Regular use of entropy for studying dissimilar geographical phenomena

Abstract

The concept of entropy connected with GIS is relatively new. Its mathematical background was defined after World War II by Claude E. Shannon, well-known mathematician, electronic engineer and founder of information theory. Information theory deals with entropy as measure of information which every single message has. And thus entropy quantifies the amount of information in a message. The paper is based on entropy applications in cartography and demonstrates its usage as a measure of information in GIS. The authors provide an algorithm for setting number of intervals in thematic maps with using entropy calculations. Finally, the obtained knowledge is applied to sample datasets for creating climatic maps within GIS environment.