What is GIS?

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Not Just Maps, Answers

A geographic information system, or GIS, is often described as "maps on a computer." That's true as far as it goes, but it really sells the technology short. GIS is not just a way to make a map using a computer. The real strength of GIS comes from the combination of that graphic capability with an information management system—a database. This allows you to do a lot of things with GIS that are difficult or impossible with just maps.

A GIS stores two kinds of information: what it is and where it is—and the it can be virtually anything that exists at a certain place on the earth: a road, a river, a well, a leaking underground storage tank, or every parcel in town. Or even something that happened at a certain place: a crime event, a building permit, a fuel spill, or a pizza delivery.

There are lots of ways that storing this information in a GIS can make you more productive. One is simply that it provides a good, orderly system for managing all kinds of different information. For municipal governments and many other kinds of organizations, the vast majority of information that gets handled on a day-to-day basis is somehow referenced to a particular location. But it can be a challenge to keep it all organized. By using the location as a common thread that ties all the different kinds of information together, it's much easier to keep a handle on it.

But the real benefit of GIS is that it gives you new ways to use that information, ways that are either too much work by hand or that are just plain impossible. Which of the leaking underground storage tanks are near the water supply wells? A helicopter just crashed in a farm field and they're radioing the coordinates from their GPS; what's the nearest road? (That one really happened a few years ago, pretty near our offices.) How many houses can be built in this part of the township under the zoning alternatives we're considering? Which of these road alignments impacts the least amount of wetland?