GIS FOR BEGINNERS.
A geographic information system (GIS) is a tool for collecting, organizing, managing, manipulating, analyzing, storing, and presenting many types of spatial data.
Sounds encompassing, right? How does this tool affect me as an average person? Anyway, it isn’t until I go to colleges or universities to study it and maybe probably because it’s in the line of my job or career choice.
Surprisingly, most all individuals on earth are already using or embedded into the almighty GIS circle in their daily lives and activities without spending tuition or intentional learning it or deciding on a career path in it.
GIS is Applicable in the following areas:
- Mapping.
GIS has been a tool used to provide a visual presentation of data that I and most people use in everyday navigation processes, location intelligence and analytics, parcel delivery and tracking, rescheduling deliveries, and finding where and when in respect to what distance or position.
- Banking.
Banking has evolved away from the ancient systems of “I can only send funds or perform transactions in my physical location or a bank branch where I opened an account.” Through the application of a tool that has enhanced smart planning, organizing, data transfer, data storage, and swift decision-making in the banking industry, people can make secured transactions with their bank accounts from their comfort zones to other people in far countries where their preferred bank may not even have a branch.
- Telecom and Network services.
According to Statista in 2022, including both smart and feature phones, the current number of mobile phone users is 7.26 billion, which makes 91.54% of people in the world cell phone owners and users. These services use GIS to enhance their processes through better data management and location services.
You are viewing this blog post courtesy of some elements of GIS.
- Disaster Management and Mitigation.
Efficient GIS systems protect the environment and are developed to assist risk and disaster management in different locations across the globe. This is done by developing tools used to measure risk factors. Refer to our previous blog post on How GIS can be used to estimate flood damage.
- Transportation.
Airports manage their fleet of aircraft, make flight plans, organize schedules, estimate arrivals and departure times, and know when the weather is favorable to fly to other destinations by incorporating GIS in their repertoire of tools and systems.
The use of GIS has a profound impact on agriculture or the food value chain, at least on all humans, educated or non-educated, poor or rich, young or old depending on the food.
Local farmers might not be vast in the use of technology but they use pesticides, and fertilizers, to export their farm produce. Though they might not directly apply the tool themselves in those processes, they are embedded in the system for the dream and accomplishment of a farmer is to grow and nurture healthy farm produce in good yields, feed on, distribute, supply, and sell to others. GIS is directly or indirectly used in all the processes of getting food to the table.
Surveying involves measuring the position of objects on earth, below the earth, in water, and in space through field procedures and the use of various equipment or tools: GPS, total station, compass, measuring tape, UAVs, and many others. The data gotten from field observations are incorporated into a GIS system which calculates, estimates visualizes, and prepares digital maps, plans, graphs, and charts for understanding, decision making, and implementation purposes.
The inestimable value of GIS in deciding many life and living factors cannot be over-emphasized. In every way, GIS presents a much more calculable way of making life easier.
