Monday, February 8, 2016

Geographical Information Systems and Location Science

As a sociology and communications major, I'm very interested in how GIS can potentially be used in other disciplines. This article outlines just how useful GIS is across all areas of study, which is perfect for me.

Church notes that GIS has evolved into including other disciplines, such as Geography, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Land Use Planning, and Environmental Science. He also claims that one of the reasons GIS is so useful is because it can be used to support a wide range of "spatial queries" that can be used in location studies.

Church also describes GIS as something that can store, retrieve, manipulate, analyze, and map any type of geographic data, which is a main reason why GIS is so helpful across disciplines. The article goes on to explain the different types of GIS and what they can be used for. Basically the article just describes what GIS is and why it can be helpful in all areas of study.

Church, R. L. (2002). Geographical information systems and location science. Computers & Operations Research29(6), 541-562.

2 comments:

  1. It seems that GIS can be connected back to any discipline. It's amazing how we can use the software to make any sort of map or query we can imagine. I'm very interested in the surface model you posted. How was that made? Can esri do that?

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  2. Interesting, and the inter-disciplinarity of GIS makes sense! Would it be practical in the future to require some form of GIS education within all areas of study (just as a general education requirement)? What would be some of the benefits?

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