Why Do We Need GIS?


GIS use has become mandatory in many settings. GIS are used to fight crime, protect endangered species, reduce pollution, cope with natural disasters, treat epidemics, and improve public health; GIS are instrumental in addressing some of our most pressing societal problems.GIS tools in aggregate save billions of dollars annually in the delivery of goods and services. GIS regularly helps in the day-to-day management of many natural and man-made resources, including sewer, water,power, transportation networks, and package delivery. GIS are at the heart of one of the most important processes in U.S. democracy, decadal redrawing of U.S. congressional districts, and hence the distribution of tax dollars and other government resources.GIS are needed in part because human consumption has reached levels such that many resources, including air and land, replacing substantial limits on human action.The first 100,000 years of human existence caused scant impacts on the world's resources, but in the past 300 years humans have permanently altered most of the Earth's Surface. The atmosphere and oceans exhibit a decreasing ability to benignly absorb carbon dioxide and nitrogen, two of humanity's primary waste products. Silt chokes many rivers, and there are abundant examples of smoke, ozone, or other noxious pollutants substantially harming public health. By the end of the 20th century, most lands south of the boreal region had been farmed, grazed,cut, built over, drained, flooded, or otherwise altered by humans. GIS help us identify and address environmental problems by providing crucial information on where problems occur and who are affected by them. GIS helps us identify the source, location, and extent of adverse environmental impacts, and may help us devise practical plans for monitoring, managing, and mitigating environmental damage.Human impacts on the environment have spurred a strong societal push for the adoption of GIS. Conflicts in resource use,concerns about pollution, and precautions to protect public health have led to legislative mandates that explicitly or implicitly require the consideration of geography. The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a good example. The ESA requires adequate protection of rare and threatened organisms. This entails mapping the available habitat and species range and migration patterns, relative to human land use. 
GIS use is mandated in other endeavors, including emergency services, flood protection, disaster assessment and management, and infrastructure development.Public organizations have also adopted GIS because it aids in governmental functions. For example, emergency service vehicles are regularly dispatched and route using GIS. E911 GIS matches the caller's address to the nearest emergency service station, a route is generated based on the streetnetwork and traffic, and emergency crews dispatched in a fraction of the pre-GIS times.Many businesses adopt GIS for increased efficiency in the delivery of goods and services. Retail businesses locate stores based on a number of spatially related factors. Where are the potential customers?What is the spatial distribution of competing businesses? Where are potential new store locations? What are traffic flows near current stores, and how easy is it to park near and access these stores? GIS are also used in hundreds of other business applications, toroute vehicles, guide advertising, design buildings, plan construction, and sell real estate.The societal push to adopt GIS has been complemented by a technological pull in the development and application of GIS. Thousands of lives and untold wealth have been lost because ship captains could not answer the simple question, “Where am I?”Remarkable positioning technologies, generically known as Global Navigation SatelliteSystems (GNSS), are now indispensable tools in commerce, planning, and safety.The technological pull has developed on several fronts. Spatial analysis in particular has been helped by faster computers with more storage, and by the increased interconnectedness via mobile networks. Most real-world spatial problems were beyond the scope of all but the largest organization until the 1990s. GIS computing expenses are becoming an afterthought as costs decrease and performance increases at dizzying rates. Powerful field computers are lighter, faster,more capable, and less expensive, so spatial data display and analysis capabilities may always be at hand.In addition to the computing improvements and the development of GNSS, current “cameras” deliver amazingly detailed aerial and satellite images. Initially,advances in image collection and interpretation were spurred by World War II and then the Cold War because accurate maps were required, but unavailable.Turned toward peacetime endeavors, imaging technologies now help us map food and fodder, houses and highways, and most other natural and human-built objects. Images may be rapidly converted to accurate spatial information over broad areas. Many techniques have been developed for extracting information from image data, and also for ensuring this information faithfully represents the location, shape, and characteristics of features on the ground. Visible light,laser, thermal, and radar scanners are currently being developed to further increase the speed and accuracy with which we map our world. Thus, advances in these three key technologies — imaging, GNSS, and computing — have substantially aided the development of GIS.