GIS is an evidence-based, comprehensive platform for creating understanding, exploring alternatives, and finding solutions. It enables the geographic approach through a kind of loosely sequential and ultimately circular pattern of working on problems. 20 The Power of Where WHAT IS GIS? GIS (geographic information system) is a system for organizing, managing, and applying all types of geographic information. A GIS connects the data to the map, integrating location (where things are) with all types of descriptive information (what things are like there). GIS combines software, location-enabled devices, analytic methods, models, desktop and online mapping technology, visualization techniques, and massive collections of geographic data compiled by a global community. GIS can use any information that includes location, and most information includes at least one element of location. Its use is amplified by its connection via the web to any other GIS data or application on the internet. At a practical level, GIS abstracts our world into a large set of digital features at every scale, from global and regional to local and even indoors at the building level. But GIS goes beyond the science and practice of representing everything as we collect a limitless number of objects in databases. The ability to combine geographic information of any kind, cover any geographic extent, and create new geographic apps is where the magic happens. And apps can perform in seconds what used to take hours. GIS can compare many types of information, including data about people, such as population, income, and education level. GIS can analyze the suitability of plant and animal species to live on a landscape. It can add layers of information about that landscape, such as the location of streams, vegetation, and soil types. And it can identify the sites and sizes of factories, farms, schools, storm drains, and power lines. The application of GIS technology underpins the geographic approach to manage protected lands, predict the impacts of climate change, operate port facilities, transport cargo, measure changes in biodiversity, respond to natural disasters, maintain land records, and run cities. In short, GIS allows users to reach a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of our world. The end of each chapter showcases a successful application of the geographic approach and its methodologies in the GIS user community. However, the use of these examples does not imply that ArcGIS is a monolithic system and the only GIS tool out there. Far from it, the global GIS community is diverse in makeup and areas of focus. Although ArcGIS is compatible with many systems, the open data and software movements have also excelled in applying and extending the geographic approach beyond individual communities. “GIS is providing a quiet revolution in scientific understanding; systematically revealing the patterns and systems of the world we inhabit. JACK DANGERMOND Esri cofounder and president Action Decision-making Data collection Visualization and mapping Analysis and modeling Planning and geodesign
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