. and João, E. (eds) 2006, Dynamic & Mobile GIS: Investigating Change in Space and Time. Taylor & Francis
  • Reitsma, F. and J. Albrecht (2005). Implementing a New Data Model for Simulating Processes. International Journal of Geographic Information Science 19(10): 1073 – 1090.[pdf]
  • Bose, R and F. Reitsma (2005). Advancing Geospatial Data Curation. Conference on Ensuring Long-term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data (PV 2005). The Royal Society, Edinburgh 21-23 November.[pdf]
  • Reitsma, F. and J. Albrecht (2005). Modeling with the Semantic Web in the Geosciences. IEEE Intelligent Systems 20(2): 86-88.[pdf]
  • Hiramatsu, K. and F. Reitsma (2004). GeoReferencing the Semantic Web: ontology based markup of geographically referenced information. EuroSDR/EuroGeographics workshop on Ontologies and Schema Translation Services, 15-16 April, Paris
    (http://www.laser-scan.com/eurosdr/invitation.htm).[pdf]
  • Reitsma, F. and S. Engel (2004). Searching for 2D Spatial Network Holes. Computational Science and its Applications -ICCSA 2004 Conference, Assisi, Italy, May 14 – 17 2004, Proceedings, Part II: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3044 Springer: pp. 1069-1078. [pdf]
  • Reitsma, F. and T. Bittner (2003). Scale in Object and Process Ontologies. In W. Kuhn, M. F. Worboys and S. Timpf (eds) Spatial Information Theory: Foundations of Geographic Information Science, COSIT’03, Ittingen, Switzerland, pp 13-30. Vol. 2825, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin. [pdf]
  • Reitsma, F. (2003). A Response to Simplifying Complexity. Geoforum 34(1): 13-16. [pdf]