Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Natural resources—Facilitates timber management, preservation of agricultural land, conservation
of energy resources, wildlife management, market analysis, resource allocation, resource extraction,
resource policy, recycling, and resource use.
Agriculture—Aids in crop management, protection of agricultural lands, conservation practices, and
prime agricultural land policy and management.
Crime prevention, law enforcement, criminal justice—Facilitates selection of sites or premises for
target-hardening attention, establishment of risk-rating procedures for particular locations, tactical
patrol allocation, location selection for crime prevention analysis, crime pattern recognition, and
selection of areas or schools for delinquency prevention attention.
Homeland security and civil defense—Assess alternative disaster relief plans, needs for stockpiling
of foods and medical supplies, evacuation plans, and the proper designation of disaster relief areas.
Communications—Facilitates siting of transmission lines, location of cellular equipment, and
education.
Transportation—Facilitates alternate transportation plans, locational analysis, mass transit, and
energy conservation.
Next Steps: Seemingly Independent Things
You Need to Know
Before we launch into the theory and application of GIS, let's look ahead at the remaining text in the
Overview of this chapter. You may know some or all of this material already, depending on your
background. To use GIS effectively, you should know something about several topics that may seem
unrelated at first glance. The next few sections briefly review the relevant aspects of the following:
Determining where something is: coordinate systems
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Determining where something is: latitude and longitude
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Geodesy, coordinate systems, geographic projections, and scale
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Projected coordinate systems
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Geographic vs. projected coordinates: which should you use?
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Two projected coordinate systems: UTM and state plane
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Physical dimensionality
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Global positioning systems
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Remote sensing
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Relational databases
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Another definition of GIS
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Computer software: in general
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Computer software: ArcGIS in particular
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