Diverse critical scientific and societal issues are prompting generation of large volumes of geospatial data and demands for geospatial information technologies that allow these data to be used effectively. The issues include understanding health-environment interactions, assessing terrorist threats, planning for dramatic changes in regional demographics across the country, and fusing perspectives for strategic environmental risk management. The data being generated and corresponding demands for useful and usable technologies, in turn, pose an array of research challenges and opportunities that the GeoVISTA Center is working to address.

GeoVISTA's specific mission is to coordinate integrated and innovative research in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), with an emphasis on geovisualization. The focus is on developing powerful human-centered methods and technologies that make it possible for scientists and decision makers to solve scientific, social, and environmental problems through computer-supported, visually-enabled analysis of the growing wealth of geospatial data.

We have identified four core research foci:

1. geocollaboration
2. integrated methods for knowledge construction
3. human interaction with geospatial information
4. decision-support and risk management tools