Statement of Interests

Daniel Sui
Department of Geography
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77845
Phone: 409-845-7154
FAX: 409-862-4487
E-mail: D-Sui@TAMU.EDU
Web: http://geog.tamu.edu/sui/

My interests in urban land use modeling started with two land use/land cover mapping projects using TM imageries and aerial photographs in the late 1980s. Toward the end of these two projects, I came to the conclusion that the potential of remote sensing will not be fully realized if the thematic information such as LU/LC extracted from remote sensing imageries are not put into GIS. So my interest shifted from remote sensing to GIS, especially the integration of multiple data layers using conventional cartographic modeling for land suitability analysis. Because of the ad hoc nature of cartographic modeling using overlay and buffer analysis, I started exploring how to improve the analytical capabilities of GIS since 1990. I have concentrated primarily on the integration of GIS with spatial analysis and modeling with applications in the socio-economic arena. Specifically, I worked on the integration of GIS with a modified version of Lowry model to simulate the urban development patterns for the city of Hong Kong; the incorporation of fuzzy logic and neural computing in cartographic modeling to better handle the ambiguities and vagueness in spatial decision making. I am also keenly interested in exploring the characteristics of the emerging new urban forms and what are the processes responsible for these new urban forms. I firmly believe that efficient and effective urban land use modeling efforts must be grounded squarely in robust urban theories and vigorous urban theories must be capable of explaining the new urban reality during the information age. One of the key issues I am currently working on is how the new telematics revolution will change the urban structures, functions and what kind of new policy initiatives we need to deal with urban issues in the information city. I have also been working on a holistic approach toward urban modeling in which new urban theories on information cities and new modeling techniques in non-linear dynamics are seamlessly integrated to simulate urban development. I am also interested in alternative conceptualizations of space and time and new computational implementation strategies for the development of the next generation of GIS.

Biographical Sketch

Daniel Z. Sui is an associate professor in the geography department at Texas A&M University. He is also a senior faculty fellow at the Center for Mapping Sciences and the UN-sponsored Hazard Research Center at Texas A&M. He got both his B.S.(1986) and M.S. (1989) from Peking University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1993. He has been teaching at Texas A&M since 1993. His primary research interests include the integration of spatial analysis and modeling for urban and environmental applications, the incorporation of fuzzy logic and neural computing in spatial data handling, theoretical issues in geographic information science, and the changing urban spatial structure in North America and the Pacific Rim.