Geographic Information System: Management and Technology Perspectives

The ingenuity of mankind lies in integrating science and technology. One offspring of the human ingenuity is GIS, where geography, technology, management science and information come to play for commercial purpose. Geographic Information System is a computer-based mapping and analysis tool that captures spatial data and enables its storage, retrieval, manipulation and analysis. It is a tool that draws heavily on geography to represent the real world in the form of a computerized model. GIS gives access to intelligent information by linking location to the inputs. For example, it can locate people from addresses or street numbers from a network. Geographical Information System is a small but significant stride in the knowledge economy, where information is the lifeline. This information revolution is mutely changing the tricks of economic, socio-cultural and political scene. To keep pace with this revolution individuals and the organizations need to be competitive and responsive. Information access bestows greater power to both organization and individual to sustain this information revolution. This book on GIS is divided in to three sections. The first section "Introduction and Management Perspective" introduces the concept of GIS. The second section "GIS Technology Perspective" provides the technological dimension of GIS, various models and architecture. The Business Applications of GIS is discussed in the third section of the book.