Introduction to Geographical

Information Systems (GIS)

By

GUMINDOGA W
 COURSE SUMMARY

❑ Introduction to GIS

❑ Geographic information and spatial data types

❑ Think of how GIS is important in your field of

specialisation?
 Introduction to GIS

 Purpose of GIS
 A Quantity Surveyor might like to find out about the value of properties affected by a cyclone
in his/her town
 A water quality expert might want to study a number of water quality parameters of different
sites in a lake
 A catchment water manager may be interested in the variation of landuse/cover activities in
and around the major water bodies
 A monitoring and evaluation officer would want to identify areas serviced by food relief
activities
 A sanitation officer would like to know the suburbs without adequate sanitation facilities
 How do we use GIS to find a suitable location for drilling a borehole in your district?
 So how is GIS used in location of areas susceptible to a landslide?
 Introduction: Purpose of GIS

❖ Professionals in previous studies work with data that relates to space

(positional data)
❖ Positional data determines where things are, or perhaps where they
were or will be
❖ Positional data relative to the earth’s surface (geographic space)
❖ In GIS we deal with phenomena with geographic dimension as well as
temporal dimension thus
(spatio-temporal)
❖ E.g. rainfall because it differs between locations and changes from time
to time (e.g. week to week)
 Important stages of working with geographic
data
🠶 Data preparation and entry
🠶The early stage in which the data about the study phenomena is
collected and prepared to be entered in the system
🠶 Data analysis
🠶The middle stage in which collected data is carefully reviewed and
attempts are made to discover the pattern
🠶 Data presentation
🠶The final stage in which the results of earlier analysis are presented
in an appropriate way
 So what is GIS
❖A GIS is a computerized system that facilitates the phases of
data entry, data entry, data analysis and data presentation
especially in cases when we are dealing with georeferenced
data.
❖Data-representations that can be operated upon by a computer
❖Spatial data-data that contains positional values
❖Information-data that has been interpreted by a human being
❖Geoinformation-a specific type of information that involves
the interpretation of spatial data
Geographic information and Spatial data
types
Geographic phenomena
Geographic phenomena
Digital Representation
Digital Representation
More about geographic phenomena
Geographic phenomena defined

Description:????
Georefrence:
Built in: ????
Different types of geographic phenomena
 Elevation is an example of a field

Variation of elevation (DEM)

Upper Manyame sub-catchment
Discrete and continuous fields
Continuous fields
Discrete fields
Objects
Objects
Different types of phenomena
Boundaries
Crisp boundaries
Fuzzy boundary
Summary geographic phenomena
🠶END