1

Introduction
CHAPTER 1
UMESH BHURTYAL
KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY
Introduction 2
"everything is related to everything 3

else, but near things are more

related than distant things."
Geographic Information System 4
 Geography + Information + System
 Geography
Relates to the places on the earth surface
Where something is???
<<Where is Kathmandu University???>>
What is at a given location???
<< What is at 27°37'09.89" N 85°32'19.01" E???>>
Geographic Information System 5
 Geography + Information + System
 Information
Data into information
Manipulate, summarize, query, visualize, edit
Works with information stored in computer database

 System
1. DBMS (Data Base Management) system
Computerized data keeping system
2. CAD (Computer-aided design) system
use of computer-based software to aid in design processes
Overall it is an integrated system of various components
An information system is an association of people, machines, data, and procedures working
together to collect, manage, and distribute information of importance to individuals or
organisations (Worboys et al., 2004). Information systems help us to manage what we know by
making it easy to organise and store, access and retrieve, manipulate and synthesise, and apply
to solve problems (Longley et al., 2011, p. 11).
 6

 https://support.google.com/earth/answer/21955?hl=en
 Go to search
 Type either place name or give Geographic Coordinate
7
8
 Answers to the spatial questions 9
 Location: Where are the UNESCO heritage sites located in Europe? Where are
public facilities with access for physically disabled people located?
 Patterns: Where do the highest concentrations of senior citizens (retirees) live in
the country? Where in North America are the forests located that are most
infected with the mountain pine beetle?
 Trends: Where is the Arctic polar ice cap shrinking? How are the numbers of
local population changing in response to the tourism development in the
region?
 Conditions: Where is the nearest public waste disposal station for recycling and
household hazardous materials? Where do I find vacation accommodation
within a 5min walk to a ski lift and within a walking distance to public
transportation?
 Implications: What would be the time and fuel savings if the alternative
delivery route is used instead of the commonly used one? If the university
campus is moved to a new location, where will be the closest hospital,
shopping opportunity, and sports facility
GIS??? 10

 GIS can be defined depending on the groups who find them useful:
• A container of maps in digital form (the general public)
• A computerised tool for solving geographic problems (decision-
makers, community groups, planners)
• A spatial decision support system (management scientists,
operations researchers)
• A mechanised inventory of geographically distributed features and
facilities (utility managers, transportation officials, resource managers)
• A tool for revealing what is otherwise invisible in geographic
information (scientists, investigators)
• A tool for performing operations on geographic data that are too
tedious or expensive or inaccurate if performed by hand (resource
managers, planners, cartographers).
 GIS??? 11
 Different definition of GIS have been evolved over the years as they were
needed
Information System
 Systems comprising
People Machines Data Procedures
 Organized to
Collect Manage Distribute information
“…is a system of hardware, software, data, people, organizations and
institutional arrangements for collecting, storing, analyzing and disseminating
information about areas of the earth.” (Dueker and Kjerne, 1989, pp. 7-8)
 Geographic Information system (GIS) is a computer based system designed
to accept large volume of spatial data derived from variety of sources and
to efficiently store, analyze, model and display output these data
according to the user specifications.
 GIS??? 12
 Yes only computer based system ( No analogue)
 large volume of spatial data ( Location Data)
 derived from variety of sources
 Satellite images, Field Survey, Scanned Images, WEB
 efficiently stored data only can be efficiently analyzed, modeled and
displayed
 output these data according to the user specifications ( according to
decision makers choice or user need)
A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer system for capturing,
storing, querying, analyzing, and displaying geospatial data.
Geospatial data are data that describe both the locations and the
characteristics of spatial features such as roads, land parcels and vegetation
stands on the earth’s surface.
How come GIS??? 13
 Cholera spread through contaminated food or water
 Water supply was from Thames River upstream of the main city and water
from the river downstream from the city
 he found that in one particular location near the intersection of
Cambridge and Broad Street, up to 500 deaths from Cholera occurred
within 10 days

 GIS Concepts are not new!!!

How come GIS??? 14
 Roger Tomlinson, the “Father of GIS” initiated a GIS for the Canadian
Land Inventory (CGIS) (1960’s)
 Howard Fisher, an architect, began working on a computer
mapping system and established the Laboratory for Computer
Graphics and Spatial Analysis in the Graduate School of Design at
Harvard University.
 Ian McHarg’s book “Design with Nature” was the first to describe
many of the concepts in modern GIS analysis, including the map
overlay process.
 And in 1969, Jack Dangermond, a student from the Harvard Lab,
and his wife Laura formed ESRI to undertake projects in GIS
How come GIS??? 15
 1960s target economic development programs in rural regions of Canada
 how much productive land was available for farming, forestry, and other land
based activities, and where was it located?
 Subsequently, the national classification systems were drawn up through the
cooperative efforts of the provincial and federal government departments
responsible for resource development. To facilitate use of the data in federal,
provincial, and regional planning the Canadian Geographic Information
System (CGIS) - the first fully operational GIS in the world - was implemented.
 The system excelled in the building of continent wide seamless data bases,
with capability to overlay all Canada Land Inventory layers for nation wide or
regional analysis.
 The digital database included at its peak over 30,000 maps at scales varying
from 1:250,000 to 1:50,000” (Natural Resources of Canada, 2000)
 The Canada Geographic Information System is one of the earliest GISs
developed and is a large scale system still operating today. Its development
provided many conceptual and technical contributions
16
How come GIS??? 17

 Ian McHarg (1920-2001) McHarg felt that visually displaying spatial data
could convey large amounts of information in a concise manner.
 a highly controversial road construction project in Staten Island, New York
 He analysed the situation with respect to benefits and costs to society
caused by the construction of a multipurpose facility such as a major traffic
artery. There were many factors that went into the broad field of social
values, including historic, water, forest, wildlife, scenic, recreation,
residential, institutional, and land values.
 A map transparency was created for each factor, with the darkest
gradations of tones representing areas with the greatest value, and the
lightest tones associated with the least significant value.
 All of the transparencies were then superimposed upon one another over
the original map.
 The darkest areas showed the areas with the greatest overall social values,
and the lightest with the least, following the format of each individual layer.
How come GIS??? 18

 1970 Torsten Hägerstra

 space-time path to illustrate how a person navigates his or her way
through the spatial-temporal environment
How come GIS??? 19
How come GIS??? 20
 21
Pioneers

Geographic
Information
System

Scientists Entrepreneurs
 22
Science

GIS
System Studies
What GIS is not??? 23
Components of GIS 24
 Hardware
 Software
 Data
 Procedures/Methods
 People/User
 Network
Network 25

 A network is a mode of communication between different systems

that allows rapid communication and sharing of digital information.
Both have become indispensable to most aspects of GIS while
standalone systems are becoming a rarity
 When we talk about a network, we most of the times refer to the
Internet.
Network 26
 By adopting the Internet, GIS benefitted enormously in many ways:
• Dissemination of information (e.g. yellow pages)
• Selling goods and services (e.g. real estate industry)
• Direct revenue generation through subscription services
• Public participation in local, regional and national discussions
• Emergence of themed geographic networks (e.g. geoportals)
• Development of GIServices (e.g. access to GIS centralized
capabilities known as location-based services)
Hardware 27
 GIS is a computer based system
 Technical aspect of GIS
 GIS functions from desktop, palmtop, laptop, mobile phones
(android/smartphone)
 Google map and google earth are available on variety of platforms
 scanners, GPS, digitizers and keyboard, and output devices for
visualization like monitors, printers and plotters
Software 28
 A software is a computer program that provides a computer with instructions
for telling it what to do and how to do it
 Software provides the functions and tools needed to store, analyze and
display geographical data
 Tools for the input and manipulation of geographical information
 Data from field, satellite images, secondary sources, excel sheets and many
more
 Good GIS software needs good input capabilities
 DBMS (data management system)
 Should support query, analysis and
visualization
 Easy access to graphical user
interface (GUI)
 Software 29

Autodesk AutoCAD Map, Bentley MicroStation,

ESRI ArcGIS, and Intergraph GeoMedia, GRASS
(Geographic Resources analysis and support
System)
Licensed software vs open software 30

 The advantage of investing in such software is that it is developed

by professionals, is well tested and verified and thus, has a large
variety of functions.
 However, there is also a significant and growing open source
software community, of which MapServer is probably the best
known example. QGiS
 MapServer is “an open source platform for publishing spatial data
and interactive mapping applications to the web”
Software 31
Data 32
 Data is a collection of raw facts, which together with a defined purpose
become information.
 For example, GPS delivers location coordinates and these are just data
unless you are looking e.g. for a campsite you visited last year (i.e. the
coordinates of a specific point).
 Raw data can be hard to read and analyse.
 That is why it needs to be organised with the help of a database.
 A database is a set of data that has a regular structure and that is
organised in such a way that a computer can easily find the desired
information.
 To support the database, there is a need for appropriate capabilities for
data capture, modelling, retrieval and analysis, presentation, and
dissemination
Data 33

 Primary data capture includes remote sensing and surveying

 Secondary data capture involves scanning, digitizing, vectorization,
photogrammetry, and COGO (coordinate geometry) feature
construction.
34
35
36
People 37
 As a component of GIS, organisation includes procedures and people.
 Therefore, an organisation needs to establish procedures, lines of
reporting, control points, and other mechanisms for ensuring that its GIS
activities stay within budgets, maintain high quality, and generally
meets the needs of the organisation.
 Lastly, people are needed to design, program, maintain and supply a
GIS with data, and interpret the results.
 A number of people are needed in the form of administrators,
managers, GIS technicians, application experts, end users and
consumers.
GIS Project 38
1. Data collection 39
 Data collection: workflow 40

 Planning includes establishing user requirements, gathering

resources like staff, hard- and software, and developing a project
plan.
 Preparation, especially important in collecting data, includes
obtaining data, redrafting poor-quality map sources, editing
scanned map images, and removing noise >>> setting up GIS
hardware and software system(s) to adequately receive the data.
 digitizing/scanning/transfer, labour intensive step in data collection.
Once in digital format, data is ready to be edited and improved.
This stage includes validation, correction of errors and meeting the
data quality standards.
 evaluation, is the process of identifying project successes and
failures, both qualitative and quantitative. This workflow is iterative
particularly in large projects
Data collection:Transfer 41
 Transfer refers to purchasing or sharing already existing digital data e.g.
over a network or on a USB stick.
 Today, data transfer is possible due to the wide variety of GIS data
available online in catalogues, geolibraries and portals. Free data can
easily be found at e.g. the ESRI website or other websites like Geo
Community.
 The required information can be selected and put into an intermediate
file and then used by the GIS application of choice.
 Data Modeling 42

Abstraction is the process or result of generalization by reducing the information content of a concept
or an observable phenomenon, typically to retain only information which is relevant for a particular
purpose.
2. Data Management 43
3. Data Analysis 44
 Spatial analysis is the crux of any GIS system
 The analysis of spatial data is usually done to discover
anomalies/patterns or test hypotheses.
 However, spatial data can also be analysed with the objective of
creating improved designs, e.g. minimise travel distance, minimise
construction costs or maximise profit.
4. Data Analysis/output 45

 visualising the data and/or the results can be done using Cartography
and geovisualisation tools
Applications of GIS 46

https://cbs.gov.np/
Applications of GIS 47

https://naxa.com.np/
Application of GIS 48

http://dos.gov.np/
Application of GIS 49

http://dos.gov.np/

http://dos.gov.np/
Application of GIS 50

 New branch/ New ATM location site selection

 Market analysis
 Customer analysis
 Competitor analysis
 Focused marketing
 Business expansion planning
Application of GIS 51
Application of GIS 52
Application of GIS 53
54
55
Data vs information 56

 Data by itself, generally differs from information

 Data is of little use unless it is transformed into information
 Information is a answer to a question based on raw data
 GIS can transform raw data into information

Analysis/Modeling

Finally GIS helps to get the knowledge from the information.

Summary 57

 GIS is fundamentally a problem solving science

 It is an organised collection of network, hardware, software, data,
people and procedures
 There are many applications of GIS over a wide range of area
 Understanding the science behind the application will help
 Interpret the results
 Understanding the weight the result carries
 GIS project have four stages: data collection, data management,
spatial analysis and visualization
 The advent of the graphical user interface(GUI), powerful and
affordable hardware and software, and public digital data broadened
the range of GIS
 58

 GIS captures and analyses ______ data.

 Spatial
 Geographic
 Both a and b
 None of the above
 59

 GIS tools allow the user to perform which of the following task?
 Create searches
 Store data
 Edit data
 All the above
 60

 Which of the following is a branch of the study of GIS concepts?

 Geographic information science
 Geographic science
 Geographic data
 None of the above
 61

 GIS was coined in the year ________.

 1986
 1968
 1982
 1990
 62

 The scientist Roger Tomlinson firstly implemented GIS work on _______

geographic information system.
 Canada
 USA
 Nepal
 China
 63

 The program used in the digitization technique is _________.

 CAD
 GPS
 C
 JAVA
 64

 Which of the following statements is true about the capabilities of

GIS

 Data capture and preparation

 Data management, including storage and maintenance
 Data manipulation and analysis
 Data presentation
 All of the above
 65

 The information in GIS is entered and stored as

 panels
 layers
 single panel
 dual-panel
 66

Attribute data are one type of spatial data.

 True
 False
 67

 Which of the following is not an example of spatial data?

 Lines showing the route of linear objects.

 Times of particular events.
 Polygons showing the area occupied by a particular land use or
variable.
 Points showing location of discrete objects.
 68

Thank You