& GEOGRAPHY GEOINFORMATION
SCIENCE 311
INTRODUCTION TO GEOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Instructor: Dr. Matt Rice
Faculty Office: Research Building I, Room 242
Faculty Office Hours: Wednesday, 11:00am-1:00pm or by appointment
Email: [e-mail]
Faculty webpage: rice.gmu.edu , mason.gmu.edu/~mrice4
TA:
Mukul Sonwalkar ([e-mail])
Chris Hill ([e-mail])
Contact via email:
I can be reached via email to
schedule alternative office hours if
necessary.
I may not be able to read and
answer your email immediately,
particularly on evenings or
weekends, but I will do my best to
be available, provide help, and
answer questions. Students need
to activate and use their campus
email to facilitate contact.
Email: [e-mail]
Email subject: [GGS 311]
Course: GGS 311
This is an integrated lecture & lab course.
Enrollment pressure
Lecture (75-90 minutes)
Lab (75-90 minutes)
This is not a software course.
Theory Application
Teaching Assistants: troubleshoot ArcGIS &
help complete lab assignments
Mukul Sonwalkar (
[e-mail] )
Chris Hill ([e-mail] )
TAs will be available for open lab time in
Robinson A113
1. Texts:
Longley, P.A., M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, and D.W. Rhind,
Geographic Information Systems and Science . Third Edition.
2011. New York: Wiley. ISBN: 978-470-72144-5
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP001475.html
Text: Price, Maribeth, 2012. Mastering ArcGIS. Fifth Edition.
New York: McGraw Hill.
https://www.mhprofessional.com/mhhe_product.php?isbn=0077462955
USB Flash Drive (500 Mb free space)
Review Syllabus . . .
Getting ready for the
lab
ArcGIS 10.0 (student evaluation
version)
Where can I work?
Robinson A113
Innovation 301
Innovation 2nd/3rd floor
classrooms
(when not in
use)
JC 342
Home
Two tasks for the week
Install ArcGIS 10 (student version)
at home
Blackboard help
Install course data on your flash
drive
Unpack data from Meribeth Price
Mastering ArcGIS CD
GMU: #1 Up-andcoming National
University
A prime suburban Washington,
D.C. location makes Mason the
destination of choice for students
from all over the world.
Opportunities abound both inside
and outside the classroom in areas
such as internships at nationally
and internationally recognized
organizations, from Fortune 500
companies to the Kennedy Center.
Many of Mason's graduates
continue employment with places
they interned, or remain in the area
to take advantage of the
outstanding job market. As one
of Virginia's largest public
institutions, George Mason
University offers all the
excitement of a large residential
college campus, while offering
small class sizes and individual
attention from faculty and staff
members.
US News & World Report
Best Colleges 2009
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Importance/Value of this
course (GIS):
Mapping Opportunities
Nature, Vol. 427 (22 Jan 2004)
Scientists who can combine
geographic information systems with
satellite data are in demand in a variety
of disciplines.
Earlier this year, the US Department of
Labor identified geotechnology as one
of the three most important emerging
and evolving fields, along with
nanotechnology and biotechnology. Job
opportunities are growing and
diversifying as geospatial technologies
prove their value in ever more areas.
Expanding job market in Goverrnment
and Private Sector
Homeland Security / Defense
Natural Resource Management
Hazards
Disease
Data / Analysis / IT / Consulting
Longley et al., Geographic Information Systems and Science, Chp.1,
p.3-36
WHAT IS GIS?
Longley et al., Geographic Information Systems and Science, Chp.1, p.3-33
WHAT IS GIS?
Geographic Information System
GIS
Geographic Information Science
GIScience
Geographic Information Studies
GI Studies
Why does GIS Matter
Almost everything that happens, happens somewhere. Knowing where
something happens can be critically important.
LOCATION IS IMPORTANT
Problems that involve an aspect of location, either in the information used to
solve them, or in the solutions themselves, are termed geographic problems
GIS: SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING AND SOLVING GEOGRAPHIC
PROBLEMS
Geographic Problems:
Health care managers choosing where to locate clinics and hospitals
Delivery companies developing and modifying daily routes and schedules
Tourists navigating through an unfamiliar city to a destination
Forestry companies planning sustainable harvest and replanting programs
http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2
Maintaining
and
improving footpaths
in
national parks is a
geographic problem.
Navigating tourist destinations
is a geographic problem.
Hurricane Katrina as at August 28, 2005
(Courtesy NOAA/NESDIS: www.nnvl.noaa.gov)
Its aftermath in
New Orleans
on August 29, 2005:
showing the flooding of the
I-10 Interstate Highway,
directly caused by the
breaching of the levees
of the 17th Street Canal.
(Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Image:KatrinaNewOrleansFlooded_edit2.jpg)
A prediction of the effects of a 32-foot storm
surge with 20-foot wave action, as modeled
using a GIS.
The city boundary is shown in green, and the
limit of the storm surge in red. (Source: ArcNews)
Store location principles are very important in developing markets
across the world, as with Tescos investment in Beijing, China.
( Lou-Foto/Alamy Limited)
Why does GIS Matter
Important factors and properties of geographic problems:
Scale and level of detail
Architectural & site design for a building (local scale, high level of
detail)
Global diffusion of bird flu (2004) (global scale, low level of detail)
Scale or level of geographic detail is an essential
property of
any GIS project
Intent or Purpose
Practical problem-solving vs. curiosity-driven science
Time scale:
Short-term problems (operational)
Medium-term problems (tactical)
long-term problems (strategic)
What is a GIS?
Depending on ones perspective, could GIS be
thought of as:
A container of maps in digital form
A computerized tool for solving geographic problems
A spatial decision support system
A mechanized inventory of geographically distributed
features and facilities
A tool for revealing what is otherwise invisible in
geographic information
A tool for performing operations on geographic data
that are too tedious or expensive or inaccurate if
performed by hand
Brief History of GIS
Canadian Geographic Information System (CGIS), 1963
CGIS developed as a map measurement tool for areal calculation
Driven by natural resource inventories
US Bureau of the Census (late 1960s)
DIME (Dual Independent Map Encoding)
encoding all US streets to aide Census and data aggregation
Harvard Universitys Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (late 1970s)
general purpose GIS for both natural (CGIS) and human (Census) application domains
SYMAP, GRID, & ODYSSEY (early GIS programs)
Jack Dangermond (ESRI) & many other pioneers spent time in this lab working on early
GIS
Other important organizations/individuals: US Geologic Survey (USGS), UK Ordnance Survey (OS),
US Defense Mapping Agency (DMA NIMA NGA), Frances Institut Geographique National
(IGN), Ian McHarg, AutoCarto
1980s, 1990s: Developments in computing power, lower prices led to expansion of GIS
1990s-present: Hundreds of GIS Vendors large & small, general & specialized
GIS Anatomy
the network
ARPANET, Internet, WWW
Standalone GIS to networked GIS
Data sharing & dissemination
Portable GIS
GIServices
the hardware
Mainframe (60s, 70s) PDA (late 90s)
Typically an office desktop computer
A client-server arrangement is common
the software
Software package
ESRI, MapInfo, Autodesk, Intergraph, etc.
Scripts / macros along with GIS
Simple web browser
GIS Anatomy
the data / database
A digital representation of selected aspects
of some specific area of the Earths surface
or near-surface, built to service some
problem solving or scientific purpose
Stored in a database (many formats,
storage methods)
Single use vs. continuously maintained
Size range from megabytes to petabytes
(Table 1.1)
Potential GIS database volumes for typical
applications (Longely et al, p.12)
1 000 000
Single dataset in a
small project
database
1 gigabyte
the procedures
Organizational management, budgets,
quality control, etc.
the people
Designers, programmers, support staff,
vendors, users, community.
Social and cultural aspects are important
1 megabyte
1 000 000 000
Entire street
network of a large
city or small country
1 terabyte
1 000 000 000 000
Elevation of entire
Earth surface
recorded at 30m
intervals
1 petabyte
1 000 000 000 000 000
Satellite image of
entire Earth surface
a 1m resolution
1 exabyte
1 000 000 000 000 000 000
A future 3-D
representation of
entire Earth at 10m
resolution
The Business of GIS
Software industry
1.8 billion in annual sales (2005)
Some vendors have origins and
alignments with CAD community,
some with engineering and
architecture, others with natural
resource management
Data industry
Much larger than software industry
Traditionally data has been
produced by government mapping
organizations
US vs OS models: free
distribution vs. cost recovery
value-added data
volunteered data
(openstreetmap.org)
http://www.openstreetmap.org
The Business of GIS
GIService industry
Routing services
Location-based services
advertising
Publishing industry
Magazines, books, journals
International Journal of Geographic
Information Science (IJGIS)
GIS education
College courses
GIS degrees
GIS certificate programs
GIS licensure
GISystems, GIScience,
GIStudies
Systems : tools, i.e.,
hardware, software, etc.
Science : fundamental issues,
theory
Studies:
systematic study of societys
use of geographic information,
including its institutions,
standards, and procedures.
Societal significance of GIS,
critique of GIS, social
structures, power.
The remit of GIScience,
according to Project Varenius
(www.ncgia.org)
GISystems, GIScience,
GIStudies
GIScience (Goodchild 1992)
"...There is a pressing need to recognize and develop the role of
science in GIS.This is meant in two senses. The first has to do with the
extent to which GIS as a field contains a legitimate set of
scientific questions, the extent to which these can be expressed,
and the extent to which they are generic, rather than specific to
particular fields of application. ... The second sense has to do with the
role of GIS as a toolbox in science generally -with GIS for
science rather than the science of GIS."
UCGIS: University Consortium for Geographic Information
Science
* 2002 UCGIS research agenda (chp.1, Tech. box 1.7)
Long-term research challenges (subset)
spatial ontologies
uncertainty in geographic information
geographic representation
visualization
Short-term research priorities (subset)
GIS and decision making
location-based services
geospatial semantic web
emergency data acquisition and analysis
geospatial data fusion
pervasive spatial computing
GIScience (bi-annual international conference series)
NCGIA: National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
GIS and Geography
Close relationship between GIS
and the discipline of Geography, as
well disciplines of Landscape
Architecture, Planning, Geology,
Surveying, and others.
Disciplinary concerns:
GIS is taking over Geography
Subjective representation in GIS
Unethical uses, military uses
Invasions of privacy
GIS as a tool of the powerful
Difficulty in representing
complexity of social structures,
inadequate as a tool for critical
research
Association with logical
positivism
Getting ready for the
lab
What do I need to do this
week?
1) Install ArcGIS at home
PC (easy)
Mac (difficult)
Watch Blackboard for screenshots
2) Copy data from Maribeth Price
CD to your flash drive
3) Begin Price chapter 1
4) Read Longley chapter 1, chapter
7