Abstract
Uncertainty fields have been suggested as an appropriate model for retrospective georeferencing of herbarium specimens. Previous work has focused only on automated data capture methods, but techniques for manual data specification may be able to harness human spatial cognition skills to quickly interpret complex spatial propositions. This paper develops a formal modeling language by which location uncertainty fields can be derived from manually sketched features. The language consists of low-level specification of critical probability isolines from which a surface can be uniquely derived, and high-level specification of features and predicates from which low-level isolines can be derived. In a case study, five specimens of Kolsteletzkya pentacarpos housed in the Ted Bradley Herbarium at George Mason University are retrospectively georeferenced, and locational uncertainties of error distance, possibility region and uncertainty field representations are compared.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on Spatial Accuracy Assessment in Natural Resources and Environmental Science |
| State | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- herbarium databases
- retrospective georeferencing
- uncertainty fields
Disciplines
- Biology
- Databases and Information Systems
- Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology