Contextual fuzzy cognitive maps for geographic information systems

Designing a system that is able to make use of quantitative and qualitative data for real world applications is a challenging problem. Traditional systems produce representational descriptions that are often not very useful to the human expert. To rectify this problem we propose a structure based on contextual fuzzy cognitive maps (CFCMs) for GIS systems. For a given goal, our system structure is hierarchical by context, multi-layered by variations in data over periods of time, and semi-qualitative in that the CFCMs build causal links and relationships between landmarks and concepts.