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Introduction to Geographic Information

Systems

EES 348

Fall 2023/2024
Muheeb Awawdeh, Fall 2023/2024

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

A story summarises the main points
about GIS as a science
▪Dr. John Snow is known
as the father of modern
epidemiology’ and the
‘father of GIS’ because of
the famous case of the
1854 Cholera outbreak in
London’s Broad Street
region (Soho District)
▪the deaths caused by
Cholera are shown in the
map made by Dr. Snow
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▪ Hypothesis by Dr. Snow:
the cholera was transmitted
through the drinking of polluted
water, rather than through the
air, as was commonly believed
-he noticed that the outbreak
appeared to be centred on a
public drinking water pump in
Broad Street
▪if this hypothesis was correct, the pattern shown on
the map would reflect the locations of people who
drank the pump’s water
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

▪ anomalies:

▪ distant households
also drew their water
from the Broad
Street pump

▪Snow had the handle of the pump removed, and the

outbreak subsided, providing direct causal evidence in
favour of his hypothesis
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• today there is a pub

called ‘John Snow Pub’
located in Broadwick Street
and a replica of the pump

Muheeb Awawdeh, Fall 2023/2024

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

this story is about spatial analysis or, in other words,

on how the location in which events take place can
have help us understand better the nature of
phenomenon, which was not known at that time

the most interesting point of this story

there were no computers used for the analysis.
but we still consider it to be a story about GIS

why is that?

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

as GIS technology develops, as society becomes ever

more geospatially enabled, and as more and more
people rediscover geography and the power of maps, the
future uses, and applications of GIS are unlimited

1. Geological mapping and interpretation

2. Mining and mineral exploration
3. Ground water exploration and water resource evaluation
4. Environmental analysis
5. Agriculture
6. Transportation 7. Tourism

Muheeb Awawdeh, Fall 2023/2024

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Spatial Thinking
mental maps are maps of our
environment that are stored in our brain

we rely on our mental maps to get from one

place to another, to plan our daily activities, or to
understand and situate events that we hear about from
our friends, family, or the news
mental maps reflect the amount and extent of
geographic knowledge and spatial awareness that we
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

simple exercise

Muheeb Awawdeh, Fall 2023/2024

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Asking Geographic Questions

❖filling in the gaps in our mental maps and, more

generally, the gaps in our geographic knowledge
requires us to ask questions about the world where we
live and how we relate to it

❖such questions can be simple with a local focus (e.g.,

“Which way is the nearest hospital?”) or more complex
with a more global perspective (e.g., “How is urbanization
impacting biodiversity hotspots around the world?”)
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

General types of geographic questions that we can

ask and that GIS can help us to answer:

1. geographic location:
• Where is it?
• Why is it here or there?

2. geographic distribution:
• Is it distributed locally or globally?
• Is it spatially clustered or dispersed?

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

3. geographic association:
• What else is near it?
• What else occurs with it?

4. geographic interaction:
• Is it linked to something else?
• What is the nature of this association?

5. geographic change:
• Has it always been here?
• How has it changed over time and space?
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Concepts

1. Location

❖a position on the surface of

the earth
❖once we know the location of something, we can a put
it on a map

❖generally, we tend to define and describe locations in

nominal or absolute terms
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

2. Direction

❖the position of something

relative to something else
usually along a line
❖to determine direction, a reference point or
benchmark from which direction will be measured needs
to be established
❖three standard benchmarks are used to
define the directions: true north, magnetic north, and
grid north (the grid associated with the map projection)

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3. Distance
❖the degree or amount of separation between locations
and can be measured in nominal or absolute terms
with various units

▪ “large” or “small,” “near” or “far apart.”

4. Space
❖space is a more abstract concept that is more
commonly described rather than measured
❖ “empty,” “public,” or “private”
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

❖within the scope of a GIS, we are interested in space,

and in particular, we are interested in what fills
particular spaces and how and why things are
distributed across space

❖one kind of space that is of particular relevance to a GIS

is topological space
▪ simply put, topological space is concerned with the
nature of relationships and the connectivity of
locations within a given space
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

5. Navigation
▪ transportation maps illustrate how we move through the
environments where we live, work, and play
▪ this movement and, in particular, destination-oriented
travel are generally referred to as navigation.

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Map of the World

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

GIS maps: made up

of layers

a. Features
a geographic object in
a layer e.g. city, river,
country, etc.

•features have shapes:

points or lines or areas
b. Surface
•a geographic expanse in which data changes continuously
across a landscape
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

❖surfaces have
numeric values
rather than
shapes e.g.
elevation, slope,
temperature,
rainfall have no
distinct shape

•some surfaces have measurable values for any particular

location on the earth surface

•raster is the most kind of surfaces

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

the world is not divided

into features and surfaces

many things can be looked

at either way e.g. land
cover

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

GIS data models

Vector data model Raster data model

(Features) (surface)
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Features have locations:
-x,y coordinates (a pair or more of x,y coordinates)
-coordinate systems are grids put features in their proper
places on a map

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

❖features can be
displayed at different
scales

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Features are linked to information

-attribute table
(records and fields)

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Smart maps:

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You may ask

questions and
display the
answer

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

You can create thematic maps:
-maps in which colors or other symbols are applied to features to
indicate their attributes.

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Features have spatial

relationships

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

New features can be created from areas of overlap

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Definition of GIS?
There is no absolutely agreed upon definition of a
GIS

National Centre of Geographic Information and

Analysis:
a GIS is a system of hardware, software and
procedures to facilitate the management,
manipulation, analysis, modeling, representation
and display of georeferenced data to solve
complex problems regarding planning and
management of resources (NCGIA, 1990)
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

a system of computer hardware, software, data and

workflow procedures for collecting, storing,
analyzing, and disseminating information about
areas of the earth (Dueker and Kjerne, 1989)

people interact with a GIS to integrate, analyze, and

visualize geographic data; identify relationships,
patterns, and trends; and help find solutions to
problems.

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Components of a GIS

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

due to the wide range of users different terms of GIS

are developed on the basis of what it does:

Police information system

Natural resources information system
Rangeland evaluation system
Cadastral information system
,etc

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Geographically Referenced Data

it separates GIS from
other information
systems

descriptions of a
feature e.g. road:
-location
(spatial data)
-characteristics
(attributes)
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Components of geographically referenced data

1. Spatial data

❖ describes the
locations of spatial
features

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

a GIS represent spatial features on the Earth’s

surface as map features on a plane surface

this transformation involves two main issues:

a-the spatial referencing system

b-the data model

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

a. The spatial reference

-locations on the earth’s

surface are measured in
terms of coordinates, a set of two or more numbers
that specifies a location in relation to some reference
system

-the simplest system of this kind is a Cartesian

Coordinate system, which is a grid formed by putting
together two measurement scales, one horizontal (x) and
Muheeb Awawdeh, Fall 2023/2024
one vertical (y)
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-the locations of spatial
features on the Earth’s
roughly-spherical surface
are based on the geographic
coordinate system with
latitude and longitude values

-while a degree of longitude at

the equator is equal to a distance
of about 111 kilometers, that
distance decreases to zero at the
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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

❖the graticule refers to longitude and latitude on a three-

dimensional globe
❖ specifies positions on the globe

❖when we use longitude and latitude on a two-

dimensional map, we refer to these as geographic
coordinates

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

❖ the process of transforming the Earth’s spherical

surface to a plane surface is called map projection

-the locations of map features are based on a plane

coordinate system with x- and y-coordinates

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

the Jordan Transverse

Mercator

Palestine Grid

Palestine Belt

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Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

map projection involves some

distortion

many plane coordinate

systems developed to
preserve certain spatial
properties of features

to align spatially map layers

must be based on the same
coordinate system

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b. Data models:

-defines how spatial

features are represented

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❖Vector data model: ❖Raster data model

-discrete features -continuous features

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Converting Vector to Raster Data is

Easy

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Converting
Raster Data
to Vector is
not totally
accurate

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2. Characteristics of Features (attributes)

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Scales of measurement/Data Types

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1. Nominal:
Names, labels
- rangelands, Ahmad, species name

2. Ordinal: order of values

- First, second, etc
- low, medium, high

No mathematical operations can be applied to

nominal or ordinal data
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3. Interval:
numeric scales in which we know not only the order, but
also the exact differences between the values.
arbitrary starting point (zero) i.e. no real zero
Examples:
-temperature in degree Celsius, the increments are
known, consistent, and measurable (0°C does not mean
there is not temperature)
-elevation above or below mean seal level

mathematical operations (+,-) are applied

statistical analysis are possible: mode, median, or mean;
standard deviation can also be calculated
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4. Ratio:

everything above about interval data applies to

ratio scales, but have a clear definition of zero
true starting point (zero) i.e. real zero value
Examples: rainfall, absolutes temperature (0 K
means no energy), areas, height and weight,
proportions

mathematical operations (+,-,/,x) are applied

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References:
Essentials of Geographic Information Systems

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_essentials-of-
geographic-information-systems/index.html

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