Lex Comber

Reader in Geographical Information BSc. (Plant Science, Nottingham); PhD. (Computing Science, Aberdeen)  Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3812 Fax: +44 (0)116 252 3854 Email: ajc36@le.ac.uk Office: Bennett F56

Profile

My research interests are in two primary areas: geocomputation and spatial analysis of policy.

I have developed and published research on topics that stretch from land use, habitats, spatial modelling, accessibility, the representation of geographic objects and processes, uncertainty in spatial data and heuristic optimization to metadata, public health, the spatial analysis of policy and the social construction of geographic information.

My early research considered issues associated with uncertainty and representation in spatial data with a focus on land use, land cover and habitat reporting.

More recent research has considered the use of the advanced spatial analyses to evaluate and to inform public policy and planning. This research interest in quantitative social geography developed from initial research in urban greenspace (as subset of land use). Subsequent work has included statistical modelling and has extended into method and algorithm development in the areas accessibility, spatial and public health planning and location-allocation.

Key research interests:

Spatial analysis of policy

Analysis of uncertainty in geographic information and spatial data

Land Use / Habitats

Accessibility / access

Geocomputation

My official website is here - http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/geography/people/ajc36

External Activities

Member of International Association for Landscape Ecology
Member of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society

Editorial Boards

Associate Editor, International Journal of Geographical Information Science

Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Land Use Science

PhD supervision

Completed

Mukhtar Elaalem “Fuzzy Land suitability assessment” (awarded November 2010)

Ehsan Khalefa ‘Remote sensing of Savannah vegetation structure using the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System and L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar’ (awarded March 2012)

Abdulhakim Khmag “Fuzzy change detection” (awarded May 2012)

Adam Rousell “Spatial Task Performance in Virtual Geographic Environments” (awarded June 2012)

Ongoing

Fariba Sotoudinha “Perceptions of greenspace accessibility and greenspace quality amongst different socio-economic groups” (expected to complete December 2012)

Ziab Khan “Modelling and visualization of forest changes using GIS and remote sensing” (expected to complete December 2012)

Ibrahim Al-Shwesh, 'Optimising health service provision' (expected to complete December 2012)

Emeka Chukwusa, 'Research developing location allocation models to support health accessibility' (expected to complete December 2012)

Andrew Tewkesbury, 'Land use maps from high resolution land cover by modelling spatial relationships and human perception' (P/T – expected to complete 2014)

Idris Mohammed ‘Environmental contaminants and access to health care services in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria (expected to complete 2013)

Samantha Russell “Quantifying the Minimum Viable Conservation Area for the Southern Rift Valley (Kenya) using Ecosystem Viability Analysis as the tool” (expected to complete 2013)

Tim Mackrill ‘Population Restoration of Ospreys in the UK’ (P/T – expected to complete 2015)

Sybrand Van Beijma ‘Optical and SAR-based EO in support of Integrated Coastal Zone Management’ (expected to complete 2014)

Haifaa Al-Balaa ‘Greenspace access in Medina’ (expected to complete in 2014)

Key publications

Comber, A., See, L., Fritz, S., Van der Velde, M., Perger, C., Foody, G.M. (in press). Using control data to determine the reliability of volunteered geographic information about land cover. Paper accepted for publication in International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (November 2012) (link)

Comber A.J., (in press). Geographically weighted methods for estimating local surfaces of overall, user and producer accuracies. Paper accepted for publication in Remote Sensing Letters (September, 2012) (link)

Comber, A., Fisher, P.F., Brunsdon, C. and Khmag, A. (in press). Spatial analysis of remote sensing image classification accuracy. Paper accepted for publication in Remote Sensing of Environment (September, 2012)

Brunsdon, C. and Comber, A.J. (2012). Experiences with Citizen Science: Assessing Changes in the North American Spring. Geoinformatica DOI 10.1007/s10707-012-0159-6

Comber A., Brunsdon, C. and Farmer, C. (2012). Community detection in spatial networks: inferring land use from a planar graph of land cover objects. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 8: 274–282.

Comber A., Brunsdon, C. and Phillips, M. (2012). The varying impact of geographic distance as a predictor of dissatisfaction over facility access. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. DOI: 10.1007/s12061-011-9074-8

Carver S, Comber A, McMorran R and Nutter S. (2012). A GIS model for mapping spatial patterns and distribution of wild land in Scotland. Landscape and Urban Planning, 104 (2012) 395–409.

A full list of publications is available in PDF format by clicking here.

Some data are here and here and here

This document has not been approved by the head of department. The views expressed in this document are those of the document owner.