Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
proposed approach, to include these steps in a chain, or rather in a methodological
system. Even if all the steps are not necessarily to be improved in any work, it is
useful to be aware of those that are put
in brackets
. The constitution of a spatio-
temporal database on a new phenomenon (or at least that which has not been
specified), for example, is in itself an ambitious objective. Queries are, in this
situation, a good tool for representing and describing the phenomenon. However, it
is interesting to reflect, already at this stage, on the questions likely to arise in terms
of interrelations, typology, and about the processes that have led to the changes
observed for the phenomenon in question.
The relationships between these stages are of several natures, involving both
concurrence and complementarity:
- given the objectives, an approach and a method may appear more appropriate
than others;
- an approach may be preferred over another according to the habits and
competences of the researcher;
- the different stages can be understood in their complementarities and coupled
in different ways.
Following the exposition order chosen in this topic, Chapter 4 proposes methods
located at the bottom end of the research process: the entities have been constructed
and have given rise to a critical discussion (Chapter 1). They have been designed
and modeled while integrating time, the interrelations between the different
phenomena involved and the form of the interactions between the places have been
described and explored using queries and statistical methods (Chapters 2 and 3).
These explorations have enabled us to develop a number of hypotheses about the
processes that have led to empirically observed evolutions. The simulation models,
finally, make formalizing these hypotheses possible and checking their relevance
and consistency (Chapter 4). The prime example of Chapter 2 illustrates such a
sequence, whose degree of genericity can be evaluated by confronting the
phenomenon being studied in other spatial or temporal contexts (that is a similar
system situated in other places or at other times). This work's description, however,
is very stylized and the reality of the research rarely follows such a linear plot. If the
challenge is about bringing forward the causes of a change in an area already well-
known beforehand (from the literature and the empirical work carried out elsewhere
or in other contexts), the researcher will be able to try, for example, to directly
develop a MAS model. During the confrontation with the empirical data, some
results of such a model will cause reinterpretation of the meaning of the entities
involved (refer to point 1 in Figure I.1 of the introduction) and/or to mobilize
statistical treatments to understand the meaning of some empirical regularities.
Furthermore, the simulation generates large quantities of spatio-temporal data,
