GIS Mapping

Mapping has been on of man's ancient arts, whereas today, mapping is at the forefront of technology and science. Today, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) assist people around the world in almost every occupation and industry to make better informed decisions that effect their work and community. GIS opens new doors of possibility in science, education, government, and business, from a single GIS user to a large GIS enterprise network.

GIS mapping combines geography (where) with data (what and how). Did you know that approximately 80% of all data can be mapped? The single flat, static map has been largely replaced by a dynamic map full of data, organized in networked layers, sometimes forming two or three dimensional models in time and space, all on a single desktop. With GIS you can now analyze information over different scales (from parcels to watersheds). With GIS you can now answer various 'what if' scenarios that were not possible 10 years ago. GIS mapping can be simple or complex, from representing a database of store locations and their market territories to analyzing pollution sources distribution over time.

Companies, public agencies, and consulting firms use GIS mapping in their normal operations. In many cases, they find new applications of their unique databases in GIS. Businesses can unlock their data using GIS to provide new and powerful perspectives on operations and market strategy, such as:

- Customer analysis by location, demography, and purchasing power
- Sales trends by product, site, and sales representative
- Locations of stores, factories, and facilities
- Facility locations (e.g., utility poles, pipes, and cables)
- Resource locations of staff, products, and equipment
- Delivery routes (optimal delivery route to save fuel and time)

Now, GIS integrates satellite and aerial imagery into maps and spatial analysis with greater precision and possibilities than ever. GIS mapping has reliable methods and solutions for virtually every industry: city planning, cartography, agriculture, health, business, natural resources, energy, real estate, telecommunications, and transportation. GIS consultants are ever adding new applications of GIS as they solve new and ever complex problems for their clients. GIS mapping and analysis is an essential tool for every industry as it can manage data, correlate, predict, model, and map data that no other tool can.

New developments in GIS mapping have allowed more accurate and complex analyses which directly benefit all industries, from environmental resources to market analysis. GIS mapping is more pervasive than ever due largely to developments in GIS mapping software and an increase is abundant and more accurate spatial data. GIS mapping methods have been developed for every major industry so that complex models, decision support systems, mapbooks, and map production can be achieved with remarkably high precision and reliability. With recent innovations in remote sensing and other forms of data collection, the private and public sectors create the GIS data necessary to support existing and new technical applications.

GIS mapping technology is relied on by almost every industry, though less than 10% have the ability to apply it proficiently and cost effectively. GIS mapping software alone is a major cost consideration, often costing even the smallest companies between three to ten thousand dollars a year in license fees. With the use of a GIS mapping service, the end user can spend its resources making the best use of the GIS end product, and avoid the often cited reasons for GIS misuse: poor training, inept application of GIS, and high GIS overhead (software licenses, data, and continual training).

GIS mapping is gaining more traction in every industry due to recent innovations in industry specific GIS applications and the necessary spatial data to serve them. GIS mapping services still remain the most cost effective and skilled solution for industries to realize the great benefits of GIS to their operations and business practices.

Services that offer GIS mapping solutions to industries have the flexibility and cross-disciplinary experience to properly apply the best use of GIS for the most accurate results. As an example, business territories can be accurately delineated using the client's information of store locations, sales data, demographics, and market trend data. Multiple territory scenarios can be evaluated by having GIS calculate the logistical costs of serving these markets over time. The same GIS mapping service can also analyze the air or water pollution discharges of a facility or non-point source over time. This cross-discipline ability by one GIS mapping service to service multiple industries benefits each industry.

GIS mapping is used around the world by cities large and small, and countries large and small to maintain the delicate balance of ecosystems and urban forests. GIS has numerous, well developed applications for the sciences, especially forestry, ecology, biology, wildlife management, and geology. GIS is an effective, if not necessary tool in managing the modern issues of park management, with some of the larger, well know parks receiving millions of visitors a year. GIS helps park managers and resource managers accomplish research, maintenance, modeling, and management on a daily basis. Chances are, the city you live in has its' parks in a GIS.

Natural resource management is a multi-disciplinary, science base field that balances economic and environmental considerations. As there is a strong research component to resource management, GIS mapping is used to model and manage wildlife populations, timber growth and harvest, and manage environmental quality. Water resources falls into this category, where GIS is an important tool for identifying pollution sources and solutions that comply with state and federal environmental laws. One example is the County of Sacramento's use of GIS mapping to identify non-point sources of water pollution, the types of land use that contribute the most pollution, and an evaluation of planning related scenarios to mitigate and reduce these sources. Not every GIS mapping solution has to be complex. In fact, many solutions are quite simple, but could not be accomplished without GIS due to the fact it represents data geographically, or spatially. A simple map showing the location of heavy metal discharging factories in proximity to open water is an example. It is not a complex map to create, but the visual impact is apparent to even novices.

Modern power utilities form a complex network of gas and electricity production and distribution, and typically combine gas and electric power services. The distribution of natural gas and electricity requires line maintenance, service monitoring, outage management, emergency response, planning and research, sales, and engineering. Many are surprised to learn that GIS mapping serves each of these requirements. Large power utilities enable GIS mapping systems to manage as much of their operations as possible, and has been proven time and again to reduce costs and improve service. From stations and pipe pressure to valves and pipe diameter, a complete GIS system can manage every detail of the operations and maintenance for power utilities.

Utilities also employ GIS to manage custom service, mapping all customers, manage a log of gas and power maintenance as customer addresses, and schedule maintenance. This allows the customer service representatives to view an aerial image of a customer and know where the utilities facilities are located: pole, meter, and gas lines. Maintenance crews can therefore know where to go when they arrive at a customer's address. Water utilities also use GIS to manage water resources, distribution, and facilities similar to gas and power utilities.

The next time the lights go out during a storm, it may be that your power utility is using their GIS mapping system to respond to the outage. Using a map of their distribution system, which includes the utility poles on your street, the utility manager can identify which pole needs servicing, and the best route to that location. Maintenance crews can collect data in real-time using Mobile GIS hand-held devices when they are in the field.

As providing safe and affordable gas, water, and electric utilities to millions of customers, GIS mapping system are integral to the daily operations of a billion dollar industry. Visit the webpage of ESRI (Environmental Sensitivities Research Institute: www.esri.com) to learn more about GIS mapping platforms and applications for the utility industry.

Graphs and reports only go so far in visualizing service needs. Maps are required for this, and GIS mapping is the tool of choice. Businesses have complex data needs in their quest to improve market share, operations, and customer relations. Many large businesses use GIS mapping software in-house, while many mid to small sized business rely on trained GIS consultants to apply GIS mapping technology in their favor. As business professionals love lists, I thought to break down the benefits and uses of GIS mapping into the following bullets.

1. Data management: customers, demographics, inventory
2. Find new customers and markets
3. Define competitors markets and territories
4. Share maps and data internally with manager
5. Identify and Evaluate locations for new stores or facilities
6. Manage deliveries
7. Improve operational performance and profitability
8. Visualize and analyze opportunities and risks
9. Logistical planning: routes, locations, schedules
10. Improve communication with professional and accurate maps and map analysis

As you can tell, many of the uses directly translate into cost savings and potentially new profit opportunities. Of all of the business and real estate professional I know that have adopted the use of GIS have never looked back. Often, a manager will complain about a problem that his company can not get a handle on, then Bingo, the lightbulb turns on when they hear what GIS can do for them. While the costs of implementing a full scale or enterprise wide GIS mapping solution may be more than a mid to small sized company is willing to invest in all at once, GIS mapping consultants make GIS more affordable and effective for business budgets, allowing them to apply GIS to resolve existing problems, and think about larger GIS implementation down the road. GIS mapping and analysis is a growing tool for many business and real estate professionals.

Today, GIS is used by Emergency Services personnel (fire, emergency medical, disaster) to plan their response to various scenarios, evaluate mitigation options, analyze events, and predict potential future scenarios. An example of GIS in emergency services is using a GIS to provide critical information to incident responders en route to an emergency. This can include evaluating the best street route for emergency vehicles. Using traffic data, GIS can plot the fastest route to an emergency and from the emergency to a hospital. GIS is also used in the science part of emergency services: epidemiological and public health monitoring, where a variety of data (human health, demographics, pollution sources) can be analyzed using sophisticated models and algorithms to provide crucial insight into disease clusters, environmental risks and vectors of disease. Crime units use GIS to manage their crime location databases and can analyze crime over time intervals across city blocks. This helps them prioritize their manpower to address crime surgically and not diffused.

GIS maps are more professional in design that they have ever been. A well designed poster map created in GIS and plotted on a large format printer can often be an invaluable and irreplaceable tool for Emergency Services. Large format maps find places on the operations room wall, often covered with pushpins and stick-notes, or on the table in meetings, helping to plot the way for future resource allocation and preparedness. In a service that requires fast, accurate, and solid analysis, GIS is a highly prized tool in Emergency Services. Emergency Services personnel have a variety of sophisticated GIS tools at their disposal, from reliable scenario and research models to hand-held GIS data collectors. In fact, GIS allows Emergency Services personnel to present their challenges and accomplishments to decision makers, media, and the public with maps and GIS based graphs and statistics better than ever. GIS mapping can output clear and concise maps in many forms: web, reports, and wall maps.

GIS Mapping allows decision makers in government and industries make better informed decisions. GIS is a great new tool that allows decision makers to manage and harness data that no other tool can. In order for this to occur, GIS consultants and practitioners must be part of the process. Governments at all levels: city, county, state, federal are using GIS consultants to support their programs, including regulatory programs that require precise and timely analysis on a route basis. GIS database management is a key component is successful GIS implementation for government agencies, as the data are routinely collected, entered, maintained, and used all within a desktop or enterprise GIS system.

The Count of Sacramento uses GIS routinely to predict population and development growth within the county. This affords planners and decision makers a powerful tool to examine multiple development and growth scenarios, their costs and environmental impacts. In addition, the City of Los Angeles recently used the Erichsen Group to produce a MapBook showing detailed city streets and alleys within 700 Census Tracts. This work was completed on a very short notice largely thanks to the robust map production capabilities of ESRI ArMap 9.3. To learn about and preview MapBooks, visit this site.

The U.S. Census Bureau relies on GIS to tract Census data and trends within their geographic units: blocks and tracts. Even the smallest of cities maintain GIS databases to track and analyze their programs. Counties use GIS to maintain their parcel databases and utilities, such as stormwater and sewer lines. Often, government agency staff can not handle all of the GIS needs, so they call upon GIS consultants to work with them or their existing GIS staff. These relationships can be very ideal and beneficial for projects of all sizes: from map production needs such as MapBooks to pollution source assessments.

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I work in this business because I have a passion for 3 things: (1) GEOGRAPHY, (2) SCIENCE, and (3) HELPING OTHERS. If I can help you apply GIS mapping in your job or industry, then I am one happy camper, and I bet you will be too. GIS mapping is not CAD drawing or boring parcel mapping, it is analytical, cutting edge, and provides powerful results for many industries.