A methodology for supporting exploratory research on the role of geo-location and boundaries in spatio-temporal and environmental studies
1 Department of Accounting, Business Information Systems and Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Ia.i (UAIC), Carol I Blvd., No.22, 700505, Ia.i, Romania
2 Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, UAIC, Lascar Catargi Street, No.54, 700107, Iasi, Romania
3 Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FSEGA), Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB), Teodor Mihali Street, No.58-60, 400591, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2 Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, UAIC, Lascar Catargi Street, No.54, 700107, Iasi, Romania
3 Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FSEGA), Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB), Teodor Mihali Street, No.58-60, 400591, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Abstract
The paper brings a methodological contribution useful for supporting the development of predictive models of phenomena and human behaviours in the area of environmental protection with respect for history, geo-location, environment boundaries and considering further applications in defining corresponding stimulating policies by decision makers and management teams. It proposes a handy and easy-to-use technique of deriving spatial variables (e.g. aerial distances to a custom border and belonging or not to a chosen area) starting from real data including respondents residencies from a survey of Romanian students. The authors used Quantum Geographical Information System (QGIS) and a historical map for recreating the coordinates of this border two programming languages and two categories of algorithms: first for computing a minimum aerial distance to this custom border based on Haversine (HAV) formula and a proposed Point to Points (P2P) approach compared with another one based on the Pythagorean Theorem with corrections depending on the average latitudes using both P2P and P2S (Point to Segments); second for finding the belonging to a chosen / defined area considering the corresponding polygon and the Crossing-Number (CN) approach of solving Point-in-Polygon (PIP) problems. Aerial distance scale derivations for statistical purposes, online query-able map examples for demonstrating the expected spatial alignment of the inputs based on this methodology and execution benchmarks for efficiency reasons have been also provided.
Keywords
border studies; GIS; Haversine and Pythagoras; P2P and P2S; PIP