Geographical Analysis (2019) 0, 1–15

Special Issue

Geographic Data Science

Alex Singleton , Daniel Arribas-Bel
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZT, U.K.

It is widely acknowledged that the emergence of “Big Data” is having a profound and
often controversial impact on the production of knowledge. In this context, Data Science
has developed as an interdisciplinary approach that turns such “Big Data” into
information. This article argues for the positive role that Geography can have on Data
Science when being applied to spatially explicit problems; and inversely, makes the case
that there is much that Geography and Geographical Analysis could learn from Data
Science. We propose a deeper integration through an ambitious research agenda, including
systems engineering, new methodological development, and work toward addressing some
acute challenges around epistemology. We argue that such issues must be resolved in
order to realize a Geographic Data Science, and that such goal would be a desirable one.

Introduction
There has never been a time in history with more abundant geographic data, offering great poten-
tial for the spatially enabled social sciences to advance understanding of a plethora of human and
environmental problems (Elwood, Goodchild, and Sui 2012; Miller and Goodchild 2015). Such
data are being generated by many sources including established and new earth observation tech-
nologies; the miniaturized and expanded mobile sensing platforms of smart phones (Batty 2013);
wider sensor networks as part of a developing Internet of Things or other technologies related to
the quantified self (Wilson 2015); and the warehousing, linkage and modeling of public and pri-
vate sector consumer interactions (Miller 2015). The advance of such enabling instrumentation
and those data that they generate have expanded both where and when points of computation and
data collection can occur. Much of the resulting “data deluge” (Miller 2010; Kitchin 2014a, b)
within this context have properties that can be argued as differentiating these new forms of data
from those that have traditionally been the concern of the social sciences and geographers in
particular (e.g., short- and long-form surveys or Censuses). Collectively, these new sources have
been termed “Big Data,” and although there is an array of different definitions (Kitchin 2014a),
those properties that are most generally ascribed include being huge in volume, with high ve-
locity (e.g., real time) and having diversity in variety (unstructured or structured) (Laney 2001).

Correspondence: Alex Singleton, Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Roxby Building, 74
Bedford St S, Liverpool, L69 7ZT, U.K.
e-mail: alex.singleton@liverpool.ac.uk

Submitted: 6 March 2018; Revised version accepted: 7 March 2019

doi: 10.1111/gean.12194
© 2019 The Authors. Geographical Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Ohio State
University
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, 1
which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and
is not used for commercial purposes.
Geographical Analysis

Often conflated into the discussion of “Big Data” are those processes and techniques involved
in turning these resources into insight and understanding. However, we would argue that such
approaches should be more accurately referred to as “Data Science” (Schutt and O’Neil 2013;
Donoho 2015; Peng and Matsui 2015), and that this distinction is important beyond simple nam-
ing conventions. While a challenge of coping with “Big Data” is arguably technological, and
there is good reason to believe innovations in this area will reduce this burden, how we process,
analyze, and deploy insights from “Big Data” gives rise to a larger set of more enduring episte-
mological and ontological debates that are already taking place (e.g., Kitchin 2014a).
Our main thesis is that there are clear synergies and benefits to be realized from intensifying
our interactions with Data Science, and that these should be bidirectional in nature and thus have
positive collective impact. Although some proposed that “Big Data” will enable geographers to
build better models of human relationships and activities over space and time (González-Bailón
2013), we argue that for the realization of this vision there needs to be intensified critical engage-
ment of Data Science by geographers; while also ensuring better articulation, and embedding of
knowledge concerning the unique properties of space. The long interdisciplinary tradition that
exists within Geography makes it particularly well positioned to facilitate such engagement. At
the same time, further interaction with Data Science will bring new methodological tools that can
help Geography, and the Geographical Analysis community, to remain relevant in an increas-
ingly data-driven and digital world (Miller and Goodchild 2015; Ash, Kitchin, and Leszczynski
2018). To realize such a vision and to foster interaction, we propose the term of Geographic
Data Science, as a site for critique, collaboration, and co-creation. As it relates to the main theme
of the present special issue, the next 50 years of Geographical Analysis, we see Geographic
Data Science as a vehicle to maintain and intensify the relevance of this community in greater
scientific and industrial arenas. We make the case for the use of this term as complementary
rather than supplementary of related subfields or methodological approaches such as Geographic
Information Science, Quantitative Geography or Geocomputation, which we discuss in the sec-
tion “Towards a Geographic Data Science.”
We advance our argument in three stages. First we contextualize Data Science, focusing
on its origins to better understand some of its current day coverage (and gaps). We then review
the role of Geographic information and knowledge in the context of Data Science to argue for a
growing relevance for and to Geography. Together, these two sections serve as the foundation
for our proposal of a Geographic Data Science, which we elaborate by suggesting three different
phases of interaction that may contribute to its creation, and finally conclude with some future
prospects for research synergy.

“Big Data” deluge and the emergence of Data Science

It is difficult to trace the exact emergence of the term Data Science given diversity of its intel-
lectual lineage and its relative nascency. The term is simultaneously used to refer to a set of sta-
tistical, computational, and analytical techniques and workflows; the set of interconnected tools
developed with such applications in mind; as well as the particular epistemological perspective
that sustains these practices. Within the context of this article, we will refer mostly to the first
understanding, a set of techniques which, although common in other areas of science have seen
little adoption in Geography. The second dimension is touched upon briefly in relation to build-
ing technical bridges between Data Science and Geography, while the last conceptualization is
used to call upon further examination of the challenges it poses in the context of Geography.

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Alex Singleton and Dani Arribas-Bel Geographic Data Science

What is clear however is that several disciplines claim ownership, with early references within
both Computer Science (Naur 1974) and Statistics (Wu 1997; Cleveland 2001; Provost and
Fawcett 2013). Data Science is also promoted widely by industry as the solution to the problem
of making sense of and monetizing the increasing volumes of “Big Data” produced by comput-
er-mediated systems (Kitchin 2014b; Varian 2014). Although an agreed definition does not exist
to date, Loukides (2011) considers Data Science as “gathering data, massaging it into a tractable
form, making it tell its story, and presenting that story to others.” Extrapolating from such an
all-encompassing definition implies a foundation in statistics and computer science, but also a
firm grasp on software and database engineering, data/information visualization, and communi-
cation skills (Schutt and O’Neil 2013; Patil and Mason 2015). From an industry perspective, nar-
ratives associated with Data Science place clear emphasis on predictive modeling and building
“data products,” those whose very existence depends crucially on data (Loukides 2011). From a
methodological standpoint, the statistical areas most stressed relate to techniques that, instead
of imposing structure on the data ex ante (as was traditionally customary), rely on the amount of
data to identify (“learn”) such structure and more flexibly adapt to it, often providing better pre-
dictive performance. Such methods by themselves, however, are not what makes Data Science
distinctive; in fact, many of the purported new Data Science techniques have lengthy history.
It is their combination with “Big Data” that is reshaping landscapes both within industry and
academia, and producing results that only a few years ago seemed within the realm of science
fiction, from self-driving cars to personalized health applications. Every methodological turn is
marked by a key distinctive characteristic. Within science, many of these shifts are linked ex-
plicitly to novel and differentiating technological advances that allow fields of research to evolve
into distinctively new phases. In the case of Data Science, this is undoubtedly those methods and
tools that make it possible to take full advantage of “Big Data.”
Data Science presents a set of interconnected practices that have gained significant traction
in the commercial sector. Although such developments are not limited to a single industry, and
there are certainly numerous examples with a long history of generating large volumes of data
(e.g., earth observation, finance, precision manufacturing, aerospatial engineering, logistics, etc),
a significant contributor to the platforms and techniques of contemporary Data Science came
from the activity of information technology companies. The Internet was one of the first plat-
forms where the explosion of automated data production took place. Contrasting with traditional
companies up to the late 1990s and early 2000s, the majority of their business, operations, and in-
teractions with customers were almost entirely mediated through the web, thus enabling hitherto
unseen potential to track rich details about activities of individual users. At some point during
their development, such companies realized that the storage and creative use of these data held
great value (Weinberger 2011); as both an asset for the business that was useful for enhancing
valuations when seeking venture capital (Cassidy 2002), or as an operational resource (Vise and
Malseed 2008) that enabled the streamlining or customization of services, consumer targeting
(Petrison, Blattberg, and Wang 1997), or even the creation of entirely data-based products (Van
Dijck 2013). Many of these developments were kept in-house, as they were (rightly) deemed as
giving a competitive advantage, but early examples of such activities could be observed at firms
including Google, Facebook, or Amazon (Rao and Scaruffi 2013). This revolutionary discourse
of “Big Data” and Data Science has however been challenged (e.g., Barnes and Wilson 2014);
for example, being argued by Dalton, Taylor, and Thatcher (2016) and Dalton and Thatcher
(2015) as strategically beneficial to industry and often “black box.”

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Geographical Analysis

Data Science and the production of geographic knowledge

Contemporary Data Science, as described in the previous section, emerged in a significant part
as a collection of methods, tools, and supporting infrastructure to make sense of mostly non-geo-
graphical data derived through Internet activity. If considered at all, Geography would most typ-
ically be coarsely coded (country or city) through a connected device’s unique IP address, and
not necessarily at the forefront or integral to analysis. However, as documented in Arribas-Bel
(2014) and Kitchin (2014b), many contemporary “Big Data” are generated by companies whose
activities are also mediated digitally, but often have clear spatial and geographical dimensions
to their operations. Furthermore, in many instances, the warehousing of such data has made it
possible to link individuals to their associated attributes or events through historic records, thus
creating not only highly detailed spatial but also temporal profiles (Miller 2015).
However, for Geography, there are two important considerations that emerge as Data
Science is applied to geographic questions: firstly, of what or where are the underlying data rep-
resentative; and secondly, how divergent is the extraction of knowledge within this context from
more widely accepted epistemologies such as those emerging from Quantitative Geography,
Geographic Information Science, or Geocomputation? Both pose important challenges for Data
Science within this context, and learnings from Geography are well positioned to play a signifi-
cant role in their resolution.
There are substantial issues related to the provenance of “Big Data” (Goodchild 2013) and
the associated implications for computation, methodology, and interpretation (Gorman 2013).
For example, “Big Data” are rarely raw (Gitelman 2013; Dalton and Thatcher 2014), given the
extent to which such data (or, indeed, any data) can be considered as socially constructed (boyd
and Crawford 2012). There are further issues related to how geographic features are encoded
within “Big Data,” with their geographic ontology being particularly vague (Goodchild and Li
2012). There are therefore a range of significant challenges around how more sophisticated un-
derstanding of Geography can be computed (Goodchild and Li 2012; Crampton et al. 2013;
Miller 2015; Leszczynski and Crampton 2016), which have been a focus of GIScience since its
inception (i.e., Goodchild 1991).
However, given that much Data Science is situated outside of Geography, there is increased
risk within such contexts that location continues to be rationalized only as a supplementary col-
umn within a database, no more or less important than any other attribute. We argue that such
effects are clearly counterproductive, and will be worrying for geographers; specifically given
the large body of knowledge associated with the many unique properties of spatial data and the
additional functionality they unlock that necessitate particular considerations in their analysis
(e.g., Anselin 1989).
At the same time, those ways in which “Big Data” are turned into information challenge
established epistemologies within the social sciences (Kitchin 2014a). This relates to an em-
phasis particularly within commercial Data Science on the “Fourth Paradigm” (Hey, Tansley,
and Tolle 2009) which, taken to its extreme, is a held view that data in themselves are enough
to extract knowledge and thus detached from theory (Miller 2015) or the consideration of pro-
cess (O’Sullivan 2018). Within this context, the analysis of “Big Data” represents a shift away
from carefully designed experiments with known sample sizes (Brunsdon 2014), the traditional
approach of hypothesis testing, and the confirmation of exogenously stated theories through
models that are carefully specified with relevant and rationalized attributes. To some extent, these
issues reflect long-held tensions within Geography and social science more generally—between

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Alex Singleton and Dani Arribas-Bel Geographic Data Science

idiographic (specification of the unique properties) and nomothetic (generalization and deriva-
tion of laws) forms of knowledge production (Schaefer 1953; Miller 2015). Although data-driven
knowledge can be considered as idiographic (Miller 2015), Data Science does not represent a
purely ideographic form of knowledge production; and often “Big Data” provide a rich yet in-
complete representation of reality. Beyond such input, and core to many Data Science methods
are various forms of explanatory models that can account for the characteristics of the input data
that they are fed. As discussed earlier, such methods will typically seek to find rules and asso-
ciations on the basis of input data, however, unlike many traditional mathematical or statistical
frameworks, the exact specification of such rules are often determined endogenously by the
technique (Gould 1981). This aspect also underlies one of the main methodological critiques of
Data Science, in that models can become very sensitive to the original input data used for their
specification, and this may not correspond to subsequent realizations.
The interplay between data, code, and the production of knowledge are typically integral
to the curriculums of Geography programs that teach GIS, and it would be expected that most
students would have a grounding of these fundamental issues by culmination of their studies
(Johnston et al. 2014). However, this is not necessarily the case for the interdisciplinary area of
Data Science, where many researchers and practitioners are drawn from a wider constituency of
disciplines, and often outside of the social sciences. Given that much “Big Data” have locational
attribution, our argument here is that Data Science should introduce critical geographical notions
and reflection in a more fundamental way for these methods to build credibility within the social
sciences. Indeed, Kitchin (2013: 264) notes there is a significant role for Geography within this
context to “push back against naïve forms of predatory science,” which is echoed by O’Sullivan
and Manson (2015); and is a good example of what Sui and DeLyser (2012) call a “boundary
project”: the integrating of practices thought to be incompatible.
Geographers and other areas of cognate social science have historically had limited access
to transactional (commercial/administrative) and more recently “Big Data” (Manovich 2011).
Unsurprisingly, the necessary special considerations for their analysis have therefore had limited
curriculum integration (Kitchin 2013; Johnston et al. 2014). This gives rise to the significant risk
that Data Science applications become the preserve of the non-social sciences where there is
technical training, but perhaps not the embedding of an epistemology that emphasizes the social
and ethical considerations necessary for the analysis of socio-spatial problems (Ruppert 2013).
At the same time, GISc might be argued as having parallel tensions. From an instrumentation
perspective, many curriculums have historically produced a body of GIS professionals where the
focus of work processes are bound by specific GIS software platforms, including data creation,
management, and representation. Gorman (2013) discusses how the rise of many new forms of
(geographic) data gathered through social, mobile, and location applications have occurred ex-
ternal to GIS, and such software tools were not built to manage such large volumes of externally
generated data. As a result, much of the GIS ecosystem has fragmented into multiple distributed
but connected components that demand a wider set of skills than may traditionally have been
acquired. Such issues are not only of concern to the spatial sciences (Hardin et al. 2015), and
although progress is being made within this context (Bowlick, Goldberg, and Bednarz 2017), in
order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing data economy, Geography must continue to embrace
this shifting context, widen the base of skills taught, and encompass some of those contemporary
approaches being developed within Data Science. Conversely, as Data Scientists move onto
questions framed by location, space, and other geographical considerations, they will therefore
run into similar issues as those that geographers have been dealing with (and proposing solutions

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to) for decades. Unless an explicit action is taken, there is a clear risk of “reinventing the wheel,”
which would be counterproductive. Geography has the potential to help Data Science avoid this
situation by bringing, literally and epistemologically speaking, the role of context and decades of
experience with these questions. However, to realize this contribution to the Data Science com-
munity, Geography needs to be able to establish a common field where interaction and exchange
with the disciplines and industries of Data Science and “Big Data” are encouraged and fostered.

Toward a Geographic Data Science

Geographic Information Science takes a critically reflective view on the application of compu-
tational methods to locational problems (Elwood 2008, 2010) and, in doing so, GISc is enriched
by the breadth and depth of debates long held in Geography about competing perspectives, epis-
temological and ontological paradigms, and ethical considerations. In his seminal contribution,
Goodchild (1991) defined the domain of GISc as a research agenda consisting of five distinct top-
ics: spatial analysis and spatial statistics; theories of spatial relations; artificial intelligence and
expert systems; visualization; and social, institutional, and economic issues. In later reflection
on 20 years on the subdiscipline, Goodchild (2010) points out that, because it was considered
more engineering than science, and despite earlier engagement (e.g., Couclelis 1986), the theme
of artificial intelligence and expert systems were underrepresented within the ongoing NCGIA
research at the time, and as such were removed from the more elaborate definition proposed in
Goodchild (1992). To some extent, a related line of inquiry was taken up by academics in the
Geocomputation sister field (e.g., Openshaw and Abrahart 1996; Openshaw and Openshaw 1997;
Longley et al. 1998; Gahegan 1999), which bridged the “spatial analysis and spatial statistics”
component of GISc with greater emphasis on the computational dimension (Fotheringham 1998;
Brunsdon and Singleton 2015; Harris et al. 2017). These areas are, in a sense, all cognate of
Quantitative Geography, a term with less traction today perhaps but which underpins several
of the advances described in this context and we see also as one of the potential links to bridge
Geography with Data Science.
It is interesting to consider such developments within a broader historical context of AI
research. The so-called “AI winter” of the mid-80s (Hendler 2008), a period of discontent and
disinvestment in artificial intelligence research, was at its peak when the GISc agenda was being
formed. However, in the following two decades, the field has made significant leaps that have
delivered progress in a wide range of fields of everyday life (Kitchin and Dodge 2011; Tenney
and Sieber 2016) and academic research, from language translation, to autonomous transporta-
tion. Many core Data Science methods, and particularly those that have emerged from Computer
Science, are in essence AI: they perform machine learning tasks that allow computers to make
individual predictions and, in cases, decisions based upon them. This process can happen in an
entirely automated way (subject to calibration), without human intervention and sometimes even
in real time. Since these techniques rely heavily on the amount of input data fed into the model,
one of the key factors responsible for this renaissance in AI has to do with the advent of “Big
Data,” which has made it possible to use similar techniques, yet obtain significantly superior
results.
Geography has, for the most part, remained disconnected from many of these develop-
ments. While elements of the discipline (e.g., remote sensing) have engaged with several com-
ponents of what is considered Data Science (e.g., image analysis), such interactions have taken
place in a fragmented and indirect fashion. We argue that there should be a more orchestrated

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Alex Singleton and Dani Arribas-Bel Geographic Data Science

cross-pollination between the two. We envisage that a productive way forward in this direction
is to foster common spaces of interaction in what we could call a Geographic Data Science that
effectively combines the long-standing tradition and epistemologies of Geographic Information
Science and Geography with many of the recent advances that have given Data Science its rele-
vance in an emerging “datafied” world.
There are various ways in which such integration might occur. In this context, we will
sketch a process that moves from simple coupling of tools through assimilation of methods into a
fully integrated Geographic Data Science. Coupling of tools refers to the linking of functionality
from one platform into another, and within open source GIS and statistical platforms, this has
become common practice. Through similar mechanisms, coupling of Data Science technologies
with GIS features represents a productive start to expose both communities to the advantages
that may emerge from engaging with each other. Indeed, this process has already been set in
motion. For example, the two start-up companies Carto (mapping and cartography) and Plot.ly
(statistical visualization) offer interfaces that allow the integration of their analytics tools into
other common platforms. Alternatively, ESRI (www.esri.com) have developed tools that enable
the ArcGIS platform to interact with Hadoop clusters (hadoop.apache.org), one of the industry
standard platforms to store and process “Big Data.”
Assimilation represents a further level of embeddedness of not only functionality but also
those practices and methods surrounding the analytical process. Much the same way in which
GIS approaches to data storage and query are now found within many other classes of software
(e.g., spatially enabled databases), the tools of Data Science are also starting to assimilate ele-
ments that go beyond simple coupling and engage with both GIS and spatial analysis principles.
For example, the Spatial Hadoop (spatialhadoop.cs.umn.edu) project integrates spatial analysis
functionality into Hadoop, thus enabling data to be queried using spatial operators (e.g., distance
or topology-based queries). Although such developments show great promise, it is important
to highlight that more advanced insights and components of the GISc literature, such as spatial
uncertainty, statistics or modeling, have received much less attention in this context so far. Both
coupling and assimilation represent examples of bidirectional dissemination between Geography
and Data Science. Such interaction offers tangible benefit, but we would argue it should only be
the starting point for a more ambitious agenda where Geography as a discipline can influence
the representation, analysis, and use of spatial “Big Data.” In this context, the effects go beyond
simply sharing best practice or exploring the utility of new tools from other fields. Geography
has a long history of attracting scholars and their associated methodologies/epistemologies from
over multiple disciplines (Agnew and Livingston 2011); and indeed outwardly contributing new
methods and approaches (Warf and Arias 2009; Brunsdon and Singleton 2015). This provides an
enviable meeting point for discussion and deeper integration, drawing on decades of interdisci-
plinary experience.
Progressively, we also argue that there is potential for the development of a new set of
Geographic Data Science methods and tools, as well as their associated epistemological frame-
works. Designing these with direct contributions from the Geography/GISc tradition and modern
Data Science approaches would aspire to realize the full potential of spatial “Big Data” (Gorman
2013). In order to foster the debate, the remainder of this section presents a research agenda that
suggests how and where integration could occur, and in particular those areas where challenges
may emerge. We focus specifically on systems, methods, and established epistemology that can
or do directly connect and extend nonspatial approaches that are current in Data Science, yet
may currently be implemented to explore geographic phenomena without specific consideration

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of those unique properties of space. However, this should be taken as a starting rather than end
point for discussion and debate.

Systems engineering
The first component of this research agenda relates to core systems engineering, and includes
the development of spatial databases and file formats that are explicitly designed to store, re-
trieve, and manipulate spatial “Big Data”; and secondly, how such spatial “Big Data” might
be translated into information from these systems through visual display. The nature of spatial
“Big Data” gives rise to specific challenges that warrant focused research on data structures. For
example, efficiently integrating space and time at scale (Cheng 2012; Miller 2014; Rey 2014)
or nonplanar representations of space such as spatial networks (Goodchild 2006; Barthélemy
2011; Okabe and Sugihara 2012). These all require a flexible ontology that is able to deal with
a host of different types of geographic features and their conceptualizations. Much work within
this area has progressed under the umbrella of Cyber GIS (Wang 2010, 2016; Wang et al. 2013;
Evans et al. 2019); with some specific examples including alternative storage and transfer mech-
anisms (Lv, Reh́man, and Chen 2013) or the development of new routing platforms (Shekhar et
al. 2012). Developing core systems from first principles we argue holds the greatest potential,
where explicit design can be embedded to account for those unique properties of spatial “Big
Data.” In some sense, we would expect this to follow similar advantages to those leveraged re-
cently in other contexts, such as the creation of databases specifically designed to store, manage,
and manipulate graph or network data. As the earlier presented definition described, there is a
particularly strong focus within Data Science on the visual display of information, which also
has parallel to the role that cartography plays in GIS. In both contexts, modern approaches have
leveraged the advantages of computer-driven representations (e.g., Cheshire and Uberti 2014;
Kirk 2016). As argued by Andrienko, Andrienko, and Weibel (2017), closer integration between
Geography and Data Science could also infuse new developments in the area of infrastructure
to support Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA; Haining, Wise, and Ma 1998; Anselin
1999). This direction ensues a range of challenges around how spatial relationships (associa-
tions, significant clusters, etc.) can be identified and represented that go beyond the efficiency of
applying techniques to large data sets (Andrienko, Andrienko, and Weibel 2017). For example,
how to account for greater uncertainty in the underlying spatial data (Kinkeldey et al. 2015); to
what extent traditional significance testing, for example, as it relates to spatial autocorrelation, is
relevant in the context of very large samples; or how such approaches can be implemented in a
real-time environment, where georeferenced data are conceptualized as a continuous flow, rather
than as a large batch.

Modeling
Beyond the storage and visual representation of spatial “Big Data,” there are clear opportunities
to integrate various aspects of modeling as applied within Geography/GISc and Data Science.
Many of the techniques widely used in Data Science come from a branch of computational statis-
tics called machine learning (ML). ML is usually split into supervised and unsupervised meth-
ods. The former aim at identifying structure in the data without any form of previous instruction.
There are clear precedents of unsupervised applications within Geography through, for exam-
ple, geodemographic analysis (Singleton and Spielman 2014) or even explicitly spatial through
regionalization and zone design (Openshaw 1977; Martin 1998; Duque, Ramos, and Suriñach
2007) which, in addition to statistical similarity, imposes geographic constraints to obtain the

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Alex Singleton and Dani Arribas-Bel Geographic Data Science

resulting groupings. There are also a range of applications where established analysis techniques
within Quantitative Geography have been reconfigured within the context of new infrastructure
such as graphics processing unit architecture (Zhang, You, and Gruenwald 2014; Liang et al.
2015; Zhou et al. 2016; Tang and Feng 2017) or utilization of machine learning frameworks
(Sun et al. 2015). All are a good example of areas of preexisting collaboration, however, there is
potential and need to expand these interactions.
Data Science methods usually neglect location in their estimation, even when it is an im-
portant element of the problem at hand, trading apparent simplicity for potentially suboptimal
outcomes. At the same time, explicitly spatial unsupervised learning, although promising, is very
much in its infancy in terms of scalability to a point where it is a feasible option with “Big Data.”
Geographic Data Science would enhance advances at this intersection and enable innovative
perspectives on long-standing questions and themes within Geography, such as the modifiable
areal unit problem (MAUP; Openshaw 1984). Supervised learning, on the other hand, aims at
building models and representations of phenomena that allow a machine to generate predictions
in an automated fashion when new input data are presented to the model. The parallel with
Geography in this context is less direct, although well-established approaches to integrate space
in a regression context, such as spatial econometrics (Anselin and Rey 2014) or geographically
weighted regression (Brunsdon, Fotheringham, and Charlton 1998) come closest. Although the
main interest usually differs between Data Science (prediction), and Geography (explanation),
also here there is scope for fruitful and productive interaction. The explicit inclusion of space
in modeling contexts where it plays an important role improves predictive performance. To the
extent that this is an almost unexplored field in Data Science, there are clear benefits to be real-
ized in that respect. At the same time, some applications in Geography/GISc either require (e.g.,
small-area estimation) or could benefit from better predictive performance, which supervised
learning is likely to ensue when combined with a formal representation of space. We would
argue this is one of the most fruitful methodological areas where Geographic Data Science could
comprehensively rework some of those core techniques of Data Science when considering prob-
lems associated with recorded attributes within spatial “Big Data.”

Data-driven epistmology
Finally, we support the view that the practice of Data Science needs to be more effectively
embedded within what Kitchin (2014a) terms a data-driven epistemology or Hey, Tansley, and
Tolle (2009) describe as the “fourth paradigm” in Science. This is an approach that, grounded
in scientific theories, extends their traditional approaches, adopting data and computation as an
additional tool not only to test existing theories but also to develop new ones. In this respect, dis-
regard of past scientific and academic practice, or a blind move into complete empiricism devoid
of theory is undesired. Conversely, Geography has been argued as ill prepared theoretically for
an era of “Big Data” (Kitchin 2013; Ruppert 2013).
Epistemological challenges that emerge are related to differences between some of the
practice of Data Science vis-à-vis traditional social science. An example of this are modeling
approaches implemented to predict an outcome effectively, but which use techniques whose
inner predictive mechanisms are opaque and difficult to interpret; or cases where predictive an-
alytics are deployed in real-world situations devoid of context or the social consequences of
the decisions made by those models (O’Neil 2016). Such exercises are usually described as
“black boxes,” are less open to scrutiny or reproducibility (Singleton, Spielman, and Brunsdon
2016), and risk making poor decisions in terms of social justice and fairness. In the context of

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a commercial production system which only requires a good prediction, this is not necessarily
a source of concern; indeed Wyly (2014: 681) notes “[t]he capitalist correlation imperative is
clear: spurious correlation is fine, so long as it is profitable spurious correlation.” However, more
acutely in the context of scientific inquiry, where process is as relevant, if not more, as the out-
come, this can produce a significant and understandable backlash.
These debates are however not new (Shmueli 2010) and, as it is the case in the other ele-
ments we have highlighted, there is already important work taking place in this respect. In this
particular area, there is much and interesting work being carried out in the nascent field of critical
data studies, where several geographers are making active contributions (e.g., Leszczynksi and
Crampton 2016; Zook 2017). We would argue that Geography, as a “discipline of disciplines”
where different and often-confronting paradigms coexist, is well prepared to take an active role
in advancing them toward more socially desirable outcomes. In this context, Geographic Data
Science would closely align with core critical and ethical principles in this regard that have been
advanced within Geography and, in particular, the subdisciplinary field of GISc. Furthermore, a
Geographic Data Science would also act as a platform where the outcomes of these debates are
more effectively disseminated across Data Science researchers and practitioners who, as covered
above, are not necessarily aware of developments in the various fields of Geography. Such de-
velopments will be necessary to unlock all the potential in spatial “Big Data,” without repetition
of where Geographic research has already spent considerable effort (Schwanen and Kwan 2009;
Barnes 2010).

Conclusions
This article considers the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of Data Science and critically
examines the role that Geography and subdisciplinary approaches such as GISc can play in the
development of new methodological and epistemological frameworks. The rapid expansion of
instrumentation generating spatial “Big Data” generates clear research opportunities, but also
significant challenges. We discuss how “Big Data” has spawned Data Science and how the field
has evolved to consider ever more inherently geographic problems. However, this expansion has
not been accompanied by an extension of the original methodological approaches and epistemo-
logical frameworks, potentially making its application to problems where location is key subop-
timal. Given such disconnect, we make a case for closer and careful coupling and assimilation
of the connected fields of Geography with Data Science, and provide some evidence that such
practices are already taking place.
We argue strongly that there is substantial potential for the establishment of a Geographic
Data Science within Geography, which provides a historical lineage of interdisciplinary work-
ing, and which we see as an important component of the next 50 years of the Geographical
Analysis community. In this context, Data Science can benefit from the critically reflective per-
spective that Geography takes on new computational approaches to locational problems, as well
as methodological contributions that better account for some of the key challenges in building
models with spatial data. Such a relationship is and should be bidirectional in nature, since the
discipline of Geography also has much to gain from Data Science, particularly in the meth-
odological and technical aspects of working with “Big Data.” We recognize the lineage of a
Geographic Data Science would be closely related to Geocomputation, Geographic Information
Systems and, in a broadest sense, Quantitative Geography and Geographical Analysis. But we
also stress the need for a distinct Geographic Data Science, given the interdisciplinarity of this

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Alex Singleton and Dani Arribas-Bel Geographic Data Science

endeavor; and, furthermore, the step change that the technological innovation of new forms of
“Big Data” ­implies and requires methodologically to take full advantage. We conclude with a
research agenda toward a Geographic Data Science that will emerge through deeper integration
of the discipline of Geography and Data Science around three areas that include aspects of sys-
tems engineering, new methodological development, and work toward addressing some acute
challenges of epistemology.
It is clear to us that there are benefits for this integration, both in practical terms of being
able to implement more effective, ethical, and epistemologically robust analytics; but also, and
importantly, in sustaining the relevance of Geography and subdisciplinary approaches within a
rapidly changing socio-technological landscape. We concur with Graham and Shelton (2013:
259) when they state that “the futures of geography and big data are still to be made,” and that
there is still much exciting work to be done for a range of scholars with differing interests. To
this end, we are firmly convinced there can only be positive outcomes from stronger interaction
and cross-fertilization between the Geography and Data Science, and that this will strengthen our
discipline and reaffirm its future relevance.

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