What is an information system that combines geographic information with other types of data to show relationships called?

4.1 Introduction

Geographic information system (GISs) are a scientific tool for processing geographic data. They are responsible for integrating several aspects of real-world geographic data and collecting and operating and analyzing the data. GISs serve multiple purposes because they can work with all kinds of real-world geographic data, including those related to the earth, such as topographical and geological data, and human-related statistical and epidemiological data, such as the spread of disease across a region of land. GISs may also be used effectively to produce maps of the earth that combine several layers of geographic data; the most familiar example of such a GIS is Google Earth.

A GIS is first constructed by modeling real-world geographic data, typically through the aid of a coordinate system and with data collected from remote-sensing instruments and a geographic positioning system. The resulting spatial data include information related to geographic relationships, such as the location, shape, size, and orientation of a geographic point of interest. The GIS may then proceed to analyze such composite or layered spatial data, and by manipulating such data, a GIS may yield all kinds of geographic patterns and information relevant to decision-makers. In this chapter, we will focus on what spatial data may represent, how spatial data may be formed, and how such spatial data structures specifically relate to GISs.

1.5.1 Desktop Geographic Information Systems

Desktop GIS applications are software and technology that run on a single computer (personal), which allows users to input, store, digitize, analyze, and manipulate geospatial data [6]. Basically desktop GIS is meant for a single user, it cannot be connected to other computers. The existing data are always safe and private with desktop GIS (Fig. 8.2) as they are completely isolated from other computers. The user always needs his or her GIS-installed computer to work on GIS. Desktop GISs are divided into two groups:

licensed desktop GIS;

open source desktop GIS.

Licensed desktop GIS is paid software whereby the user is provided with a single computer license and is equipped with predefined tools. ArcGIS is a paid software.

Open source desktop GIS is free software that anyone can install and work on a computer.

QGIS is a free software that fulfills all the basic necessities of the end user.

Geographic Information Systems as a Tool for Environmental Assessment

Geographic information systems (GISs) have become a standard tool for use in environmental assessment and analysis due to the complexity and volume of information now available. In the past few decades, an increased demand for the efficient storage, analysis, and display of environmental data has led to use of computers and the development of sophisticated information systems. GISs enable users to display and compare spatial data from a geographic location for a particular set of objectives, and may allow impact modeling. The combination of GISs with associated data sources, such as remote sensing imagery, is now common in environmental monitoring and assessment. The ability to manage voluminous sets of data from different origins, formats, and scales allows analysts to approach environmental studies in different manners (Silveira et al., 1996).

Rudimentary GISs were developed in the late 1960s, and by the mid-1970s were already being used for environmental impact analysis. The overlay technique, discussed in Chapter 6, was computerized in the early 1970s and first used for siting power lines and roads. Improvements in GISs enabled their use for environmental assessment and analysis (Haklay et al., 1998). The application of GISs to environmental analysis continues to grow.

Using a GIS as an environmental modeling tool allows modelers to incorporate database capabilities, data visualization, and analytical tools in a single integrated environment. However, while GISs are widely used as tools in environmental assessment, their use is largely limited to basic GIS functions such as map production, overlay, and buffering (Haklay et al., 1998). This use alone does not take full advantage of the spatial analysis and modeling capabilities of a GIS. Future applications of GISs in environmental assessment will continue to evolve from the simple storage and display of data to include more sophisticated data analysis and modeling capabilities to allow comparisons among alternative courses of action. An example might be evaluation of the compatibility of a proposed activity with the soils and vegetation at several possible project sites. While simple overlays may show the intersection of several elements, advanced GIS programs are able to evaluate and rank suitability for many factors simultaneously. The development of intelligent GISs to support spatial analysis decisions will play a large role in environmental research in the future (Silveira et al., 1996).

GIS provides a tool that is especially useful in complex modeling predictions. Current GISs manage data through four processes. Encoding is the process of creating digital abstractions of the real world, storage is the ability to effectively handle these data, analysis is the correlation of spatial data to variables, and finally, the results are shown through a display process. GISs also keep track of metadata, or “data about the data.” For modelers to take full advantage of a GIS in complex modeling capabilities, the integration of the two systems must be tightly coupled (Karimi et al., 1996).

Although the use of GISs in environmental impact analysis provides many benefits, there are several factors that may limit their applicability. Many of these limitations are related to economics. A substantial amount of time and cost are required for compiling the necessary data, establishing a GIS, and analyzing the system's output. Adding to the cost, specialized personnel are required for the operation and maintenance of a GIS. Information in a GIS quickly becomes dated (“last year's numbers”), and the GIS overseer must be willing to commit to an ongoing, and often expensive, effort for data gathering and input. This is especially important if there has been a large-scale change to the ambient environment such as caused by a wildfire, faunal population shift, or suburban residential expansion. GIS software is subject to updates, reworks, viruses, and bugs, and GIS hardware is often expensive and delicate to maintain. When using a GIS in preparation for impact assessment, personnel need to be technically knowledgeable not only about the computer system but also the environmental issues it would address. The economic concerns may be particularly relevant in using a GIS for impact analysis because environmental impact studies are often conducted by private consultants operating in a highly cost-competitive market (Haklay et al., 1998).

In addition to economic limitations, there are other concerns with using GISs or other computer aids for impact analysis. The lack of data, the cost of obtaining such data, and their level of accuracy often reduces the applicability of GISs for low-cost, small-scale projects. Additionally, as with many highly technical systems, there is the danger of “tunnel vision.” It is easy for the user to assume that all factors and considerations have been accounted for within the system. Consequently, users may overlook other factors that are essential to the local environment and not covered by the GIS data set being used. Similarly, as with the many expert-based tools, there is the danger that the user will view the system as a “black box.” The system takes inputs and generates outputs; the reasoning process has been hidden away within the system, and the internal process may be unknown resulting in its potential shortcomings not being fully considered. Furthermore, individual judgments and values have been internalized within the system's software. The environmental parameter sets contain “facts” (actual data or sometimes estimates) gathered by various specialists. Choices concerning what information should be included within these knowledge bases are based upon the judgments of individuals. These choices will reflect individual and regional values as well as criteria related to the specialization of the experts involved. The use of computer systems does not allow these choices to be openly scrutinized by the user or reviewers; the information is stored away within the computer. Further, some data sets may contain sensitive spatial data whose public release is not allowed, such as the location of archaeological sites. These data are necessary to prepare the analysis, but should not be visible to observers without a need to know. Overall, the increased use of technology to process large amounts of data is establishing a barrier between the user and the process impact identification. The danger is that users will unquestioningly take expert system results and act on them without understanding the process and carefully considering the application of outputs (Morgan, 1998).

In summary, although the potential of GISs for environmental impact analyses is understood, actual application of GIS analytical capabilities continues to evolve. A GIS works well for a large, established federal location, such as a park or a research site, with a long-term mission commitment and a relatively stable environmental baseline. It does not work as well for programmatic analyses, proposals with scattered implementation sites, or agency actions proposed for areas with minimal environmental baseline information. Only a small number of agencies and consultants possess the full complement of skills and resources to perform analyses at this higher level. Broader use of this approach will require improvements within GIS as well as the development of a higher level of personnel expertise and significant reduction in the time and cost required to do so. These problems can be expected to be an especially significant constraint on the regular use of advanced GIS techniques, considering the stringent time and high costs that usually apply to environmental impact analysis. With improvements in these limiting factors, however, much of the impact assessment process could potentially be largely automated through advances such as use of universal local or regional databases available to all users, and standardized analytical tools developed specifically for this purpose. In time, GISs may be the best ally of the environmental impact professional.

3.6.1.2 Geographical information system (GIS)

GIS is a of system made up of the computer software, hardware, and various functions. This system is used to support the collection, management, processing, analysis, and modeling and display of spatial data, so that complex planning and management problems can be solved. GPS is also a kind of decision-making support system, which has close relationships with other information systems. Stored and processing information is encoded in the GIS. Geographical position and relative ground objects’ attribute information are the main resources for information retrieval.

Embedded GIS is one of the important development directions for current GIS. An embedded geographical information system (embedded GIS) is a kind of system with embedded system products having integrated GIS function, system design and development level application, complex software and hardware. Embedded GIS offers an ideal solution for navigation, positioning, map query, and spatial data management. Embedded GIS has wide application in many fields, such as the military, intelligent transportation, tourism, natural resources survey and environment study, and so on. GIS is a key part of the whole embedded GIS. As the main software module in the system, the main functions of embedded GIS are the electronic map, path analysis, query retrieval, navigation and positioning, and information annotation.

Multimedia technology is applied to the GIS software, and can increase GIS performance capability, and enlarge its application field. Three-dimensional effect GIS is now available and users can travel using GIS. Three-dimensional effect GIS can obtain necessary information at any moment, just like the common GIS, and can also give users an immersive experience. Three-dimensional effect GIS is applied to power management. While the user remains indoors, power supply lines, equipment, and the user’s geographical environment can be understood. In this three-dimensional GIS, the change, display, and update of each basic element attribute all have a relation with the GIS spatial database and attribute database. That is to say, only the data in the database are updated, and the multimedia display can be updated later on. This GIS has bearing on management decisions, line equipment maintenance, and induction training.

b GIS in Forestry Industries

GIS is used in many fields to manage geographic data. In forestry industries, GIS is a useful tool to manage forest data because forest land spreads over wide areas with drastically different conditions. The forest data include lot number, stand compartment number, stand area, stand type (natural forest and plantation), tree species, blending ratio of species, stand age, soil type, and many others. In Japan, many prefectures use GIS to manage these forest data. For example, Gifu prefecture began to publish web GIS in 2005 and then switched the web GIS system to Gifu prefecture unified GIS. Data on forest type, vegetation type, forest road network, and others are open to the public via the internet (Gifu prefecture, 2012).

GIS can be used for calculating site index and yarding distance, as well as analyzing potential of forest functions and alignment of road network, etc. It is also used as part of the unified information system. For example, Komatsu Maxi is the umbrella term for Komatsu Forest’s comprehensive control and information system for effective and profitable logging. It has all the necessary components to give sawmills, forestry companies, and contractors full control over the logistics chain from order to roadside delivery. The GIS is also used to control machines for optimum productivity and flexibility. GIS results and records are plotted on the map and site information stored in map layers is added by the operator.

9.1.1 Types of Geographic Information System

The geographic information system (GIS) is a decision support system that has the various characteristics of information systems (Liu and Lin, 2006). The main difference between GIS and other information systems is that the information stored and processed is geographic coded, and the geographic location and feature information related to the geographic location constitute an important part of information retrieval. In GIS, the real world is expressed as a series of geographic elements and geographic phenomena, which are composed of at least two parts of spatial location reference information and nonspatial location information.

The definition of GIS is composed of two parts. On the one hand, GIS is a science, a description, storage, analysis, and output of spatial information theory and methods of a new comprehensive discipline; on the other hand, GIS is a technical system, a geospatial database (Geospatial Database) based on the use of geographic model analysis methods, which appropriately provide multiple spatiality, dynamic geographic information. It is a computer technology system for geographic research and geographic decision-making and services.

GIS has the following three characteristics:

GIS has the ability to collect, manage, analyze, and output a variety of geographic information with spatial and dynamic characteristics.

GIS uses the computer system for spatial and geographic data management, and also uses it to simulate the conventional professional geographic analysis method, so that the spatial data can produce useful information.

The computer system support is an important feature of GIS, as it can be quickly and accurately integrated into complex geographic systems, and carry out spatial positioning and dynamic analysis.

The appearance of GIS is a computer hardware and software system, and its connotation is a geospatial model composed of computer programs and geographic data. When a user with a certain degree of knowledge of geography uses a GIS, the data he faces is no longer meaningless, but rather abstracts the spatial data of the objective world, observing the various contents of the real-world model, obtaining procedural analysis and forecasting information for management and decision-making, which is the purpose of GIS. A simple, logical, and highly informative geographic system achieves its simulation completely by the operation of computer programs and data transformation. Geographers, with the support of GIS, can obtain the spatial and temporal characteristics of different angles, different levels of a geographic system, quickly simulate the evolution of natural processes or related thinking processes, obtain the results of geographic prediction or experiment, and select the optimum scheme for management and decision-making.

According to its research content, the GIS can be divided into three categories (Wu et al., 2001):

Thematic GIS is a GIS with a limited target and professional characteristics for a specific professional purpose. Systems include, for example, the forest dynamic monitoring information system, the submarine optical cable construction and maintenance management information system, the water resources management information system, the mining resources information system, the crop yield estimation information system, the soil and water loss information system, etc.

Regional GIS, mainly used for regional comprehensive research and comprehensive information services, has different levels, such as, national, provincial or regional, municipal, and county levels for different administrative services, which can also be divided by natural divisions or watersheds. Many of the actual GISs are regional thematic information systems, among which, are the two mentioned previously.

GIS tools are software packages with GIS basic functions, such as digitization of graphics and images, storage management, query and retrieval, analysis and operation, and multiple output. They are either professionally designed or developed, or obtained after practical GIS completion and removal of regional or special geospatial data. They have the characteristics of a strong adaptability to computer hardware, a high efficiency of data management and operation, and strong functioning ability. They provide universal practical information and can be used for GIS teaching.

Creating a regional or thematic GIS under the support of universal GIS tools can not only save the human, material, and financial resources of software development, shorten the system creation cycle, and improve the technical level of the system but also make the GIS technology easy to popularize and enable the geographers to invest more energy into the development of high-level application models.

Geographic information system

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are software tools used to store, analyze, process, manipulate, and update information in layers where geographic location is an important characteristic or critical to the analysis (Aronoff, 1989).

LHZ mapping, as described in the section Landslide Hazard Zonation Maps — The Methodology in this chapter, can be done efficiently by using GIS. LHEF can be used as layers of information to the GIS using various input devices. For example, Figures 19.2–19.9 can be used as the layers of information to a GIS using input devices such as a digitizer, scanner, and so forth to carry out LHZ mapping of the considered area providing an output similar to Figure 19.10. Amin et al. (2001) developed a software package called “GLANN” using GIS, neural network analysis, and genetic algorithms for automatic landslide zonation. They also successfully used Anbalagan's LHZ system.

Handling and analyzing data referenced to a geographic location are key capabilities of a GIS, but the power of the system is most apparent when the quantity of data involved in mapping LHZ is too large to be handled manually. Over and above the main causative factors mentioned earlier, there may be many other features considered for LHZ based on site-specific conditions and many factors associated with each feature or location. These data may exist as maps, tables of data, or even lists of names (Figure 19.2). Such large volumes of data cannot be efficiently handled by manual methods. However, when those data are input into a GIS, they can be easily processed and analyzed efficiently and economically.

Geographical position systems (GPS) have been used successfully in monitoring landslides with an accuracy of nearly 2 mm (Brunner, Hartinger, & Richter, 2000). This practical method of LHZ plots contours of rates of displacement per year.

BIM-based system for building energy monitoring and management

Real-time monitoring of building energy consumption is an effective way to help occupants understand and manage the overall energy flow of the building operation. BIM can provide multidimensional visualization in the building energy planning and design phase. Therefore, it is feasible to integrate the BIM model with location-based sensor data to accomplish visualized energy monitoring for building operation from residence to city scale (Kim et al., 2012).

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a system used to capture, analyze, manipulate, deliver, store, and present geospatial information under support of information technologies (Clarke, 1986). In the past few years, researches about BIM-GIS system integration have been conducted in order to study their potential contributions to the creation of digital environment, which is the fundamental condition for smart green city development. BIM can provide geometric information, spatial relationships, lighting analysis, properties and quantities of building materials, which are mainly focused on building interior. GIS contains analysis of surrounding built environment, geographic information, and corresponding geospatial relationships, which are used for building exterior. To set up a BIM-GIS integrated system for building energy monitoring and management during operation phase, the following technical requirements should be met (Motegi et al., 2003; Cai et al., 2009):

Intelligent tracking of energy flow.

Real-time sensor data collection and aggregation.

Representation of energy consumption data.

Dynamic data loading and visualization.

Interactive control of energy source.

Web-based management platform.

Google Earth plugins are developed in order to realize the creation of 3D urban environment in GIS application. Massive GIS data are collected and integrated with BIM tools to make the virtual building models and city environment models more efficient and reliable. The real-time energy consumption data are collected by installing sensor network which covers multiple building or the whole city. With the viewer based on different levels of detail (LOD) (Kim et al., 2012), energy consumption data are represented in the 3D virtual models. By adjusting various LODs, the 3D urban environment is simplified and the real-time energy usage of each building is shown automatically in a representational interface. In addition, to generate dynamic visualization of energy usage information, a middleware which contains database and visualization components is required. This middleware is able to aggregate the sensory data and combine the geospatial information with real-time collected energy consumption data. Then under the support of standard data format, which is named Keyhole markup language mainly used in Google Earth (Kim et al., 2012), the raw data are delivered to the end user and through a web-based platform server, the visualization of real-time data is implemented. Furthermore, the responding controls of energy sources are also manipulated in order to avoid excessive energy consumption.

The development of this BIM-based system provides an innovative way to monitor and visualize the energy consumption during the building operation phase. It gives an intuitive energy performance representation of target building and helps users to optimize the existing energy use format of buildings and enhance the overall energy efficiency.

Geographic Information Systems and Data Management

The GIS is a computerized information system designed specifically for managing geographical data. It merges complex statistical analysis with mapping and can be immensely useful in clarifying relationships and correlations within a geographical area. When managed well, GIS can powerfully accelerate creative collaboration and innovation. GIS use in organic agriculture has been limited until now. Our team, supported by Claremont Graduate University’s Advanced GIS Lab, will develop an information system combining cutting-edge GIS, data management, evaluation protocols, and systems monitoring technologies. The system will:

Allow all users and stakeholders to engage in the original vision

Create a seamless collaboration between all parties involved in the project

Coordinate data from diverse experts

Permit ongoing adjustment to optimize performance

Evolve with the occupancy and operation of the development

Transforming the data plan into a powerful digital dashboard will provide decision makers’ data necessary to “drive” the development by connecting initial fieldwork to final design through synthesis, master planning, and building design to evolve better and more efficient second-generation projects.

1 Introduction

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a useful tool for designing a biomass conversion system; GIS has been used at regional levels in several works. In this respect, some papers have provided criteria to decide if installation of any facility is viable or unviable. But, these do not determine the configuration of the production system. For example the work by Laasasenaho et al. (2016) established a radius of 50 km around biomass production regions for power plant location. Vukasinovic and Gordic (2016) contemplated the distance to urban communities as one of the main factors to define retailers’ location. Hasse et al. (2016) utilized GIS models to determine the location of biomass suppliers considering protected natural areas and soil conditions. Furthermore, Fiorese et al. (2003) proposed a scheme for biofuels production, in which the availability of biomass played a crucial role in location of biomass suppliers, but they did not consider the potential processing plants’ location. On the other hand, Haddad and Anderson (2008) used a conceptual model based on GIS to define the location of biomass suppliers taking into account several factors such as available bioresources, restricted land and distance to water bodies. Additionally, Sultana and Kumar (2012) included the distance to transportation infrastructure (roads and highways), the distance to human communities, and terrain slope. However, the previous papers did not consider factors variation such as raw material availability and price, though it can affect the biomass suppliers’ location, and processing facilities.

It is important to mention that planning problem for any supply chain consists on determining raw materials, products, processing technologies, processed and produced amounts, facilities’ location, between other issues to obtain diverse benefits. Therefore, this paper presents a conceptual model based on geographic information systems taking into account social, economic, environmental and geographic restrictions, as well as associated uncertainty for available biomass through the generation of several scenarios for different raw materials, in order to propose potential locations for biomass suppliers and processing facilities before to solve a more complex planning supply chain problem.