The papers in this series can be quoted with due acknowledgments.
Comments are welcome.
However, increasing experience in the operational use of GIS has taught us that the value of GIS in planning is not so much in making 'rational' decisions but rather in providing a technical platform through which data from diverse origins can be visualized, integrated, and managed, e.g., from different sectors, different planning approaches, and different sources. They have the potential to collect, store, analyse, retrieve, and display spatial data and thus to produce geographic information. Collectively, t hey are essentially an Information Technology. As such, they share some characteristics common to all information technologies. The production process for data input, map projection, calculating the land cover percentages for different elevation zones, preparing maps, and adding names, legends, symbols, and printing can be carried out on the same desktop, using the same software.