Knowledge Discovery in Spatial Databases Progress and Challenges

Spatial data, i.e., data related to objects that occupy space, are continuosly being collected for various applications ranging from remote sensing, geographical information systems (GIS) to computer cartography and environmental assesment and planing. The volume of data collected is so huge that it has become humanely impossible to do any intelligent data analysis. Even though very few methods have been proposed and applied to discover knowledge from spatial data, it is evident that the techniques from machine learning , database technology and statistics have to be explored and modiied for further progress in this eld. In this paper we intend to survey the progress and outline some challenges facing spatial data mining.