The meaning of the letter 'S' in the acronym GIS appears to have been the subject of some debate in the world of geographers over the last 20 years or so (Wright et al., 1997; Pickles, 1997). Geographical information science or geographical information systems? Goodchild (2010) describes geographic information as information which links an entity to a location on or near the earth's surface as well as to a specific point in time, he alse quotes the definition of geographic information science put forward by David Mark: "The development and use of theories, methods, technology, and data for understanding geographic processes, relationships,and patterns." Geographical information systems have their roots in cartography. Schuurman (2004), who broadly describes geographical information science as the theoretical basis for GIS, points to the instance of Ian McHarg in 1962, who was tasked with planning the route of a road through an area with several different types of land cover. He set out to pick the route that would cause the least amount of disturbance to the habitats in the area. In order to do this he devised a method called overlaying which involved drawing each piece of land cover on a seperate sheet of tracing paper and laying them over eachother. This formed the foundation for spatial analysis and provided the basis for what would later become the layers we now use today in GIS. Another early example mentioned by Shuurman is that of John Snow, who located the source of a cholora outbreak in London by making a dot density map of each individual case. The spatial data this provided him with allowed him to narrow down the source to specific water pumps in the city. Though both of the above examples are far more simple than w... ... middle of paper ... ...graphic information science. International Journal of Geographic Information Science, 26(12), pp. 2227-2237. Pickles, J., 1997. Tool or Science? GIS, Technoscience and the Theoretical Turn. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 87(2), pp. 363-372. Schuurmann, N., 2004. GIS: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Sengupta, R. and Yan, C., 2004. A Hybrid Spatio - Temporal Data Model and Structure (HST - DMS) for Efficient Storage and Retrieval of Land Use Information. Transactions in GIS, 8(3), pp. 351 - 366. Wright, D. J., Goodchild, M. F. and Proctor, J. D., 1997. Demystifying the persistent amibuity of GIS as "tool" versus "science". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 87(2), pp. 346-62. Wright, D. J., 2012. Theory and application in a post GISystems world. International Journal of Geographic Information Science, 26(12), pp. 2197-2209.
Hess, D., McKnight, T. L., & Tasa, D. (2011). McKnight's physical geography (Custom ed. for California State University, Northridge ; 2nd Calif. ed.). New York: Learning Solutions.
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Bodansky, Daniel. "The Who, What, and Wherefore of Geoengineering Governance." Climate Change 121.3 (2013): 539-551. Print. DOI.ORG/10.2139/SSRN.2168850
So what exactly is a geographical perspective, well according to Penn state “A geographic perspective is a way of looking at and understanding the world. When
There are many geographic features around the world. These geographic features can influence the development of a region or civilization and promote or limit interaction with other civilizations. Geographic is the study of the various features of the earth. Two geographic features that have been important are the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Knox, P. L., & Marston, S. A. (2012). Human geography: Places and regions in global context (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate to and from as well as through their new environments. Over Time the explorers began to discover the relationships within their environments and original occupants of the lands as well as the regions in which they now occupied.
Geographers plan new communities, decide where new highways should be placed, and establish evacuation plans. Computerized mapping and data analysis is known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a new frontier in geography. Spatial data is gathered on a variety of subjects and input onto a computer. GIS users can create an infinite number of maps by requesting portions of the data to plot.
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3. Blij, H.J. de and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts 2000 Ninth Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
GIS is an emerging method of data storage and interpretation. GIS is, simply put a database. It is many tables of data organized by one common denominator, location. The data in a GIS system is organized spatially, or by its physical location on the base map. The information that is stored in the database is the location and attributes that exist in that base map, such as streets, highways, water lines, sewers, manholes, properties, and buildings, etc. each of these items don’t just exist in the database, the attributes associated with the item is also stored. A good example of this would be a specific sewer line, from and arbitrary point A to a point B. Ideally, the sewer line would be represented graphically, with a line connecting the two points or something of the like. When one retrieves the information for that line in particular, the attribute data would be shown. This data would include the size of pipe, the pipe material, the upper invert elevation, the downstream invert elevation, the date installed, and any problem history associated with that line. This is the very gist of what a GIS system is.
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.
I believe that I applied six out of the eighteen National Standards to this paper. The first two standards were under a section called "Seeking the World in Spatial Terms." When you look under this, the first I used was "knows and understands how to use maps, globes and other graphical tools to acquire, process and report information." The second standard was "Uses mental maps to give spatial perspective to the world." Then the second section is called "Places and Region." Under this section it says "Knows and understands the physical and human characteristics of places." The next section is called "physical systems" and I used only one standard in this one. This standard says that one "Knows and understands that physical pro...