Waldo Rudolph Tobler
Waldo Tobler in front of the Newberry Library. Chicago, November 2007
Born(1930-11-16)November 16, 1930
Portland, Oregon, USA
DiedFebruary 20, 2018(2018-02-20) (aged 87)
EducationUniversity of Washington
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
University of California, Santa Barbara
Doctoral studentsSandra Arlinghaus

Waldo Rudolph Tobler (November 16, 1930 – February 20, 2018) was an American-Swiss geographer and cartographer.[1][2][3] Tobler is regarded as one of the most influential geographers and cartographers of the late 20th century and early 21st century.[2][4][5][6] Tobler is most well known for his proposed idea that "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things," which has come to be referred to as the "first law of geography."[2][5][7][8] The first law of geography is widely cited, and continues to be relevant today.[9][10][11] He proposed a second law as well: "The phenomenon external to an area of interest affects what goes on inside."[8][12]

Tobler's career had a major impact on the development of quantitative geography, and his research spanned and influenced the study of any discipline investigating geographic phenomena.[13] He established the discipline of analytical cartography, contributed early to Geographic information systems (GIS), and helped lay the groundwork for geographic information science (GIScience) as a discipline.[2][5][6] He had significant contributions to computer cartography and was one of the first geographers to explore using computers in geography[2]. In cartography, he contritubed to the literature on map projections, choropleth maps, flow maps, cartograms, animated mapping.[6][7][14] His work with analytical cartography included contributions to the mathematical modeling of geographic phenomena, such as human movement in the creation of Tobler's hiking function.[6][7][15]

Tobler's work has been described as ahead of its time, and many of his ideas are still unable to be fully implemented due to limitations of technology.[16]

Tobler held the positions of professor of geography and professor of statistics at University of California, Santa Barbara and was an active Professor Emeritus at the Department of Geography until his death.[17]

Early life

Tobler was born in Portland, Oregon in 1930 to parents Verner Tobler and Hanny Urech Tobler.[18] His father was a Swiss consular employee, and this granted Waldo Tobler both Swiss and United States citizenship.[3][19] His fathers career resulted in moves to Seatle when Waldo Tobler was young, and later to Washington D.C. when World War II started.[6][18] When World War II ended in 1945, the family moved to Bern, Switzerland.[18] In Switzerland, Tobler would join the United States Army at the age of 18.[6][18][20] Geographers Pradyumna Prasad Karan and Cotton Mather speculated that this frequent moving in early life may have influenced Tobler's later career choices and passion for geography.[1]

Education and field

Tobler received his B.A. (1955), M.A. (1957), and Ph.D. (1961)[21] in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington at Seattle. At Washington, he participated in geography's William Garrison-led quantitative revolution of the late 1950s, becomming one of many of Garrison's grad students (dubbed the "space cadets") who would go on to be highly influential geographers.[19][22][23]

Career

Military

Tobler joined the United States Army in 1948. A native speaker of English, Sweitzerdeutsch, and French, the military trained him to speak Russian to serve as an interpreter for the Counterintelligence Corps.[18] During his time in the military, he served as both an intelligence analyst and an interpreter in Europe during the Korean War, and participated in interviewing Austrian Prisoners of War who had been released from the Soviet Union.[3][6] He left the military in 1952 and used his G.I. Bill to attend university.[20]

Academic and Research Organizations

After graduating in 1961, Tobler became an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. While at the University of Michigan, Tobler was a member of the e Michigan Inter-University Community of Mathematical Geographers (MICMOG), organized by geographer William Bunge, which brought together faculty from both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.[24] These meetings sought to discuss topics related to quantitative geography.[25] At the MICMOG meetings, Tobler was given the nickname "Ptobler," as he was "the greatest cartographer since Ptolemy."[24][19] Tobler remained at the University of Michigan until 1977 when he moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1977.[26] Until his retirement he held the positions of Professor of Geography and Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[17]

Tobler was one of the principal investigators and a senior scientist in the National Science Foundation-sponsored National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.Tobler served on the National Research Council the Board on Earth Sciences. He has been on the editorial board of several journals, including The American Cartographer, Journal of Regional Science, Geographical Analysis, and the International Journal of Geographical Information Systems. He was a charter member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, a council member of the Regional Science Association, member and chairman of the Mathematical Social Science Board, and served as the United States delegate to the International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Data Processing and Sensing. Until his retirement, he was a member of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain.

Research

The Tobler hyperelliptical projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation; α = 0, k = 3
Tobler's hiking function – walking speed vs. slope angle chart.

While Tobler may be considered to have fewer publications then some contemporary geographers, his publications covered a broad range of topics, and are considered to be of exceptional quality.[19] His career in geography profoundly impacted the discipline, and he is perhaps the most influential geographer of the past century[4]. As a graduate student, he pioneered the use of computers in cartography in his 1959 paper "Automation and Cartography".[27] This paper's concepts, such as the "Map in-Map out" system (MIMO), was extremely influential in early Geographic Information Systems.[28] His later research emphasized mathematical modeling and graphic interpretations in geography. In the course of his research, he formulated the "first law of geography" in 1970 while producing a computer movie of Detroit.[7] He is the inventor of novel and unusual map projections, among which is the family of Tobler hyperelliptical projections, and the first derivation of the partial differential equations for area cartograms.[29] He also invented a method for smooth two-dimensional mass-preserving areal data redistribution.

Tobler was involved in building a global, latitude-longitude oriented demographic information base with resolution two orders of magnitude better than was previously available. He also examined the development of smooth finite element and categorical pycnophylactic geographic information reallocation models. In July 1999 he presented a keynote speech, "The World is Shriveling as it Shrinks," at the ESRI International User Conference and was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in GIS by ESRI. Taylor and Francis of London recently published a map projection book, co-authored with Q. Yang of China and the late John P. Snyder. More recent interests related to ideas in computational geography including the analysis of geographical vector fields and the development of migration and global trade models.

Tobler was also concerned with representing flow (due to its involvement with movement as a mechanism of geographic change). In 2003, Tobler released a freeware, Microsoft Windows-based version of his flow representation software Flow Mapper. In 2005, an ESRI ArcGIS version of the software, inspired by Tobler, was developed by Alan Glennon and Michael Goodchild at UCSB. Both versions are available from the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (http://vgi.spatial.ucsb.edu/clearinghouse/FlowMapper/)

Awards and Honors

The University of Zurich, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1988.

The Austrian Academy of Sciences created the Waldo Tobler GIScience Prize to recognize Tobler's contributions to geographic research.[4][30] The award seeks to "encourage scientific advancement in the disciplines of Geoinformatics and/or Geographic Information Science."[30] The award has been issued since to David Mark (2016), Thomas Poiker (2017), Helena Mitasova (2018), Michael Batty (2019), Luc Anselin (2022), and Sara Irina Fabrikant (2023).[31]

The Geography department at UC Santa Barbra established the "Waldo Tobler Memorial Lecture Fund" in honor of Waldo Tobler.[32] The fund helps "to support open lectures in the fields of demography, mapping and cartography, and geographic information science." On March 6th 2018, UC Santa Barbra lowered their flag to honor Tobler after his death.[3]

Tobler was a member of the honor societies Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi.

Other awards and honors Tobler received throughout his life include:

Osborn Maitland Miller Medal
  • Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
  • Honorary Fellow, American Geographical Society (1965)[33]
  • Osborn Maitland Miller Medal, American Geographical Society 1989[33][34]
  • Meritorious Contributor Medallion, Association of American Geographers, 1971[35]
  • Andrew McNally Award, 1986[4]
  • ESRI Lifetime Achievement Award, 1999.[4][36]
  • AAG Microcomputer Specialty Award, 1993.[4]
  • UCGIS Honorary Fellow, 2012[5]
  • GIS Hall of Fame Inductee, URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association), 2016.[37]

See also


References

General
  • W. Tobler, (2002) “Ma Vie: Growing Up in America and Europe”, in Geographical Voices, W. Pitts and P. Gould, eds., University of Syracuse Press; Syracuse; pages 292–322.
  • In French: (2000) “Ma Vie: Grandir en Amérique et en Europe”, dans Mémoires de Géographes, P. Gould et A. Bailly, eds., Anthropos, Paris, 209–242.
Specific
  1. 1 2 Karan, Pradyumna Prasad; Mather, Cotton (March 2000). Leaders in American Geography: Geographic research. New Mexico Geographical Society. ISBN 9780964384118.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Getis, Arthur (2020). "Waldo Tobler (1931–2018): Analytical Cartographer and Regional Scientist". In Batey, Peter; Plane, David (eds.). Great Minds in Regional Science. Switzerland: Springer Nature. pp. 185–198. ISBN 978-3-030-46157-7. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Yang, Henry T. "Sad News - Professor Emeritus Waldo Tobler". Chancellor's Messages. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Preserving Groundbreaking Research in Geography, Geoinformatics and Geographic Information Science". The Waldo Tobler Academic Archives. UC Santa Barbra Library. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Waldo R. Tobler". University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Clarke, Keith C. (2018-07-04). "Waldo R. Tobler (1930–2018)". Cartography and Geographic Information Science. 45 (4): 287–288. Bibcode:2018CGISc..45..287C. doi:10.1080/15230406.2018.1447399. ISSN 1523-0406. S2CID 133763290.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Tobler W. R. (1970) "A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region", Economic Geography, 46(Supplement): 234-240
  8. 1 2 Tobler, Waldo (2004). "On the First Law of Geography: A Reply". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94 (2): 304–310. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.09402009.x. S2CID 33201684. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  9. ↑ Westlund, Hans (18 August 2013). "A brief history of time, space, and growth: Waldo Tobler's first law of geography revisited". The Annals of Regional Science. 51: 917–924. doi:10.1007/s00168-013-0571-3. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  10. ↑ Hecht, Brent; Moxley, Emily (2009). "Terabytes of Tobler: Evaluating the First Law in a Massive, Domain-Neutral Representation of World Knowledge". Spatial Information Theory 9th International Conference, COSIT 2009, Aber Wrac'h, France, September 21–25, 2009, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer. 5756: 88. Bibcode:2009LNCS.5756...88H. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_6. ISBN 978-3-642-03831-0.
  11. ↑ Smith, Peter (2005). "The laws of geography". Teaching Geography. 30 (3): 150.
  12. ↑ Tobler, Waldo (1999). "Linear pycnophylactic reallocation comment on a paper by D. Martin". International Journal of Geographical Information Science. 13 (1): 85–90. doi:10.1080/136588199241472.
  13. ↑ Murray, Alan T.; Xu, Jing; Baik, Jiwon; Burtner, Susan; Cho, Seonga; Noi, Evgeny; Pludow, B. Amelia; Zhou, Enbo (13 September 2020). "Overview of Contributions in Geographical Analysis: Waldo Tobler". Geographical Analysis. 52 (4): 480–493. doi:10.1111/gean.12257. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  14. ↑ Tobler, Waldo (1973). "Choropleth Maps Without Class Intervals?". Geographical Analysis. 5 (3): 262–265. Bibcode:1973GeoAn...5..262T. doi:10.1111/j.1538-4632.1973.tb01012.x.
  15. ↑ Tobler, Waldo (February 1993). "Three presentations on geographical analysis and modeling: Non-isotropic geographic modeling speculations on the geometry of geography global spatial analysis" (PDF). Technical Report. National center for geographic information and analysis. 93 (1). Retrieved 21 March 2013. Available also in HTML format.
  16. ↑ Dorling, Danny; Hennig, Benjamin (2018). "Waldo Tobler: Remembering a genius". The Cartographic Journal. 55 (3): 303–304. doi:10.1080/00087041.2018.1507181. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  17. 1 2 "Waldo Tobler (1930 - 2018)". American Association of Geographers. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 Thoits, Sandy (5 March 2018). "Waldo R. Tobler of Santa Barbara, 1930-2018". Noozhawk. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  19. 1 2 3 4 Unwin, David (26 March 2019). "Waldo Tobler: An appreciation of the contributions made to geographic information science". Transactions in GIS. 23 (2): 387–393. doi:10.1111/tgis.12529.
  20. 1 2 "Geographers on Film Interview With Waldo Tobler". Library of Congress. Association of American Geographers. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  21. ↑ "Waldo Tobler". AAG. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  22. ↑ "William Garrison 1925 - 2015". Memorials. American Association of Geographers. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  23. ↑ Getis, Arthur (16 July 2008). "A History of the Concept of Spatial Autocorrelation: A Geographer's Perspective". Geographic Analysis. 40 (3): 297–309. Bibcode:2008GeoAn..40..297G. doi:10.1111/j.1538-4632.2008.00727.x.
  24. 1 2 Bunge, William (2001). "Classics in human geography revisited: Author's response: geography the innocent science – a completed geography awaiting its birth in print". Progress in Human Geography. 25 (1): 71–77. doi:10.1191/030913201673714256. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  25. ↑ Golledge, Reginald G. (1 March 1979). "The Development of Geographical Analysis". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 69 (1): 151–154. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  26. ↑ "Waldo Tobler". www.geog.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  27. ↑ Tobler, Waldo (1959). "Automation and Cartography". Geographical Review. 49 (4): 526–534. Bibcode:1959GeoRv..49..526T. doi:10.2307/212211. JSTOR 212211. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  28. ↑ DeMers, Michael N. "GIS". Geography & Travel. Britannica. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  29. ↑ Tobler, Waldo (1973). "The hyperelliptical and other new pseudocylindrical equal area map projections". Journal of Geophysical Research. 78 (11): 1753–1759. Bibcode:1973JGR....78.1753T. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.495.6424. doi:10.1029/JB078i011p01753.
  30. 1 2 "WALDO-TOBLER GISCIENCE PRIZE". Kommision Fur Geographic Information Science. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  31. ↑ "LAUREATES". Kommision Fur Geographic Information Science. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  32. ↑ "Department of Geography – Waldo Tobler Memorial Lecture Fund". Giving UCSB. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  33. 1 2 "HONORARY FELLOWSHIPS 1960s". Honorary Fellowships. American Geographical Society. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  34. ↑ "The Cullum Geographical Medal" Archived 2009-07-04 at the Wayback Machine. American Geographical Society. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
  35. ↑ "AAG Honors". American Association of Geographers. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  36. ↑ "Dr. Waldo Tobler Presented the Lifetime Achievement in GIS Award". ArcNews. ESRI. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  37. ↑ "URISA GIS HALL OF FAME". The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
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