The US Government says…
“.. a system of computer software and procedures designed to support the capture, management, manipulation, analysis, and display of spatially referenced data for solving complex planning and management problems.”
Antenucci, 1991, p. 7
See what the US Geological Survey says….
How does a GIS move us toward understanding?
- Supports the brain’s visual ability (our brain is an expert pattern recognition machine)
- Optimizes spatial information (driving directions)
- Models the connection between datasets
GIS software is open-source and commercial. We will hopefully use three or four: ESRI ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap 10.5, QGIS (open source), R GIS and Google EarthEngine.