David William Rhind CBE FRS FBA is a British geographer and expert on geographic information systems (GIS). He was Vice-Chancellor of City University, London , until July 2007.

Rhind graduated in geography and geology from the University of Bristol in 1965 ^[1] and received a PhD in geomorphology from the University of Edinburgh in 1969. ^[2]

Rhind held academic posts at Edinburgh, the Royal College of Art and Durham , before becoming a professor of geography at the University of London in 1982. In this position he was a major contributor to the Chorley Committee, the UK Government committee of enquiry "Handling of Geographical Information", which reported in 1987. He subsequently became Director General of Ordnance Survey , overseeing the completion of the digitisation of the last of its paper maps.

Work on GIS led to the awarding of a DSc from the University of London in 1991. Rhind has also received honorary doctorates from universities including Bristol , Loughborough , Southampton , Kingston , Durham , London Metropolitan , Royal Holloway , Edinburgh and City University London . In 2002 Rhind was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy . He was the first geographer elected to the Royal Society for nearly 50 years and is almost unique in also being a Fellow of the British Academy. ^[3]

Rhind has held many other posts including chairing the Statistics Commission ^[4] and the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's Socio-economic Committee, ^[4] and membership of the court of directors for the Bank of England . ^[5] In 2000, he received a CBE for services to Geographical and Social Sciences. ^[6]

He has published several books on geography and the earth sciences.

Academic and other posts [ edit ]

• Research Officer, University of Edinburgh 1968?69
• Head, Applications Section, Experimental Cartography Unit, Royal College of Art 1969?73
• Lecturer, then Reader, University of Durham 1973?1981
• Visiting Fellow, International Training Centre, Enschede , the Netherlands, 1975
• Visiting Fellow, Australian National University 1979
• Professor of Geography in the University of London 1982?91
• Dean of departments of Computer Science, Maths & Statistics, Economics and Geography, Birkbeck College 1987?91
• Director General and Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey of Great Britain 1992?98
• Vice-Chancellor and President, City University London 1998?2007
• Chairman, the Statistics Commission 2003?08
• Chairman, Universities UK, Employment Business and Industry Policy Committee
• Non-executive director, Bank of England
• Non-executive director, deputy chair (statistical system) UK Statistics Authority

Bibliography [ edit ]

• Data banking of drift borehole records for the Edinburgh area , Rhind D. & Sissons, J.B., HMSO, 1971.
• Geology of Durham County ; The buried valley of the lower Tweed , Newcastle upon Tyne : Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, 1972.
• Computer mapping of drift lithology from borehole records , Rhind D.W., HMSO, 1973, ISBN   0-11-880609-2
• People in Durham : a census atlas , Dewdney J.C. & Rhind D. (Eds), University of Durham, 1975, ISBN   0-900974-38-9 .
• Contemporary cartography , Rhind D., London : Institute of British Geographers, 1977.
• Geographical networks and automatic data processing , Cox N.J. & Rhind D., University of Durham, Dept. of Geography, 1978.
• Making a national atlas of population by computer , Rhind D.W. & Evans I.S., Census Research Unit, Department of Geography, Univ. of Durham, 1978.
• Land Use , Rhind D. & Hudson R., Methuen, 1980 ISBN   0-416-71780-2 .
• A Census user's handbook , Rhind D.W., Methuen, 1983, ISBN   0-416-30510-5
• Cartographic and remote-sensing digital databases in the United Kingdom , Finch S. & Rhind D.,British Library Research and Development Dept., 1987, ISBN   0-7123-3106-9
• Handling Geographic Information: Report of the Committee of Enquiry chaired by Lord Chorley , Department of the Environment, HMSO, 1987, ISBN   0-11-752015-2
• Cartography, Past, Present, and Future: A Festschrift for F.J. Ormeling , Rhind D.W. & Taylor D.R.F., Elsevier Applied Science for International Cartographic Assoc, 1989, ISBN   1-85166-336-3
• Environmental monitoring and prediction , Rhind D., London : South-east Regional Research Laboratory, University of London, c 1990.
• Geographical Information Systems: Principles and Applications (known in GIS circles as the Big Book ), Maguire, D. J. Goodchild, M. F. & Rhind, D. W., The Geoinformation Group, Harlow, 1991 ISBN   0-582-05661-6
• Understanding GIS: The ARC/INFO method , Rhind D.W., ESRI, 1992 (6th Ed), ISBN   1-879102-07-2
• Postcodes : the new geography , Raper J., Rhind D. & Shepherd J., Longman, 1992, ISBN   0-582-09270-1
• Statistics, maps, information and money , Manchester Statistical Society, 1994, ISBN   0-85336-127-4
• Framework for the World , Rhind D.W. (Ed), Cambridge, GeoInformation International, 1997, ISBN   0-470-24440-2
• Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Applications and Management (aka the Big Book 2 ), Longley P.A., Goodchild, M. F., Maguire, D. J. & Rhind, D. W. (eds), Wiley, 1999 ISBN   0-471-32182-6
• Geographic Information Systems and Science , Longley P.A, Goodchild M.F, Maguire D.J. & Rhind D.W., John Wiley & Sons, 2001, ISBN   0-471-89275-0

References [ edit ]