GIS BLOG #1 - What is a GIS?

Understanding GIS: More Than Just Software

A GIS, or geographic information system, can be difficult to explain. It is a complex system made up of software, hardware, and data, where people develop methodologies to process and display information via maps, charts, and reports. A GIS can be a powerful tool for discovering information that cannot be seen through other processes.

Software

There are many applications and software programs that qualify as a GIS. Some are more powerful (processing-wise) than others. For this blog post, I am only going to discuss two of them because they are the ones mainly used in the industry.

The first is ESRI's ArcGIS Pro, the industry standard. It has a powerful array of tools that allow for easy processing. The drawback of ArcGIS Pro is that it can be expensive. Single-use and student licenses cost US$100 per year, but fully licensed versions range from US$700 for a basic license to US$4,200 for an advanced license, with the option of adding on different extensions.

The second GIS I am going to focus on is QGIS, which is also a powerful platform with an extensive set of tools and optional add-ons. The best thing about QGIS? It's free. While there are a few tools you can pay for if you choose to add them, overall, you can do GIS work on it at no cost. Its interface and functionality are similar to ArcGIS Pro. The main differences between the two are not only price, but also that QGIS does not have an equivalent to ESRI's ArcGIS Online. However, it does have applications similar to ESRI's Survey123 and Field Maps. These applications for QGIS are called QField and Mergin Maps, respectively. In full disclosure, I have not used QField or Mergin Maps, so I cannot compare the applications personally, but from my research, they are function similarly.

Hardware

The hardware component simply includes the computer to run the software, along with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Most importantly, however, are the servers. There are a variety of server types that GIS uses. Some store geographical data, some store finished products, some store licenses, and others perform processing.

For this blog, I am going to focus on servers that store data, because you will either download data from servers or connect to a server to directly download or upload data (if you have read/write access). Servers will be your main source of data. When you conduct research, most of the time you will be interfacing with a server, where you will download geodatabases, vector and raster formats, and tables. You can also connect to servers that store data so the data resides on the server but is displayed in your GIS. I could continue, but that's another blog post.

Data Processing and Analysis

Next, you will use a GIS to modify and analyze your data. At first, a GIS will display data that you downloaded or connected to, but you will need to modify that data. For example, there are tools that can help you discover what tree species are prevalent above 2,000 feet elevation. There are also tools that can help you find areas of town where crimes frequently or infrequently occur, or you can use the GIS to understand where the best place in your local pond is to catch fish.

Data Display

Lastly, you need to display your data in some form—because what good is data if you can't show it off to the world, if it's just aging out on a computer or server? This can be achieved by creating maps, charts, atlases, graphs, and/or dashboards, just to name a few ways to visualize your data in a GIS. GIS can help you present your data in many different ways. Perhaps you need a map showing the cross-section of your community by income level of people who voted Democrat or Republican, or homeless people's access to healthcare in different neighborhoods, or even helicopter landing zones to help evacuate people from an area affected by a natural disaster. These are just examples of displaying your data.

Conclusion

As you can see, a GIS is not simply the program that you use on your computer. It is a multi-faceted system made up of software, hardware, and data, where people develop methodologies to process and display information. We looked at QGIS and ArcGIS Pro as the software primarily used to interface with and explore data that comes from servers. Servers store data in various forms, and finally, GIS helps you realize your research goals and share your findings with the world. Now that you know what GIS is, what are you going to do with it?