Geographical Information Systems An Overview

Geographical Information Systems – an overview Valentin P. Măzăreanu, PhD student Iaşi, România [email protected]

Abstract For every question that the business world has asked there are answers in the shape of information systems (IS for data mining, for statistical analysis, for decisions support and many others). For the question “where?” the geographical information systems appeared. GIS are a distinct class of information systems that collect, store, process, analyze, create and display data that are identified starting from its geographical location. Key words: GIS, geographical, system, information Introduction to GIS concepts It seems that the literature does not offer a standard definition for the Geographical Information System (GIS) concept. The Handling Geographic Information Report (which is a standard creation body) describes GIS as an information system where data has a geographical dimension [Hawkins, 1994, p.4]. What we can understand from this idea is that data can be bound to a very specific point from a geographical map. An interesting way to define this concept is offered by Meeks and Dasgupta [Meeks and Dasgupta, 2005, p.179]. In their opinion GIS is a system that include components as hardware, software, data, connectivity, procedures and operators. GIS = f {Hardware, Software, Date, Connectivity, Procedures, Operators} where, - Hardware – all the hardware components of a system; - Software – operation systems, applications and tools; - Date – all kind of data; - Connectivity – component that connect GIS with data sources and other support application; - Procedures – processes, algorithms, methods necessary in order to use a GIS; - Operators – annalists, researchers, users of GIS. GIS are systems used for storage, extraction, mapping and analyzing geographical data. GIS are metaphorical described as the 21st Century’s datasheets. These systems became extremely important in many fields: starting with geography and geology, continuing with business, healthcare or criminology and finishing (but not ending) with governing (GIS is an important component of a e-Government plan).

The main advantage of a GIS system is that all the complex data that have been displayed in tables, datasheets, balance scorecard and other technical reports until now, are displayed in graphical manner very easy to understand and interpret. If we think just for a moment as a risk manager we understand that such a system would help me to simulate and understand whether conditions in order to better identify nature risks for a project. Modus operandi – the system, its strengths and limitations We have seen that a GIS is a system based on the utilization of the electronic calculation techniques in order to collect, manage, process, analyze and display data spatially (geo-)referenced. With other words, a GIS can be described as a system able to memorize and use data that describes zones from a geographical map. Actually, this is its novelty: the possibility to work with spatial data (data that can be referred through geographical coordinates – latitude, longitude). The table below present the way that a spatial data can be referred in a data base: Table 1 An example of a data base with spatial components Client Name Address City Postal Latitude (fictive) cod code 001 Alfa Carol 1 Iaşi 700505 -84.1234 002 Beta Catargi 4 Suceava 725500 -84.2345

Longitude (fictive) 34.5678 35.6789

Although there are many such definitions, GIS has to perform at least four functions [Kropla, 2005, p.25]: - Data manipulation; - Analytical capabilities; - Spatially referencing the data; - The possibility to store and to extract geographical information. GIS works with three types of data entity: points, lines and zones. The way that these entities are represented in a geographical information system is presented in the figure below: Points – e.g. peaks, entrance on caves Lines – e.g. rivers, streets Zones – e.g. land properties, delimitation of types of forests

Fig. 1 Data representation Source: adaptation from Laurini, R., Thompson, D., Fundamentals of Spatial Information Systems, Academic Press, 1992

A geographical information system organizes information in layers. Each layer may contain different kind of information, such as rivers, lakes or highways, specific location like hospitals or hotels or land properties. A coordination system helps to create a connection between all these layers so in the end to be able to cumulate all the information into one map. The way that this process works is presented in the figure 2.

The street layer

The complete representation of all the layers into a GIS

The hotel layer

The train station layer

Fig. 2 The way GIS works Although GIS is a powerful tool, it can be criticized. And the main limit is that these systems are statically and mostly two dimensional, not being able to display data in a dynamical manner. With other words, these systems ca not store, process and display the time dimension. There are also other weaknesses [Sheppard, 2004, p.6184]: limitation in representation the real world or in accessing the right technologies, some legal and ethical implication and impossibility in applying GIS in order to redress social and geographical inequalities. Who use geographical information systems? The geographical information system are used in various fields, starting with public administration, military activities, transportation and infrastructure administration, business, healthcare, social services or land properties management. Of course, not to mention geography, geology and all the relegated fields. The advantages of these systems made risk managers to use it in their risk management plan at the time they take into consideration the possibility of nature disaster and the disaster recovery plan. And because we mention healthcare, in 1854 John Snow used for the first time a map in order to identify the water source responsible for a cholera

disease [Ghinea et al, 2002, p.225]. But the medical systems use GIS also for monitoring the spreading of a disease, market research, logistics and so forth. Another interesting approach is the effort made in combining the multi-agents systems with geographical information systems [Monteiro de Farias, O.L. and dos Santos, N., 2005, p. 998]. This approach could eliminate the limitations in representing the world also taking into consideration the time dimension. These systems are called agent-based geographical information (ABGIS) and they are used with great success when the scope is simulating an event (e.g. a fire spreading into a village where all the houses are made by a specific kind of wood). These systems are increasingly used in the process of developing procedures to support educational policy analysis and school site management [Bruno, J.E., 1996, p.24]. The decision makers are using GIS techniques in order to obtain reports where quantitative data are displayed in a graphical manner. This way of presenting statistical data as images and pictures are considered an efficient method, especially when there are lots of data to analyze and the decision makers are not very familiarized with statistical techniques or with the data mining complex systems (e.g. board of directors of a school, professors, parents, large audience and so forth). The necessity of a geographical information system at the public administration level is without a doubt extremely important. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors of United Kingdom has recognized this since 1987 [Ralphs, M. and Wyatt, P., 1998, p.84] when made some recommendations to the public authorities suggesting them to develop departments of administration of land properties and to create centralized data bases of properties. Starting this idea some public authorities developed the concept of Land Information Systems (LIS). Some other perspectives of geographical information systems: - SDSS (Spatial Decision Support Systems): a system that combines geographical information systems with decisions support systems [Huerta, E. at al, 2005, p.21]; - MuTACLP+ (Multi-theory Temporal Annotated Constraint Logic Programming): a programming language that can be used in order to improve the spatial and temporal analysis of the geographical data stored and managed by a geographical information system [Raffaeta, A. and Renso, C., 2000, p.900]; - Hyper-spatial documents: multimedia spatial information created by a geographical information system integrated with hypermedia. Conclusions We accept that this is a complex subject that can be analyzed in different manners. And of course there are lots of subjects that can be taken into consideration, like designing, implementing and managing of spatial data

warehouses, data mining in geo-referenced data, open source GIS models, wireless technologies and geographical information systems (mobile GIS) or the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) standard, an eXtensible Markup Language used in describing the two dimensional graphics. A comparative approach of the GIS and mapping software could be a great move also since there are many such products on the market (e.g.: AutoCAD Mapo, ArcView by ESRI, MapInfo Professional, Maptitude by Caliper, BusinessMAP Pro by ESRI, CensusCD+Maps, Lotus 1-2-3, MapPoint by Microsoft, TNT Mips or Net Set, a Romanian product). Under this light we have to accept that the geographical information systems are at the beginning of a journey and there are lots of words to be said and written on this topic. Bibliography 1.

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Bruno, J.E., Use of geographical information systems (GIS) mapping procedures to support educational policy analysis and school site management, International Journal of Educational Management, Year: Dec 1996 Volume: 10 Issue: 6, p. 24 Ghinea, G., Gill D., Frank, A., de Souza, L.H., Using geographical information systems for management of back-pain data, Journal of Management in Medicine, Jan 2002 Volume: 16 Issue: 2/3, MCB UP Ltd, p.225 Hawkins, M.A., Geographical Information Systems (GIS): Their Use as Decision Support Tools in Public Libraries and the Integration of GIS with Other Computer Technology, New Library World Journal, Year: Dec 1994 Volume: 95 Issue: 7, MCB UP Ltd, p.4 Huerta, E., Navarrete, C., Ryan, T., GIS and Decision-Making in Business: A Literatury Review, în Pick, J.B., Geographic Information Systems in Business, Idea Group Inc., London, 2005, p.21 Kropla, B., Beginning MapServer. Open Source GIS Development, Apress, 2005, p.25 Laurini, R., Thompson, D., Fundamentals of Spatial Information Systems, Academic Press, 1992 Meeks, W.L., Dasgupta, S., Value of Using GIS and Geospatial Data to Support Organizational Decision Making în Pick, J.B., Geographic Information Systems in Business, Idea Group Inc., London, 2005, p.179 Monteiro de Farias, O.L., dos Santos, N., Agent-Based Geographical Information System, International Conference on Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation and International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technologies and Internet Commerce, Volume 1, 28-30 Nov. 2005, p. 998

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Raffaeta, A., Renso, C., Temporal reasoning in geographical information systems, Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, 4-8 Sept. 2000, p. 900 10. Ralphs, M., Wyatt, P., The application of geographic and land information systems to the management of local authority property, Property Management Journal, Year: Jun 1998 Volume: 16 Issue: 2, MCB UP Ltd, p.84, apud. Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) (1987), “Property management in local authorities: evidence to the Audit Commission by the RICS”, RICS, London 11. Sheppard, E., Geographic Information Systems: Critical Approaches, în Smelser N.J., Baltes, P.B. (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier Ltd., 2004, p.6184 Aparut in Măzăreanu, P.V., Geographical Information Systems – an overview, The Proceedings of International Conference on Informatics in Economy „Informatics in Knowledge Society”, may 2007, ASE Printing House, ISBN 978-973-594-921-1