Using Geographical Information Systems

Abstract

Geographical information systems (GIS) are organized collections of data-processing methods which act on spatial data to enable patterns in that data to be understood and visualized. In fact, GIS is often thought of as software which takes numerical data in map form, stores it in the most efficient way in different types of computer environment and allows various techniques of analysis to process the data and then map them. However, GIS is broader than this, synonymous in some contexts with quantitative geography, and the term is increasingly being used to refer to ‘geographic information science’ which embraces a wide range of mathematical and statistical technique (Goodchild, 1992). This chapter first notes the origins of GIS and then defines GIS in terms of the way it represents geographical data. The various operations which enable spatial data to be analysed and visualized are referred to as ‘functions’, and this ‘functionality’ is illustrated through ways in which GIS can measure, interrogate and manipulate maps as data. The power of visualizing data through GIS is then discussed and, finally, the chapter presents issues concerning changes in the technology and its software which are driving the field. The chapter concludes by pointing to the great diversity of applications which GIS offers and the impact this is having on geography, geographers and society at large. The chapter is organized into the following sections:

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