| Title Page | Introduction | Background | Potential Benefits | Further Required Research | Conclusion | Reference Page |
Potential Benefits
With the help of Geographic Information Systems, geography’s influence in present society is continuously growing. GIS has become a part of everyday activities in many different industries, sciences and business, and more and more geographers find themselves engaged in various environments involving GIS. Not only is the layman able to understand that Geographic Information Systems has an influence on the geographical world, but even geographers themselves have also noticed the change. Padilla (2008) describes the influence of GIS: …the prominence of geographic information systems (GIS) becomes more pronounced every day. Twenty years ago, most of the GIS products were designed for businesses to track sales and identify potential new markets. Today they’re infiltrating many other disciplines and becoming part of everyday life. (p. 33). Geographic Information Systems utilizes both spatial data and statistics to create visual results that are easy to interpret and comprehend. These final results make it possible to see spatial patterns in the data, which is what the industrial and business worlds are able to function on. GIS also makes it possible to display and support findings, to change the results using a model builder, and to analyze, store or export data (O'Sullivan & Unwin, 2003). Raw data is hard to store, hard to explain and hard to interpret if you are not a specialist in a certain area, however, GIS makes the impossible possible. Despite the fact that people at different levels of geographical expertise are able to use GIS in their day-to-day activities, geographers are still widely needed as the geographical component of the software is vital (Dodson, 1993).
The role of GIS is as different as the various industries that take advantage of it. While cartographers use GIS to produce maps, flood analysts use the software to see and calculate areas of damage. Postal office employees use GIS to calculate logistical solutions for deliveries. Restaurant developers use the software to decide on the best location to open a new branch. Although these people all use GIS, they each have different goals and reasons for using it. GIS has made geographical knowledge part of many decision-making processes within these different fields (ESRI, 2008).