Shuurman Chapter 1

chapter 1: Introducing the Identies of GIS 

- This book is not a ‘how to guide’ for GIS, but a way to introduce the practice of GIS to wide range of people. It is designed to view how GIS is changing the way we do everyday tasks in a very technologically advanced society 

√ The Success of GIS• GIS is experiencing a boom and is being recognized by industries outside of geography such as law enforcement, hospitals, archeoligists, and even Starbucks®.• Other applications: Real Estate, Environmental, Defense and Intelligence, Education. (view blog roll)

• Academic researchers have a love/hate relationship with GIS, because GIS only represents ONE lens of the physical and social world.

√ Where does GIS come from?1960- when technology and epistemology are first developed1962- Ian McHarg introduced “overlay”, which later became the methodolgoy of GISSpatial Analysis- a differentiated form of mapping, because it generates more information and more knowloedge can be gathered from the maps and data.Incipient power was first explored in the late 1950 to early 1960s by researchers throughout the U.S.Harvard Lab: beginning of the GIS identity that linked  software packages, hardware systems, and technology.

√ The Messy Business of Digging for Roots: GIS’s Intellectual Antecedents• There s a divide between those who empasize GIS’ roots to quantative analysis and those who just state it is an extension of mapping.

√  What does GIS stand for? The Two faces of GISDefinitions for GIS tend to focus on the collection of hardware and software associated with technology• GIS might mention necessary components like:    → methods of data input    → Analysis    → Mapping    → output associated with spatial dataGISscience is concerned with the theory that underlies GISystems. 

 It took many decades for this alternate identity to emerge.  GIScience is not limited, but engages people to represent their gepgraphical environment.

GIS in the World: Who uses it for what?

- reaches into everyday life.- a means to convert data from tables into informative maps

- a lot of what we do and consume in today’s society has to deal with GIS. For example, the food that we get at the supermarket, gets there from tranportation that is very much dependent on GIS. Also, business farmers use GIS in large scale food producation.  GIS has really boomed in the farming industry and proved to be an important aspect

- Municipal management, like farming has become a field very much dependent of the services of GIS.There are a lot of industries that continue to use GIS in the future as our world gets more technologically advanced.

GEOGRAPHY MATTERS: AN ESRI WHITE PAPER Why Geography Matters…

- everyone around the world is taking advantage of the transformation in geography. 

What is GIS?

- GIS is a computer software that links geograghic information with descriptive information.  It can show you many layers of different information unlike a flat map.   

→ You can control the amount of information about an area that you want to see and represent on a specific map. 

- Geography is allowing people in businesses to make better descisions in multiple fields.  Gepgraphic matters in every buisness and every field , and it can big a huge difference around the world

.WHAT is GIS USED FOR IN THE REAL WORLD?

- GIS is used to automate its electrical facilites in Nashville, Tennesse.

 - GIS is used to study the effects of global warming

- GIS is used for transportation and land use planning.Those are amoung the many of ways GIS is changing our everyday world in some industries.