EFFECT OF NEO-GEOGRAPHY ON PROFESSIONAL GIS   1900W

Will Neo-geography cause the end of professional GIS

Almost everything that happens, happens somewhere (Longley et al. 2005) meaning that everything happens in geographic space. It can be of critical importance to know not only what happened and when but where something happened as well.

A GIS is a computer-based system that provides for the storage and representation of geographic data. GIS data are most commonly stored in a relational database format, from which they can be analysed, combined and displayed as maps or in other data formats.

In recent years there has been a large increase in the use of neo-geography, that is the use of applications such as Google Earth, Google Maps, Bing Maps etc. to create maps. These maps usually use a base map from one of the above applications with spatial data collected and displayed over it.

The large increase in people using neo-geography has led to discussions as to whether neo-geography will cause the end of professional GIS.

GIS

GIS is a tool that allows users to visualise data (generally on a map) in order to see patterns and relationships in a given area or subject. (Kemp (ed.) 2008) defines GIS as “fundamentally concerned with building shared understandings of the world in ways that are robust, transparent and, above all, usable in a range of real world settings.” According to ESRI a GIS “lets us visualise, question, analyse, interpret, and understand data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts.” (GIS DEMYSTIFIED) however claims that this is too general a definition for such a complex and wide ranging set of tools and says that:

“GIS is, in essence, a central repository of and analytical tool for geographic data collected from various sources. The developer can overlay the information from these various sources by means of themes