User-friendly Geographic Information Systems: Helpful Tools for New Crop Development
Stephanie L. Greene · 2007
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) emerged in the late 1980s, developed and used by geography and cartography specialists. GIS is a computer system that enables users to create, store, analyze and manage spa-tial data and associated attributes. In other words, it is powerful software that links features commonly found on maps, such as roads and towns, with related information traditionally not found on maps such as per capita income, or rainfall. More then just mapping software, it allows users to analyze the relationship between objects that are spatially referenced to each other. This type of analysis supports decision making. For example, GIS can be used to determine the appropriate location of a wind mill farm using parameters such as wind, land owner-ship, road accessibility, nearest electrical facility, soil type, and occurrence of endangered species. GIS can also be used to determine the most efficient delivery or emergency routes. In agriculture, GIS is used in precision farming systems, to maximize yields using the least amount of inputs required by the land being farmed. When GIS was first introduced, the user community consisted of GIS specialists. The community quickly expanded to include application specialists developing products for sophisticated users. Recent advances have seen the user community expand even more broadly to include the most casual users. This has largely been due to advances in web-based GIS applications. Increasingly users with no experience with GIS can use “smart map ” tools that allow them to create interactive queries, analyze spatial information and even edit data. An