GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)

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For today lecture we will learn about:

1.1 Definition 1.3 Capabilities of GIS

• GIS is a toolbox • Data Capture
• GIS is an Information System • Data Storage
• GIS is an approach to Science
• Data Management
1.2 Components of GIS
• Hardware • Data Retrieval
• Software • Data Analysis
• Data
• Live Ware or Analyst
• Data Display
• Procedures or Methods 1.4 GIS Application

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 Definition

• There is no clear-cut definition for GIS.

• Different people defined GIS according to capability and

purposes for which it is applied.

• A typical GIS can be understood by the help of various

definitions given below:

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 GIS is a toolbox

• A GIS can be seen as a set of tools for analyzing spatial data.

• one definition of a GIS is the software in the box that gives us

the geographic capabilities we need.

• Peter Burrough, in his pioneering textbook, defined GIS as “a

powerful set of tools for storing and retrieving at will,
transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for
a particular set of purposes” (Burrough, 1986).

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Cont’d

• The key word in this definition is “Powerful.” Burrough’s

definition implies that GIS is a tool for geographic analysis.
• This is often called the “toolbox definition” of GIS because it
stresses a set of tools each designed to solve specific problems.

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 GIS is an Information System

• Jack Estes and Jeffrey Star defined a GIS as “an information

system that is designed to work with data referenced by spatial
or geographic coordinates.
• In other words, a GIS is both a database system with specific
capabilities for spatially-referenced data, as well as a set of
operations for working with the data” (Star and Estes, 1990)

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 GIS is an approach to Science
• Goodchild defined geographic information science as “the
basic issues that surround the use of GIS technology, impede
its successful implementation, or emerge from the
understanding of its potential capabilities”.
• He also noted that this involved both research on GIS and
research with GIS.
• Supporting the science are the uniqueness of geographic data,
a different set of relevant research questions that can only be
asked geographically, the commonality of interest of GIS
meetings, and a supply of books and journals. 7
 Cont’d

• Vector Data Model & Raster Data Model

• By the mid-1980's, the general consensus within the GIS

community was that the nature of the data and the processing
desired determines the appropriate data structure.
• This realization of the duality of mapped data structure had
significant impact on geographic information systems.

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 Vector and Raster data format models

Real World

Vector models
- points, lines, polygons Raster models
- more complex objects - grid cell in terms
of Pixel

Raster

Vector
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 Components of GIS

GIS comprises of five components:

1. The Expertise (Live ware): the human element required to

drive the system to meet need

2. The Hardware: used to store, process and display.

3. The Software: used to control and perform operations.

4. The Data: on which GIS operations are performed (Spatial,

non-spatial)

5. Procedures or Methods

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 Hardware

• The general hardware components of Geographic Information

System are the main computer system or the Central
Processing Unit (CPU), the terminal, keyboard and the visual
display unit (VDU), digitizer, disk drive, plotter, printer etc.

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 Components of GIS

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 Hard wares

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 GIS Hardware-CPUs

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 Creating graphic data for GIS applications

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 Large format plotters

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 Software

• The GIS software is used to carry out the GIS operations. These
are required for driving the hardware. Common interfaces in
GIS are menus, graphical icons and commands.
• Most Common GIS Software available in the market are: ESRI
products like Arc/Info, Arc view, Arc GIS, Map Info from Map
Informatics Inc, Intergraph, IDRISI etc.

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 Cont’d

• All packages must be capable of data input, storage,

management, transformation, analysis, and output, but the
appearance, methods, resources, and ease of use of the various
systems may be very different.
• Today’s software packages are capable of allowing both
graphical and descriptive data to be stored in a single database,
known as the object-relational model.

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Cont’d

• Before this innovation, the geo-relational model was used.

• In this model, graphical and descriptive data sets were

handled separately.

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 MapInfo

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 Arc/Info

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 Arc View

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 IDRISI

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 Data

• Includes both spatial and non-spatial data on which GIS

operations are performed to derive new information.
• Spatial data from various sources such as Remote sensing
images, Aerial Photographs or Map Data can be integrated
with corresponding non-spatial data in GIS.
• Perhaps the most time consuming and costly aspect of
initiating a GIS is creating a database.

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 Live Ware or Analyst

• Equally important as the computer hardware and software, the

brain ware refers to the purpose and objectives, and provides
the reason and justification, for using GIS.
• The people are the component who actually makes the GIS
work. They include an excess of positions including GIS
managers, database administrators, application specialists,
systems analysts, and programmers.

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 Procedures or Methods

• Procedures include how the data will be retrieved, input into

the system, stored, managed, transformed, analyzed, and
finally presented in a final output.
• The procedures are the steps taken to answer the question
need to be resolved.

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Capabilities of GIS

• A GIS is often defined not for what is but for what it can do.

• This functional definition of GIS is very revealing about GIS

use, because it shows us the set of capabilities that a GIS is
expected to have.

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Data Capture
• Getting the map into the computer is a critical first step in GIS.

• Geo coding must include at least the input of scanned or

digitized maps in some appropriate format.
• The system should be able to absorb data in a variety of
formats, not just in the native format of the particular GIS.
• For example, an outline map may be available as an Auto CAD
DXF format file.
• The GIS should at a minimum be capable of absorbing the DXF
file without further modification.
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Data Storage

• Data storage within a GIS has historically been an issue of both

space (usually how much disk space the system requires ) and
access, or how flexible a GIS is in terms of making the data
available for use.
• The massive reductions in the cost disk storage, new high-density
storage media such as the CD-ROM, and the integration of
compression method into common operating systems have made
the former less critical and the latter more so.

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Cont’d

• Current emphasis, therefore, is upon factors that improve data

access.
• This has been a consequence also of the rise of distributed
processing, the Internet, and the World Wide Web.
• As a result, many GIS packages are now capable of using
metadata, or data about data, In an integrated manner.

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 Data Management

• Much of the power of GIS software comes from the ability to

manage not just map data but also attribute data.
• Every GIS is built around the software capabilities of a database
management system (DBMS), a suite of software capable of storing,
retrieving selectively, and reorganizing attribute information.
• The database manager allows us to think that all the data are
available, that the data are structured in a simple flat-file format
and that they constitute a single entity.

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 Cont’d

• In fact, the database manager may have partitioned the data

between files and memory locations and may have structured it
in any one of several formats and physical data models.
• A database manager is capable of many functions. Typically, a
DBMS allows data entry, and data editing, and it supports tabular
and other list types of output, sometimes independent of the
GIS.

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Data Retrieval

• Another major area of GIS functionality is that of data retrieval.

• A GIS supports the retrieval of features by both their attributes

and their spatial characteristics.
• All GIS systems allow users to retrieve data.

• Nevertheless, among systems some major differences exist

between the type and difficulty of GIS functionality for data
retrieval.

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Cont’d
• The most basic act of data retrieval for a GIS is to show the
position of a single feature.
• This can be by retrieving coordinates as though they were
attributes, or more commonly by displaying a feature in its spatial
context on a map with respect to a grid or other features.
• GIS allow a set of retrieval operations based on using one or more
map features as handles to select attributes of those features.

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 Cont’d

• Buffering allows the GIS users to retrieve features that lie within
perhaps 1 mile of an address, within 1 kilometer of a river, or
within 500 meters of a lake.
• Similarly, weighted buffering allows us to choose a non uniform
weighting of features within the buffer, favoring close-by instead
of distant points.

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 Distance Buffers

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 Data Analysis
• The analysis capabilities of GIS systems vary remarkably.

• Among the multitude of features that GIS systems offer are the
computation of the slope and direction of slope (aspect) on a
surface such as terrain;
• interpolation of missing or intermediate values; line-of-sight
calculations on a surface;
• the incorporation of special break or skeleton computations
necessary to calculate the amount of material that must be
moved during cut-and-fill operations such as road construction.

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 Cont’d

• Almost unique to GIS, and entirely absent in other types of

information systems, are geometric tests.
• These are described by their dimensions, point-in-polygon, line-
in-polygon, and point-to-line distance.
• point-in-polygon, is how a point database such as a geo coded
set of point samples is referenced into regions.

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Cont’d

• Thus a set of location for soil samples, generated at random,

could be point-in-polygon merged with a digitized set of
district boundaries so that a sample list can be sent to each
soil district manager.

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 Data Display

• GIS system need to be able to perform what has become called

desktop mapping (Map Layout).
• GIS typically can create several types of thematic mapping,
including choropleth and proportional symbol maps; and they can

draw isopleths and cross-sectional diagrams when the data are

three dimensional.
• Almost all GIS packages now either allow interactive modification
of map elements – moving and resizing titles and legends – or
allow their output to be exported into a package that has these
capabilities, such as Adobe Illustrator.
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 Figure: Malaria Risk Map of Adama district

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 GIS Application
What do we do with GIS?
• Master Planning
– Site development planning
– Site management.
• Suitability Analysis: Screening & Potential
– Development site selection
– Suitable Site Selection
– Resource Potential
– Land Use Plans.
• Natural Resources Management
– Habitat Analysis
– Forest Management
– Land Conservation
– Production/extraction analysis
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 Cont’d

• Other Disciplines
– Defense/Homeland Security
– Real Estate and Site Selection
– Health Care Management and Planning
– Epidemiology
– Archaeology
– Conservation/Land Management (Global, national, regional
local);
– Any other discipline that operates in or studies phenomena
across time and space.

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Cont’d GOOD DAY!!

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