Welcome to GEOG 070 Intro to Geographic Information Autumn Session Instructor: Gregory Taff

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 2 Lesson 1: Intro to Geographic Information

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 3 Geography = Place names only?

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 4 World Population The heavier the color, the more the population.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 5 Population Growth Rate The heavier the color, the higher the growth rate.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 6 World Vegetation

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 7 Intro to Geographic Information 1.1 The “G” in GI (Geographic Information) Geography – Patterns and processes of human and physical phenomena on the surface of earth. Examples of geographic information: Location of Chapel Hill Interstate I40’s spatial pattern Distribution of world population density Urban sprawl/development of Raleigh over 100 years.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 8 GI examples (cont.) Water quality of Michigan Lake. Water pipe lines in Orange county. GI could be static, or dynamic, depending on how you collect and study GI. -For the same object, for example, a car, its spatial position might change over time. -For the same location, like chapel hill, you can study its population changes over time.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff Variables in GI Geographic information involves: Location/Spatial information of objects  Objects: Points (air pollution monitoring station) Lines (the location of the length of a road) Polygons (the boundaries of a county) Pixel (from a satellite image)  Location/spatial information – coordinate system Latitude and longitude UTM State Plane Attributes  Income levels of census tract  Air pollution levels at monitoring station  Elevation of a topographic contour line

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff GIS Example – layers of data

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Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 13 Overlay (of data layers)

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 14 Change layers (here a 2002 satellite image)

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 15 Variables in GI GIS data can contain Z-values (elevation) – e.g. for an airplane Time – GI data usually will have a time stamp. Updates of census information in a census tract Land cover change of a plot of land (field may grow into forest).

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 16 Sources of GI There are many ways we can obtain GI data. Popular ways – Surveying/Field work Remote Sensing Digitizing old maps Purchasing Get free data by downloading from Internet, copying from CDs borrowed from library.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff Formats of GI GI exists in many formats -Paper maps -Tabular data (weather station lists of city temperatures) -Text (a description of a place) -Digital format, necessary to copy/analyze using software.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 18 What is GIS? GIS is built on the collective knowledge from geography, cartography, computer science, and mathematics. A GIS has many definitions depending on whom you ask. GIS as a Toolbox: GIS is 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. Peter Burrough, 1986 This definition emphasizes a set of tools designed to solve specific problems. 1-4 Geographic Information Systems

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 19 GIS as an Information System: A geographic information system is a spatial case of information system where the database of observations reflects spatially distributed features, activities or events, which are definable in space as points, lines, or areas. A geographic information system manipulates data about these points, lines and areas to retrieve data for queries and analyses. Ken Dueker, 1979 [edited by Taff]. The information system definition implies that GIS collects data, sifts and sorts them, and selects and rebuilds them to find the right information to answer a question. GIS definition

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 20 Dueker’s definition only applies to the vector model of the real world, which represents the real world on a map as point, line, and area features. In fact, there is another model of the world, the raster model of the world, to which the definition does not apply. My preferred definition is a hybrid of both: “GIS is an information system that allows for capture, storage, retrieval, analysis and display of spatial data.” Note that GIS is closely tied to the infrastructure that exists for creating spatial data – satellites, census protocols, weather stations, land survey techniques, and more. GIS definition

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 21 Computer hardware Software Data management and analysis procedures (this could be considered part of the software) Spatial data People needed to operate the GIS Components of a GIS as defined by Heywood This is a good test question!

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 22 Hardware: Digitizer, scanner, PC, ETC. Software Commercial software – Esri family, ArcGIS, Arcview, etc. Data: Shape files, Coverage files, Remote Sensing data, Census data, etc. People GIS specialists, analysts, researchers, technicians, Operators, etc. Components of a GIS

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff GIS Application classification First, we can divide applications by customers Government  Census bureau  Dept of Agriculture  Dept of Defense/CIA  Dept of Transportation Education & Research  Land use change research  Environmental monitoring  Seismological research  Population research

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 24 Business  Real estate development  Ski resort (Happy Valley) planning  Trucking company – inventory and route planning Personal  Yahoo maps  GPS and map tracking system in automobiles  Palm pilot Zagat’s guide, etc.  Entertainment (check out GoogleEarth) 1-5 GIS Application classification (Cont.)

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff GIS Application classification (Cont.) Information Management – data input, data editing and updating. Data output and display  Maps  Spatial information queries  Time series of maps (Greg Fishel shows movement of cloud cover over the region) GIS applications, considered by functionality

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff GIS Application classification (Cont.) Spatial Analysis –  Shortest Distance  Overlay  Buffer analysis  Classification Spatial modeling – has all above features.  Simulations (weather) for understanding and prediction  Real-time Systems (Forest fire, military, etc., using real time data.),

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff The Role of GIS within Geograhpy GIS is an effective tool that integrates human and physical geography  GIS can combine (and overlay) human and physical data Tool v.s. science  GIS is a tool for those who use it to conduct research on other subjects  GIS is also a science, as is computer science. GISci v.s. GIS.

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff Synonymous Terms for GIS Geographic Information Systems (US) Geographical Information Systems (Europe) Geomatics (Canada & Europe) GeoInformatics (Europe & Asia) Spatial Information Systems Geographic Information Science

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 29 The Market In 2003 the US Dept of Labor listed these as the three fastest growing emerging career fields in the US (order not specified):  GIS  Biotechnologies  Nanotechnologies Data from GIS Monitor:

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 30 GIS Market Share Data from GIS Monitor

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 31 GIS Market Share-2001

Autumn 2005 Gregory Taff 32 Geographic information systems – cont. GIS internet resources: Try googling “GIS”, you will find a lot of GIS related websites. Some examples: 1.Network newsgroup GIS-L (comp.infosystems.gis) 2.USGS (Geological Survey)’s brochure Geographic Information Systems ( 3.News services –