Rising waters : integrating national datasets for the visualisation of diminishing spatial entities

Preparing for the potential changes wrought by climate change can be grounded in commonly integrated real data. Efforts by various countries to prepare for such potentialities have resulted in a stepped- approach to data management and integration. Small island states experience an added burden through data limitations, disparate datasets and data hoarding. This paper reviews the processes employed in Malta that target a spatio-temporal analysis of current and future climate change scenarios aimed at integrating environmental, spatial planning and social data in line with the transposition of the Aarhus Convention, the INSPIRE Directive (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) and the SEIS (Shared Environmental Information System) initiative. The study analyses potential physical and social aspects that will be impacted by sea-level rise in the Maltese islands. Scenarios include the analysis of areas that will be inundated, the methodology employed to carry out the analysis, and the relative impacts on land use and environmental, infrastructural and population loss. Spatial information systems and 3D outputs illustrate outcome scenarios.peer-reviewe

Spatial conceptualisation as a foundation for social interactionism in virtual worlds

Chapter 13In a world relatively recently immersed in the virtual domain, sprung upon unsuspecting newbies still struggling to understand what a 20k computer could deliver, few anticipated the massive change that was about to be wrought by technology. One generation later and new opposing dichotomies still exist: the techno-centric world and those techno-phobic or the still skeptic. Th ose lucky enough to be caught in the revolution understand the realities impinging on both worlds, but those lost in the analogue reality and the new generation that grew up with virtual access seem to be lost in their own concept of space. It is difficult to conceptualise living without the digital version, but such is still a reality for some who still cling to hardcopies, atlases and paper, whilst equally perplexing that the new generations do not access such but immerse themselves in virtual worlds that may yet represent real space, which in turn has resulted in the loss of linkages to the real world. Case in point is the need to establish mental connections of place between the two worlds: the availability of online map services, but few really understand their physical space and the inherent relationships between the players in their routine activity. Th e scope of this paper is to visualise a socio-technic approach that creates virtual worlds that are understandable to new users, those who have yet to venture in the virtual immersive domain and build their worlds for eventual interactivity. It is futile for the social sciences to continue their century-old practices when dealing with the realities of the new society; counseling, sociology, social psychology, criminology as well as other natural sciences inclusive of medicine cannot abide by. Th eir need is imperative to understand the new domains in order to come up with new actions to understand the interactionism pertaining to the new societies that inhabit apparent alien domains. What Tim Berners- Lee unleashed in 1989 (1) through his world wide web (WWW) proposal (Berners-Lee, 1989) is still under study, even though it has taken over social change. This paper posits a process employed in Malta to bridge the gap, by creating a seed that transposes the real and understandable world to the uninitiated through the creation of a place they understand: a map of the islands.peer-reviewe

Neogeography and preparedness for real-to-virtual world knowledge transfer : conceptual steps to Minecraft Malta

Societies have rapidly morphed into complex entities that are creating accessibility, yet, at the same time, they are developing new forms of neogeographic-poverty related to information uptake. Those that have managed to partake in the opportunities provided by the web have new vistas to survive in, in contrast to the new poor who have limited or no access to information. New forms of data in spatial format are accessible to all, however few realize the implications of such a transitional change in wellbeing: Whether entire societies or individuals. The different generations taking up the information access can face different levels of accessibility that may be limited by access to online data, knowledge of usage of tools and the understanding of the results, all within the limits on the spaces they are familiar with. This paper reviews a conceptual process underlining the initial steps of a long-term project in the Maltese Islands that seeks to create an online series of tools that bring the concept of “physical place” to the different generations through the management of a major project, the creation of a 3D virtuality, employing scanning processes, GIS, conversion aspects, and a small block-based Minecraft engine.peer-reviewe

Saints, revelers and offenders : relationships in Festa space-time

Social interactionism occurs in space-time where the phenomenon morphs from the thematic activity to the geographical space it occurs in and the spatial relationships between the actors. The Maltese festa posits a ripe scenario for analysis of such interactionism and the inherent effects on safety and security. Whilst the fundamental festa scope banks on the sacred aspect, the activity moved through a village centre to a wider interactive (entire town) secular reality. This study investigates the occurrence of offending during the festa and the shoulder weeks for potential relationships between the spaces relevant to the activity through a study of expected and observed offences. The CRISOLA model serves as the basis for this study in the fields of crime, social issues and landuse and their impact on safety and security within the villages hosting the festa. The festa as a cause of crime by the relevant parties and significant others and its impact on social cohesion and operational requirements serves as a basis for proactive measures to be taken by the religious, secular and enforcement entities.peer-reviewe

Emergent realities for social wellbeing : environmental, spatial and social pathways

Opening a window into the future is not an easy task. Attempting to open one in a generation after the initial launching step might seemed either idealistic, naïve or with hindsight plain driven. An idea that started off in 1995 by Formosa as paralleled by a similar but unconnected effort by Perit Vincent Cassar took two decades to take a semblance of form and structure within an achievable framework. These two steams of though came together in 2013 at the then MEPA which effort sought to push all spatial information within an integrated core that allows Malta to jump from a Data Phase to an Information Phase and over the next years to a Knowledge, Action and Wisdom phased approach. The two proponents converged and the effort took national significance through the SIntegraM concept: a concept that aimed to create a functionality targeting the Spatial Data Integration for the Maltese Islands: Developing Integrated National Spatial Information Capacity – hence the acronym SIntegraM.peer-reviewe

Why future preparedness?

Why Future Preparedness and why even attempt to look into the future at a stage where the state of the environment is in such a constant rate of flux? Trying to understand what may come to pass tomorrow only takes a form when we know our present and how today is affected by our yesterday. Society is in transition and at a very rapid pace too. We cannot embrace one without the others and preparedness has never been more crucial. From understanding the diverse and contrasting social realities and the interactions between the environment, human capital and landuse to fathoming out the implications of legislative and operational tools on social cohesion, society faces major challenges. Challenges that can be understood through a dichotomy of interlinking activities: those purely based on scientifi c research and those striving for the implementation of on-the- ground operational processes. Th is publication seeks to help us understand such worlds and delves into a review of the past, describes the state of current knowledge whilst striving to help open for readers a window into future activities: through spatial descriptors. The publication is structured into three sections that help readers to understand the context within which such a publication is set: the first related to descriptors pertaining to the implementation of two major projects, the second section related to research that laid the groundwork for the present, whilst the final section looks forward on new societies and research challenges.peer-reviewe

Maltese building blocks for geographical and crime science

The study of urban ecology cannot be separated from geographical space; however the limitation of access to spatio-temporal information is a reality. Creating a crime information system for the Maltese Islands has entailed bridging the gap between analogue social information and spatial planning information which rarely talk. This paper covers the process employed to initiate an understanding of the legislative and operational tools available to crime and security geographers through to the preparation for the launching of country-wide baseline datasets for effective future socio-technic analysis. The decade long process to implement a major project using ERDF funds is at the final stages prior to the initiation of cross-thematic studies that span the physical and social domains. Both environmental and green criminology is now set to take off employing one of the most comprehensive GI systems spanning urban and rural offences (person and property-oriented), census data together with the natural, social and physical environments. The study reveals issues on access to data, mitigating processes undertaken and the forward planning initiatives to ensure free dissemination of environmental data to the academic and general public. Initial studies based on the analysis of crimemaps, poverty and crimes related to the environment show correlation between the different social and geographical spaces.peer-reviewe

Emergent realities for social wellbeing : environmental, spatial and social pathways

Initialising a stepped approach towards access to spatial data never purports to offer a dull moment. Stepped approaches that aim to make sense of data and harmonisation are hindered by capital and recurrent issues that pertain to the creation and maintenance of systems and protocols whilst governance across a national landscape impinges stressors on any system. The SIntegraM concept was initiated in 1995 on a two pronged process, that pertaining to a simultaneous but independent bottom-up and top-down process that had striven to achieve success but were constrained by the early concept hiccups that did not empower the project due to failed uptake by diverse entities and a defunct base mapping system. SIntegraM saw the coming together of two project champions who spent four years to morph their conceptualisation, bring together all public entities, present a spatial data integrative approach and eventually apply for basal funds to implement change. The result was based on an integrated approach to the data cycle, innovation concepts on data capture, integration and capture, the creation of a data-sharing protocol structure within a protected and secure environment and also the newly innovative action where hardware and apparatus will be shared by all government entities, under the gather-once / use-many philosophy. The stepped approach moved away from the vicious cycle of data hoarding and towards a spiral based on the need to use such resultant information eventually growing into a complex but readily available system that is driven by the Maltese SIntegraM’s unique conceptualisation and implementation foresight.peer-reviewe

Access to data is a small island state : the case for Malta

In a rapidly developing world where the introduction of massive online information systems has enabled both the scientist and the general public to interact with remotely-located data from across the globe, the reality of access to data and eventually to information is slowly bringing forth the realisation that decades-old barriers to access to data still need to be overcome. Whilst the massive volumes of data at hand can easily lead one to acquire a perception that there is everything one could require at the touch of a button, reality speaks with another voice; the data is there, the issue of reliability speaks otherwise. The fundamentals of research lie in the availability of reliable data, a phenomenon that has left disciplines struggling with issues of repeatability of scientific outcomes. Technology and legislative measures have caught up with the realities facing researchers.peer-reviewe

Even before spatialising the hotspot : theoretical approaches towards understanding environmental criminology

Crime is not an easily-explainable concept. Definitions of crime differ according to the school-of-thought but the main tenets are universal. These include harm caused to victims, social consensus and official societal response (McLaughlin and Muncie, 2001, 59). The sociological impact of crime is put into context by Durkheim’s statement that: “It is impossible for offences against the most fundamental collective sentiments to be tolerated without the disintegration of society, and it is necessary to combat them with the aid of the particularly energetic reaction which attaches to moral rules” (Durkheim, 1933, p. 397). The theoretical debate developed from the harm-based theory of Jeremy Bentham to Sellin’s science of criminal behaviour that looked at “naturally existing conduct norms”, to rule-relativist theory and radical conflict theory. Critical conflict theorists view crime in connection with an independent notion of “human rights” as against laws, which argument was further developed by postmodernists as a dynamic evaluation of harm where each case “is a moment of expression of power” (Henry and Milovanovic, 1996, 104).peer-reviewe