关键词: 信息流, 地球信息科学, 地球信息机理, 对地观测系统, 地理信息系统, 信息, 高速公路

Abstract: Geo information Science emerged recently as an accepted term with the popularity of geographical technologies such as geographical information system, global positioning system and satellite remote sensing, and great demand for effective use of the geographical information to deal with complex issues like the regional sustainable development and global change. It may be believed that Geo information science will grow to be an important branch of Earth System Science and play when we step into the information age of 21th century. The authors attempted to probe the fundamental issues and principal area for Geo information science in this article form its origin and main contents and research topics. Firstly, we discussed the Geo information science from the technological and application sets. From the point of view of the technology development, there exist several relevant and similar terms such as Geomatics, Geographical Information Science, Iconic Informatics, which were advanced from different principals, like photogrammetry, remote sensing. It was said that all these principals concerning the geo information collecting, analysis and communication promoted and contributed, to some extent, the emergency of Geo information science. At the same time, the research of the global change, regional sustainable development and other comprehensive and complex issues concerning the earth system asks us to reveal the principals governing the movement of the matter and energy, the interaction among the different geo spheres not only from the matter and energy cycles, but also from the information flow. As an umbrella for the fundamental problems surrounding the geo information collection, storage, analysis and communication, the main research contents for Geo information science may include Geo informatics, Geo information technologies and its application. Geo informatics, as its basic theory for revealing the development and evolution of the earth system, includes the geo information expression, structure and characteristics, information transfer process and amplification and decreasing among the geo spheres, spatial cognition and uncertainty and forecastability, and others. The geo information technologies involves the aspects for information collection such as remote sensing and GPS, simulation and analysis such as GIS, DBMS, and communication like Information Highway, electric atlas. Geo information science has a wide application area, especially finds utilization in the global change and sustainable development research. Therefore Geo information science, a multi discipline spanning over the Earth Science, System Science and Information technologies, will bloom up and become a supporting branch of the Geo information science soon.

Key words: the stream of information, geo information science, the mechanism of geo information, the earthly observation system, geographic information system, information highway