Geographic Information Systems are not a new phenomenon nor are they hard to understand. Basically, GIS involve the combining of data base information and geographic maps. Just about everyone has seen a weather map of the country with colored or shaded bands representing temperature gradients in ten degree increments. This illustration, whether in print or on television, gives you a quick glance at the weather forecast in your area and confirms the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. Add similar information on precipitation and winds and you have an even better picture.
Another example would be population statistics by census tract combined with a map of an area. The population of each tract could be divided by the acres of that tract to calculate a population density and then shown on a map by shade or color gradients to visually portray the area's population characteristics. This information would be very helpful to a city or county planning new public services and facilities. Helpful as this two dimensional data is, the real value of GIS emerges as additional dimensions and aspects are added. Say for example, we add the element of time to the illustration above. In this way we can look at overlays of this population density at five year intervals to see which areas are growing the fastest or perhaps even declining. This shows not only where things are now, but where they may be headed in the future. Combine age groupings with location data and time frames and we have trends by age group, which can be used for planning schools, housing developments, senior centers, and other age oriented needs. GIS can give us new ways to effectively use information we already have in our data bases.
For years public entities have used GIS for activities such as those indicated above. Now more and more businesses are using this tool to plan for their operations. If you are a retailer trying to decide where to locate your next store, GIS could be a big help. First, you could look at the demographics by age, occupation, education, and income level, based upon census data from the federal government. Next, you could overlay this with maps of vacant land and zoning data from the county or city. Finally, you could overlay data showing road access, utility connections, and even competitors. This process certainly helps to highlight the best alternatives and can replace months of manual research and calculations. Marketing data, environmental issues, and inventory tracking are just a few of the ways GIS can be used to speed transactions and share information between organizations. Thus, GIS becomes one more tool in the arsenal of electronic commerce technologies available to small and medium size businesses from the ECRC.
Given the increasing power of desktop computers, improvements in GIS software, and the expanded availability of GIS data, even a small business can take advantage of this technology. The cost of the software has also come down drastically in the last few years, dropping from over $20,000 to around $1,000 for a full function product, which may include a basic collection of GIS data as well. Interested in how to put this tool to work for your organization? The Bremerton ECRC offers a four hour course on Geographic Information Systems every month. See the schedule on page 7 of this issue.
GIS Internet WWW Resource List . This is an index of World-Wide Web (WWW) servers which are likely to be of interest to the GIS community. http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/giswww.html (35K)