A marking of values along a line to use in making measurements or in representing measurements.
1. On a map, the ratio of the distance between two points and that between the same points on the ground.
2. A minute structure, comprising a smooth lower layer and structured upper layer that covers the wings and much of the body of a butterfly or moth. The wing scales are pigmented and the pigment combined with iridescence due to the structure gives the wings their bright colours. Caddisflies have wing scales, but bearing small hairs.
3. (scale insect) A plant bug of the superfamily Coccoidea that grow beneath coverings made from wax or have bodies covered in mealy wax.
4. One of the layers of a plant bulb.
A level of representation; in cartography, the ratio between map distance and distance on the ground. Geographical difference is expressed at all scales, from the inter-personal to the institutional, and from the national to the international. However, plotting geographical information on too small a scale can conceal information which only becomes apparent at larger scales and higher resolutions. The map of US persistent poverty below purports to show poverty at county level; and shows no poverty in Oregon. The map of Oregon, also at county level, tells a different story.
Conversely an examination of geographical information at too large a scale may conceal the bigger picture. Cash and Moser (2000) Glob. Env. Change 10, 2 advise on matching the scale of the assessment with the scale of management, thus avoiding scale discordance. Vincent (2007) Glob. Env. Change 17, 1 describes the development of two empirical adaptive capacity indices for use at different scales of analysis.
‘Scale is both a methodological issue inherent to observation—its epistemological moment—and an objective characteristic of complex interactions within and among social and natural processes—its ontological moment’ (Sayre (2005) PHG 29, 3). ‘Every scale brings a new set of problems that coincide with a new nature/society interface’ (Dolidon (2007) Cybergeo: Env. Nat. Paysage 363). Sassen (2000) Pub. Cult. 12, 1 observes that the national and the global are not mutually exclusive scales but ‘overlap and interact in ways that distinguish our contemporary moment’, and Biggs et al. (2007) Ecol. & Soc. 12, 1 produce a dialogue on multi-scale scenarios. A. Herod (2011) provides an integrated single-volume introduction to scale in human geography.
The politics of scale describe the ways in which scale choices are constrained overtly by politics, and more subtly by choices of technologies, institutional designs, and measurements; see Lebel et al. (2005) Ecol. & Soc. 10, 2, and Silvey (2004) PHG 28, 4. Haarstad and Fløysand (2007) Pol. Geog. 26, 3 criticize the debate on politics of scale ‘for leaving several central questions relatively unexplored’.
For modelling scale in GIS, see E. Wentz (2003) and Florinsky and Kuryakova (2000) Int. J. GIS 12.
‘Scale is also understood to be dynamic, created or at least shaped by political contests over control of space. It also helps relate political geography to economic, social, transnational, and natural phenomena’ Gallaher (2009) in C. Gallaher et al.
U.S.: persistent poverty
Oregon: persistent poverty
See measurement.