Uncertainty about uncertainty

Fischers “Approaches to spatial data quality” is a fascinating paper, as it manages to become something of an academic onomatopoeia. The paper explores various definitions of spatial data quality, and attempts to tease out the distinctions between different forms of spatial data uncertainty. I would argue that by doing so, it manages to aptly demonstrate why uncertainty exists. Each definition and subsection within this chapter leaves room for interpretation, and possesses blurry edges. The mission to define why something cannot be clearly defined is a tall order, and it makes sense that it would result in such a confusing set of arbitrary categorizations. While this is of course an exercise in semantics, it is a necessary one, if only for the purposes of proving a point.

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