Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Welcome to the world of GIS!

What is a GIS?

A GIS is a computer-based system that allows the user to question and manipulate various layers of spatial data. The system is designed to answer questions and explore relationships. The data represents real-world entities (trees to woodlots to forests to world scale) including both spatial (geo-referenced) and quantitative attributes of these entities.

Diagram showing the relationship of layers of data in a GIS.

Why do we want use a GIS?

Many of the problems dealing with hydrology and the environment are complex. To understand and predict how a natural system (e.g. a watershed) will react under certain circumstances often requires a large amount of input data. GIS allows us to efficiently and quickly handle large amounts of spatially explicit data. The GIS allows us to search, display, analyze, and model spatial data to solve our problems. The components of a GIS are an organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data, and personnel.

Introduction to ArcView Software

There are several good sites on the internet that covers ArcView and GIS.

I’ve prepared an online tutorial for you to go through today. This tutorial introduces the basic concepts of navigating through ArcView and working with spatial data.

Click Here to Begin the Tutorial

Please check these out today or sometime over the weekend.

http://danpatch.ecn.purdue.edu/~engelb/abe526/arcviewintro/pg1.htm

http://www.usgs.gov/research/gis/title.html