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Here's non-copyrighted information from USGS on Geographic Information Systems (GIS):
"A GIS is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location. Practitioners also define a GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system.
he power of a GIS comes from the ability to relate different information in a spatial context and to reach a conclusion about this relationship. Most of the information we have about our world contains a location reference, placing that information at some point on the globe. When rainfall information is collected, it is important to know where the rainfall is located. This is done by using a location reference system, such as longitude and latitude, and perhaps elevation. Comparing the rainfall information with other information, such as the location of marshes across the landscape, may show that certain marshes receive little rainfall. This fact may indicate that these marshes are likely to dry up, and this inference can help us make the most appropriate decisions about how humans should interact with the marsh. A GIS, therefore, can reveal important new information that leads to better decisionmaking.

Many computer databases that can be directly entered into a GIS are being produced by Federal, State, tribal, and local governments, private companies, academia, and nonprofit organizations. Different kinds of data in map form can be entered into a GIS (figs. 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 1f, and 2). A GIS can also convert existing digital information, which may not yet be in map form, into forms it can recognize and use. For example, digital satellite images can be analyzed to produce a map of digital information about land use and land cover (figs. 3 and 4). Likewise, census or hydrologic tabular data can be converted to a maplike form and serve as layers of thematic information in a GIS (figs. 5 and 6).
How can a GIS use the information in a map? If the data to be used are not already in digital form, that is, in a form the computer can recognize, various techniques can capture the information. Maps can be digitized by hand-tracing with a computer mouse on the screen or on a digitizing tablet to collect the coordinates of features. Electronic scanners can also convert maps to digits (fig. 7). Coordinates from Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers can also be uploaded into a GIS (fig. 8).
A GIS can be used to emphasize the spatial relationships among the objects being mapped. While a computer-aided mapping system may represent a road simply as a line, a GIS may also recognize that road as the boundary between wetland and urban development between two census statistical areas.

Data capture—putting the information into the system—involves identifying the objects on the map, their absolute location on the Earth's surface, and their spatial relationships. Software tools that automatically extract features from satellite images or aerial photographs are gradually replacing what has traditionally been a time-consuming capture process. Objects are identified in a series of attribute tables—the "information" part of a GIS. Spatial relationships, such as whether features intersect or whether they are adjacent, are the key to all GIS-based analysis.
GIS makes it possible to link, or integrate, information that is difficult to associate through any other means. Thus, a GIS can use combinations of mapped variables to build and analyze new variables (fig. 9).
or example, using GIS technology, it is possible to combine agricultural records with hydrography data to determine which streams will carry certain levels of fertilizer runoff. Agricultural records can indicate how much pesticide has been applied to a parcel of land. By locating these parcels and intersecting them with streams, the GIS can be used to predict the amount of nutrient runoff in each stream. Then as streams converge, the total loads can be calculated downstream where the stream enters a lake."

Go to the url below to see the figures and lots more information.

2006-10-14 20:25:25 · answer #1 · answered by luka d 5 · 0 0

A geographic information system (GIS) is a system for creating, storing, analyzing and managing spatial data and associated attributes. In the strictest sense, it is a computer system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing, and displaying geographically-referenced information. In a more generic sense, GIS is a tool that allows users to create interactive queries (user created searches), analyze the spatial information, and edit data. Geographic information science is the science underlying the applications and systems, taught as a degree programme by several universities.

Geographic information system technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, Environmental Impact Assessment, development planning, cartography, and route planning. For example, a GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times in the event of a natural disaster, or a GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from pollution.

2006-10-14 22:11:52 · answer #2 · answered by ahsin 1 · 0 0

Your GIS application/type sounds a lot extra constructive than the single I took. All we did replaced into get informed what archives to enter into ARC-GIS...notwithstanding the professor did not comprehend how, why, or what replaced into happening. I felt gypped. anyhow, i do not comprehend how ambitious you sense/opt to be, yet why no longer %. a united states in Europe and map all of its eco-friendly centers? Map each and every of the Wind Mill plant life, Hydro-electric powered Damns, photo voltaic panels, recycling centers, and so on? If one united states is too small in scope %. the finished continent. If one united states is too large in scope, %. a region or county or something. Your thesis might want to be to envision climate Europe/united states/region does or does no longer have sufficient "eco-friendly" centers to have any important income on earth? Or something alongside those lines? i comprehend ARC-GIS (if thats what you take advantage of) has little neat icons so that you are able to use for a number of those centers. in case you locate that the centers are lacking, possibly you'll locate concepts in which GIS technologies might want to be effective in words of providing information to extra constructive help in making the planet "Greener." solid success and desire this helps!

2016-12-04 20:31:26 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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