In the 1960’s, a man named Roger Tomlinson was just any ordinary geographer until one day he realized he wanted to make a more recent discovery in geographic technology. He believed that computers could do more than what they were set out to do and could be used more efficiently. So, he became very interested with geographic information, and he decided he wanted to advance in it and build up even more information. So he worked with the Canadian government, and the first computerized GIS was created. He created this computer program, and it was the first ever credible working information system. When he passed, he left us with his work that will always be a piece of art. But, gladly he was partnered up with Esri, and they have only been advancing on Tomlinson’s line of work. Esri is actually a world famous company that supplies us with GIS software and databases. Because of Tomlinson, GIS is now used everywhere world- wide.
GIS is the world’s famous geographic information system that provides all different kinds of data and spatial analysis about the positions on Earth’s surface. It is a key component in mapping and spatial analysis. By just using one map, GIS can show so much data. It can show buildings, streets, bodies of water, lands with vegetation, and much more. GIS made its way before GPS, which is a global positioning system. It actually paved the way for inventors of satellite positioning, such as Google Maps. How else would would we have GPS to get us to our various destinations? It is because of GIS and its software program that allows your navigation systems to function to the precise locations. GIS is only getting better every day, and as our technology advances so does this. GIS has many uses including, mapping data, proximity analysis, buffering, location analysis, and these are just the basic uses, there are so many more things it can do. With GIS you can actually look at different layers of data at the same time. When architects are deciding where to begin constructing their buildings, GIS is designed to show where it is spatially safe and better to start building. Most interestingly, GIS has been used for these following disciplines/ industries; climate, weather, and atmosphere, environmental management and conservation, water resources, and oceans.
The first discipline that is going to be discussed is climate, weather, and the atmosphere all in one. As we learned in class, there are many affects behind Earth’s climate. Human-induced processes like the rising of carbon dioxide levels plays a big role in this because fossil fuels are being burned and deforestation is happening. Other factors that are naturally induced include volcanism and plate tectonics. There is a constant discussion about the rising of sea levels, and how it will only get worse in the future. As the climate increases, the sea-level will increase, and there may as well be no land for us to live on. GIS comes into play by bringing forth different methods that analyze, monitor, predict, and document such activities that are occurring today. Without GIS there is no real way for scientists to fully grasp or predict these detrimental changes to the climate. GIS will only advance as technology keeps moving its way up. I believe GIS will come to a point where it will let us know everything. For example, we use GIS today to gather efficient information on earthquake damage, but what about being able to predict the earthquake and its exact location.
“On April 27, 2011 several waves of tornado and wind damage producing-storms swept through the State of Alabama. In remembrance of this tragic day in Alabama, the National Weather Service created this story map to share details about the weather patterns and how this event changed their community forever.” Not only did they suffer from a tornado, but the tornadoes were coming in squall lines, which were bands of high winds and storms that came with a cold front. Just that one squall line alone resulted in 36 tornadoes just in the morning. They had a second squall line that struck the northern part of Alabama, as well as afternoon supercells. Supercell thunderstorms are thunderstorms that have a rotating updraft deep within. They are so violet they mostly result in death and that was spread almost all over northern Alabama. All in all that day they was a recorded 62 tornadoes. GIS was being used prior to this disaster, up to a week in advance. Meteorologists knew that a weather outbreak was about to occur, and GIS did not lie to them about that. The prediction was absolutely spot on, to the point where it had even predicted that exactly 3 waves of storms were about to hit.
“National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) uses ArcGIS to visualize future land use and climate and its impacts on a community.” This organization used GIS to get people’s attention about the negative effects our climate is going through, and the possible results that can and most likely will occur. Interestingly they created a very high designed imaging video of homes being immersed in water once the sea-level completely rises in the future. These homes were representative of all the audience members homes, and this is the way they got the attention they were seeking. This was a smart idea because it really got the attention of the people and had them connect with something they actually care about. “The goal of the organization is to portray data in a way that helps people make decisions in certain situations. The best way to do that is to create images that visualize the worst in hopes of achieving the best.” This data was all gathered and put together by the use of GIS. The way they chose to get the attention of these people was brilliant; they really used an effective teaching technique. The organization is working on making their data meaningful to its audience so that they will listen, make an impact on them, and result in a change that will better our environment.
The next discipline that is going to be discussed is environmental management and conservation. Environmental planning uses independent and interdependent aspects to piece together a holistic framework to make decisions. GIS provides us with an overload of information about the global scale for a certain application. It allows for individual research as well as collaborative research groups to gather and develop resources and utilize them for their own projects and practical applications. Scientists are using GIS to manage wildlife corridors, and GIS was most helpful in providing the best suited areas for these wildlife corridors to be placed in order to maximize their value. For example, bears were not designed to know human created activity like highways, so the making of these highways that are in bear ranges results in road kill when they are causally crossing the highway. GIS was able to pinpoint areas on a map as to where bears are most likely to cross, and used to minimize road-kill along with the costs of the construction site. These are the kinds of advantages and advancements GIS is making on our environment.
“Conservation biology places a major emphasis on the preservation of biodiversity and this in turn means that data on the distribution of endangered species and of suitable habitats for such species in of paramount concern to biologists working in the field.” Just as how animals weren’t created to know about man-made boundaries neither were plants. For example, in Egypt GIS was used to make a map of the areas where there are endangered plants, and these areas were noticed as reserves. GIS maps provided wildlife managers with data that gave them the ability to optimize the boundaries of such reserves in order to balance economic and social needs with conservation. GIS plays a main role in the showing the geographic distribution of these species that are all endangered, observing biodiversity, and recognizing the priorities that are necessary for conservation management.
Another example is the use of GIS in Afghanistan’s national park, Band-e-Amir. The Wildlife Conservation Society worked together with Afghanistan to present this park for its tourist and GIS was used to put together resource management plans. The maps that were made by the technology were able to show wetlands and bird habitats, and areas where they could make these habitats much safer for the animals. The wildlife living around this national park could be at danger if GIS didn’t help the citizens make it safer for them. GIS located exact maps as to where these animals were living. GIS suggested safer areas to build around so that they are perhaps farther away from the habitats of these animals. GIS provided information about which areas should be conserved. The war in Afghanistan greatly affected the environment because it left the civilians with no shelter, food, or fuel. But, the forests were the only source they had to provide them with these resources. So, they had to cut down the wood and use it for fuel. Coming from a country with very bad history, opening up this park was a big accomplishment for them. The Wildlife Conservation Society worked with a group of citizens to put together data for their database that will be combined with GIS to create maps. These maps will provide them with a better understanding of what the environment needs. Geologist stated that GIS was able to come up with the first protected area system plan for Afghanistan. The information on these plans are going to being working for the next 25 years. The society works really hard to restore the environment they live in and protect the surrounding environment for animals and plants. They even use GIS to analyze the change that happens in the forests and can observe forest degradation. The WCS has supplied its citizens with programs for schools so that they can teach their communities about their wildlife and forest policies.
Another discipline that is greatly used with GIS is water resources. According to Steve Dicks, “The Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) oversees water resources from Orlando to the Florida Keys. Esri technology helps the district understand the region’s hydrology. Flood inundation impacts infrastructure, property, and water quality.” Floods all around the world are very detrimental to our living spaces and everyday streets. A key example of a state with major flooding is Florida, which is a peninsula state so they are completely surround by water all the time. Besides being known for its beautiful sunny beaches, the high tides can be causing the houses along the coast to flood. Peoples properties are being severely damaged by these floods, and it is so devastating. The Water Management District in Florida works with Esri and their GIS technology to learn their states hydrology regions. It is important for them to understand these concepts so that they can be ready for any floods coming and send out signals to the public. “Using the Esri platform, staff create accurate flood risk maps, manage land acquisition operations, and design intelligent water supply plans. The district also uses the platform for the permit program and various research studies.” With the use of these GIS programs the water district can get immense amounts of information on its hydrology. They desperately need GIS to manage the water supply that goes in and out of Florida. GIS even helps them make the quality of their water better for their community. GIS provides the district with accurate information on floods and how they can plan their evacuations, or any other plans they might have in order to dodge a bullet like a flood. Esri’s technology takes the data from the districts database and places it into their software. These databases allow for more exact information and accurate locations. To this day Esri’s help is being used by Florida to meet the goals that the districts water company needs to manage. Interestingly, GIS is used to help insurance companies when massive floods hit. The insurance looks are the flood data on an interactive map put together by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as Esri technology. This data provides them the ability to evaluate the risks and how much the damage costs that was brought upon by the flood. Obviously homeowners don’t pay for all the damage done by such natural causes to their houses if they are insured. The insurance has to do hand in hand with GIS to figure out exactly how much they need to provide.
In Franklin County they are using GIS to recover their resources that are lost due to floods. The damages that are done can be evaluated by GIS. Hughes, the GIS manager of Franklin County, used an app from his phone and personalized it to worked with GIS so that he could access all the data on damage. The app is well organized and easy to use, and they even include pictures. He was able to customize his app “Fulcrum, and use it to document the damages and upload the data into the county’s GIS system.” It is so convenient of an app that locals were able to us it and download it on their iPhones, especially the departments that were working with damage assessment. The spatial technology that was embedded into the app allowed for precise locations of all the damages. Red spots would appear in every location that there was a damage, and sometimes there would be hundreds of dots on the maps. The app is even able to send pictures and data to the Federal Emergency Management Agency office is there was a flood. David Palmer, a county highway engineer found GIS useful because it allowed for grants for all sorts of projects being run by the city. The GIS provided such accurate information that the grants were given to them easier. Grants were not easy to get unless the information you provided was accurate as can be. And as for the future, according to Palmer “when they are finished, they will be able to use the GIS technology to create a system for getting the repairs done in a manageable timeframe.”
The last discipline that will be discussed is on GIS and oceans. Back then scienetists had to manually spend a long amount of time to map out and image the seafloor, but now a days GIS has made it much easier. Not only is it faster, but it is more efficient because the technology has improved and made it easier for them to survey the seafloors. According to Sarah Franklin and Dustin J. Myers, “marine scientists at CSA Ocean Sciences Inc., a marine environmental consulting firm and an Esri Silver Tier partner, integrate biological inventories with video imagery and location information to quickly and accurately appraise fish, coral reefs, ocean pipelines, and other marine features.” GIS is able to offer all of the spatial information that the full motion videos are taking. These full motion videos are available for viewers to see the geographic features and track line. Although it is still difficult for scientists to estimate the scale of the video; the video coverage area and feature density. So of course someone had to come up with a way to fix this, and invented an upgrade. The upgrade of the FMV converter packages pairs up with GIS software to show a picture of the field of view. GIS has provided marine biologist with the ability to view the ocean and all of its surroundings with a much easier piece of equipment now. Most importantly is the FMV which “provides exciting opportunities for marine scientists to collect, visualize, and efficiently analyze environmental data and reduces the need for postsurvey data entry.”
To this day, there is still no man-made device that can fully allow scientists to see the bottom of the ocean floor. Scientists are now using sound as a way to visualize the ocean floor. Sound allows them to both determine the depth of the ocean and the properties laying at the very bottom. The way this works is that they use acoustic remote sensing, and the sound waves get transmitted. In seawater sound waves are transmitted quicker and go a longer distance than electromagnetic energy. The shapes of the creatures or objects at the bottom of the ocean can be determined by the intensity of reflection. Technology advances every day and the advances in oceanic GIS happens to be in remote sensing. The sensing allows for the data to be collected on different aspects of the ocean, and with this GIS is able to take the data and combine it with their data, map making skills, and scientific analysis to help scientists make better decisions about the ocean. GIS has allowed for these marine scientists to uphold so much more information than they would have obtained if they were to analyze all the data separately. According to Dawn Wright, “GIS in this realm has moved from solely displaying data to multidimensional visualization, simulation and modeling, and decision support.” The U.S. NRL, Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi has made a prototype that monitors the ocean environment in relation to underwater vehicles. For example, the researchers have a prototype named the glider, which is an underwater vehicle. This vehicle is environmentally safe for the ocean floor and doesn’t have any harmful propellers that would spin and cut off ocean life. The NRL has complied its underwater vehicles systems with the software on GIS. This makes it easier for everyone in the NRL to use and reduces the cost for life cycle maintenance. “NRL is realizing significant development savings due to the extensive functionality already provided, including data ingest and management; coordinate conversions and projections; common symbology; standardized geographic user interfaces (GUI); and multilayer operations, control, and visualization.”
GIS allows for the integration of data; qualitative and quantitative. GIS has been helping everyone. Everyday thousands of people are using map making, whether it is trying to find the fastest route to Los Angeles or to a friend’s house. We make maps every day, we use GIS every day. With time and advancements of technology the uses of GIS will only become more sufficient. One day we will even be able to spot natural disasters through GIS such as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and much more. It is incredible how data is gathered through such a software, and then turned into an analysis. When GIS was first invented it was just something new that no one cared about, but about three decades later it is now in everyones hands. Simply asking your cell phone for directions is the most common used GIS around. It is fascinating how colleges now carry courses on GIS, and Universities now allow students to major in it, and one day have a job in this field. It does not seem easy to understand and develop all the skills of spatial reasoning, but GIS has made it easier for process data.
GIS allows its users to collect, create, and analyze all this data used in a wide variety of disciplines. Through just a couple discussed above, many people might not be educated on how these things are decided. Who knew that GIS would be the main decision maker as to where roads, highways, buildings, and more would be built. It provides the exact location so that animals and plants can be at peace, and so that humans have a more natural environment. It used to be viewed as a very expensive tool to use, but now it is everywhere and so inexpensive. Many different fields have been using GIS, not just cartographers and geographers. It provides certain communities with planning, district mapping, criminal investigations, and economic development. There are limitless applications for GIS and a few examples happen to be environment and natural resources management, education, infrastructure management, comprehensive planning and zoning, real property records management, public health and safety; as well as the few disciplines discussed such as climate, weather, and atmosphere, water resources, and oceans. The conservation discipline ties in with environment and natural resources management.