Factsheet: Geographic Information System (GIS)
Definition
GIS is a system of hardware and software used for storage, retrieval, mapping, and analysis of geographic data.
Application objectives
Analysis of geographic data.
Pertinent participation process phase(s)
1- Starting organization
2- Actors analysis, context
3- Diagnostic of the current situation
4- Search of solutions
5- Implementation, evaluation
Application method
Present and analyse geographic data by combining different layers; each layer contains data within a single domain. By combining a data-layer containing highways with a data-layer containing bird-counts per grid-cell, it is possible to determine the number of birds affected by the highway traffic.
Application example(s)
Maptable:
Interactive design of (river) measures by model-developer and stakeholders using ArcGis linked to a 2-dimensional water hydraulics model system. The schematisation used by this model system is automatically generated by the maptable software based on the changes drawn by the participants.
Example tools
AquaStress partners own no specific tools, since there are huge amounts of commercial and free tools available.
- ArcGIS: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/index.html (licensed);
- MapInfo: http://www.mapinfo.com/ (licensed);
- Geomedia: http://www.intergraph.com/geomedia/ (licensed);
- Web Mapper: http://www.demis.nl/home/pages/mapper/mapper.htm ;
- Map-table: www.maptable.nl (Dutch);
- GRASS: http://grass.itc.it/;
- PCRaster: The PCRaster Environmental Modelling language is a computer language for construction of iterative spatio-temporal environmental models. It runs in the PCRaster interactive raster GIS environment that supports immediate pre- or post-modelling visualisation of spatio-temporal data. http://pcraster.geo.uu.nl/ (free download)
- PostGIS: PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for geographic information systems (GIS), much like ESRI's SDE or Oracle's Spatial extension. http://www.postgis.org/ (open source).
- GeoTools: GeoTools is an open source java GIS toolkit. Used for OGC based projects via GeoAPI interfaces. Includes two great SLD based renderers, raster access and reprojection. Plugns fo Shapefile, ArcGrid, ArcSDE, Postgis, OracleSpatial, MySQL and many more. http://sourceforge.net/projects/geotools
- OpenMap: BBN Technologies' OpenMap package is a JavaBeans-based GIS programmer's toolkit. Using OpenMap, you can quickly build applications and applets that access data from legacy databases and applications. http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmap
AquaStress contact(s)
Contact: AquaStress contact: Jan-Erik Wien, Alterra, ( jan-erik.wien@wur.nl)
Reference
Many books and articles are available on GIS. Following the example tool links will provide numerous examples and references.
