Spatio-temporal database management

The 1999 Workshop on Spatio-Temporal Database Management, held in Ed- burgh, Scotland, September 10–11, 1999, brought together leading researchers anddevelopersintheareaofspatio-temporaldatabasestodiscussthestate--^ the-art in spatio-temporal research and applications and to understand the new challenges and future research directions in this emerging and rapidly advancing area. The workshop served as a forum for disseminating research and expe- ence in spatio-temporal databases and for maximizing interchange of knowledge among researchers from the established spatial and temporal database com- nities.Theexchangeofresearchideasandresultsnotonlycontributestothe academic arena, but also bene?ts the user and commercial communities. Theseproceedingscontainthe researchpapersselectedforpresentationatthe workshop.^ The workshop was conceived from the outset to have a general scope within its areaand to be internationalin participation.The callfor papers aimed to attract the highest quality and most up-to-date research contributions from around the world, and the workshop was co-located with VLDB’99, enabling many participants to conveniently attend both events and thereby facilitating the widest possible international participation. The call for papers attracted 30 research papers, which were submitted by authors from 14 countries and ?ve continents, clearly indicating the truly int- nationalnatureoftheemergingareaofspatio-temporaldatabases.Aprogram committee consisting of 25 researchers from four continents conducted four - viewsofeachpaperandselected13outstandingpapersofrpresentationand discussion at the workshop and inclusion in the proceedings. Spatio-temporal databases manage spatially and temporally referenced data.^ Thepapersincludedinthisvolumecoverdiverseaspectsofthemanagement ofsuchdata,andtheyhavebeenorganizedinto?vegroups:understanding andmanipulatingspatio-temporaldata;integration,exchange,andvisualization; query processing; index evaluation; and constraints and dependencies.