GIS Process Step 1 - Question
Over the past few weeks we have been outlining what GIS is and what a powerful tool. it can be this week we will take these concepts full circle and help you apply the skills.
you have learned to the real world this week. we will discuss and practice a standard workflow that you can apply to any spatial analysis process the standard four-part process.
Is frame your question explore and prepare data analyze the problem examine refine and present the results in this first presentation we will discuss what kinds of questions GIS can answer and how to frame your GIS question for the best results.
The ultimate objective of any geospatial data and technologies after all is to produce knowledge most of us are interested in data only to the extent that they can be used to help understand the world around us and to make better decisions decision-making processes vary a lot from one organization to another in general however the first steps in making a decision are to form the questions that need to be answered there are five generic questions the sophisticated GIS can answer through its ability to carry out spatial operations and linking datasets together with location as the common key simple questions like these can be answered effectively with GIS location.
What what is at where situation or condition where does it exist and trends what has changed since patterns
What spatial patterns exist and modeling what-if in general commercial GIS software packages cannot be expected to provide clear-cut answers to explanatory and predictive questions right out of the box.
That level of thinking must come from the person asking the questions or a smart human GIS software can only take you so far typically analysts must return to specialists and specialized statistical packages and simulation software to get answers information produced by these analytical tools may then be reintroduced into the GIS database it is important to keep in mind that decision support tools like GIS are no substitutes for the human experience insight and judgment as is the case in so many endeavors the answer to a geographic question usually includes more questions this step seems straightforward.
Because typically either as a student or on the job you're assigned a project to obtain specific information some projects involve answering several questions derived from a high-level question, how you frame the questions helps determine which GIS tools and methods. you use for the analysis in this example you might frame a preliminary high-level question is the distribution of health care facilities consistent. with the population distribution in Riverside San Bernardino California. this question could be broken down into the following sub questions,
What are the healthcare facilities located. where do the targeted patients live what is the total population density are there areas with high population density and those in need but no health care facilities based on resulting distribution where should a new healthcare facility be located ultimately the questions build on one another and drive the next steps in the process we'll take these questions to a GIS in the next couple Lecture's on raster and vector analysis
Video Courtesy : UWFGISMOOC
Tags:
ArcGIS