What is GIS?
Geographic Information System or often known as (GIS) is a specialized computer system for the storage, retrieval, analysis, and display of large volumes of spatial or map data. Simply put, a GIS system will let you visualize data in a graphic format and does not limit the user to only text or attribute information. The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very true. It is much faster to locate 25 addresses by looking at a map than it is to look at 25 addresses on a report. Many people often mistake mapping systems for the more complex GIS systems. The main difference is that a GIS system will have intelligent data. A point representing an address is not just a point; it is an address that can be linked to other data allowing relational and spatial analysis.
Today many organizations use GIS to find solutions to their everyday problems. Emergency 911 uses phone numbers along with addresses to locate where emergency calls originate. Fire departments use hydrant, street, along with address data to locate fires and water supplies so that fires can be extinguished quickly. Police may use crime data to plot trends of past crimes to forecasts where future crimes may occur. One of the most common systems that people see almost everyday is a weather system. When you see your local weather map on television, you are looking at a product of GIS. Many different types of data such as temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction from radar, are analyzed and the results are used to forecast tomorrow’s weather.
If you pause for a moment and think about some of the major issues facing local government today; you will see that economic development, tourism, transportation issues, increasing population, improvement of provided services, and many more are potential problems of the future. Each of these has a critical geographic dimension that GIS can help solve. Local issues, such as where emergency services should be located, why traffic jams occur, are also all affected by geography. Mapping where new development will be located, for example, can give new insight into its affects on transportation networks, the local environment, and local service providers like schools.
The solution to many problems often requires access to several types of information that can only be linked by geography. Only GIS technology allows you to store and manipulate information using geography and to analyze patterns, relationships, and trends in that information to help you make better decisions. Of course better decision making will always be of great benefit if future time and money is saved.
As you can see GIS is sometimes very technical, but is a tool in which many organizations are now finding solutions in a timely manner. The day in which ragged edged maps and large bulky reports are being analyzed for solutions is no more, is fast approaching.