The Division of Spatial Information Science (SIS) is a unique division within the Doctoral Program in Geoenvironmental Science of the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The Division is established in the year 2000, provides an enabling environment where faculty members, staff and students work together to advance the knowledge of Geographical Information Systems and Science in different areas of interest.

The Division offers Master and Ph.D. degrees in Geo Science and Geo-environmental Science. The division provides opportunities to graduate students, from all over the world, to do research using GIS and other geospatial technologies in their specific areas of interest. A state of art the laboratory with current GIS, Remote Sensing and GPS software provides an enabling and conducive environment for research. In addition, the SIS laboratory is well equipped with latest books in Geographical Information Science, Regional Science, Spatial Statistics and Quantitative Geography to provide an environment for successful study and learning experience.

The Division currently supports three highly qualified faculty members who teach and pursue research in various departments and professional schools within the University. In addition to teaching, the faculty members give lectures to many groups in and out of the University, write extensively for both scholarly journals and popular media, and participate in national and international academic and professional associations.

The Division also welcomes research fellows and visiting researchers from different countries to carry out research in their areas of interest in GIS. There are currently more than 20 Masters/PhD students studying and conducting various researches at SIS.

Our Mission

The main aim of the division is to utilize geospatial technologies to address various issues of interest. The objectives are:

1. Integrate state-of-the art Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning (GPS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies with field work based knowledge to address various issues such as environmental changes and human activities among others.
2. Transfer knowledge and skills to the University of Tsukuba community, local community, state and different agencies, and private or non-governmental organizations through education, outreach and training.
3. Conduct scientific research in numerous areas involving geospatial technologies.

Research

The division of spatial information science currently has more than 20 students pursuing research in different areas for both doctoral and master degrees. Our students are of different nationalities including China, Iran, Italy, Kenya, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, Malawi, Vietnam, Germany, Bangladesh, Greece, Malaysia, Zambia, Argentina and Sri Lanka.

In addition, we have post doctoral fellows from Japan, China, Philippines, Iran and Kenya.

Our research projects reflect a wide range of areas of interest. The current and recent research works include: Modeling spatial processes of urban dynamics; qualitative spatial reasoning; land use/cover changes; integrated spatial decision support modeling for sustainable management; environmental evaluation and diagnosis; resource management; integrated analysis of biophysical and socio-economic factors for modeling land use changes; multi-criteria decision analysis and spatial temporal dynamic relationships of geographical objects; spatial database design and user interface development; poverty mapping and analysis; urban and transportation analyses; agricultural applications; and numerical modeling among others.