Introduction to
Geographic Information
Geography 370
Instructor: Dan Weiss
Overview
 Classroom rules
 What is geography & why is it useful?
 Examples of geographic information
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How are they different than other types of data?
 What are Geographic Information Systems
(GIS)?
 How the class will be taught
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Teaching format
Lecture, case study, and lab format
Classroom Rules
 Be engaged & respectful
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Be prepared to raise your hand a lot
Ask questions of your own
No laptops
No sleeping
Turn off cell phones
No text messaging
No newspapers / crosswords
Introduce yourself to your neighbors
 Name
 Home town
 Year
 Major
What is Geography?
 The scientific study of the locational and
spatial variation in patterns and processes of
human and physical phenomena on the
surface of earth
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Where things are located on the earth’s
surface
How places differ from one another
How people interact with the environment
What do geographers study?
 Everything happens somewhere and all places
possess unique arrangements of human and natural
phenomena that interact in complex ways.
 Geographers study these phenomena using the
place in which they occur to provide context
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How are other human and/or natural phenomena
happening in this place influencing what we’re
studying?
How are different phenomena related and do these
relationships change across space and with scale?
How do phenomena in neighboring areas affect our
study area and vice-versa?
What do geographers study?
 Consider geography to be analogous to
history
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There are historians of everything and for
them time (i.e. when something happens) is
fundamental to what they study
Time provides the context – what else was
going on THEN, what happened before and
after an event (i.e. the lead-up and the fallout)
 Geography is similar, but instead of time we
use place to help tell the story
Geographic Information
 Information explicitly linked to locations on the
earth’s surface
 Geographic information can be static of dynamic
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Static: does not change position
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Locations, such as city/town, lake, park
Dynamic: changes over time
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Population of a city
 Geographic information vary in scale
 Information can range from meters to the globe
 Scale vs. detail and ecological fallacies
Geographic information can include
 Legal
 Political
 Cultural
 Climatic
 Topographic
 Biotic
 Medical
 Economic
 Infrastructure
 Social
(cadastral; zoning laws)
(county lines; school districts)
(language; ethnicity; religion)
(temperature; precipitation)
(elevation; slope angle; slope aspect)
(biodiversity; species ranges)
(disease; birth rate, life expectancy)
(median income; resource wealth)
(roads; water; telecommunications)
(education; neighborhood influences)
Example 1: Iraq
 Understanding the conflict requires
considering
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Religion
Culture
Economics
Political Situation
 These (and many more) issues
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Interact in complex ways
Vary across space
Example 2: The Nature Conservancy
 Choosing areas to preserve requires aligning
conservation goals with information about:
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Biodiversity
Concern for specific species or habitats
Topographic setting
Soils and geology
Fragmentation
Accessibility
Risk
Where do geographic data come from?
 Social surveys
 Natural surveys (i.e. USGS maps)
 Remotely sensed (air photos, satellite
imagery)
 Reporting networks (weather stations)
 Field data collection (GPS data or map
marking associated with some attribute of
interest)
Who does the collection and why?
 Government agencies at all administrative
levels
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Development & planning, infrastructure, asset
management, tax purposes, legal compliance
 Corporate & business interests
 Land development, resource extraction, legal
compliance
 Researchers
 To facilitate analyses, to support or refute
findings and/or hypotheses
How are is geographic information
stored, managed, and analyzed?
 Traditionally geographic information were
stored as paper maps kept in libraries etc.
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For example, the UNC map library in the
basement of Wilson Hall
 Today we typically store, manage, create,
and analyze geographic information
digitally
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Maps are still printed for use and display
What are Geographic Information
Systems (GIS)?
 A computer system for capturing, storing,
querying, analyzing, and displaying
geospatial data. (Chang, 2006)
 Geographic information systems are tools
that allow for the processing of spatial data
into information, generally information tied
explicitly to, and used to make decisions
about, some portion of the earth (Demers,
2002).
Components of a GIS
 Computer hardware
 Software
 Data management and analysis procedures
(this could be considered part of the software)
 Spatial data
 People needed to operate the GIS
as defined by Heywood et. al, 2007
What GIS & GISci can do
 GIS
 Information Management – data input, editing,
updating, and output
 Basic Spatial Analysis – utilizing functionality
provided by the GIS software to create new
information
 GISci (Geographic Information Science)
 Advanced Spatial Modeling – developing new
functionality to use with an existing GIS
 Complex Systems – Tasks like prediction &
real-time analysis (weather & climate models)
How people learn GIS
 Bottom-Up
 Learn about tools, techniques, and data types
through exercises, and apply this knowledge
to subsequent projects
 Top-Down
 Start with a project or an idea and figure it out
as you go along or by watching and working
with someone else
 Not mutually exclusive approaches
 We will use some of both in this class
Class Overview
Identify
Problem
Form
Research
Questions
&
Hypotheses
The focus of this class will be
geographic data, methods,
and displaying results (inside
the red box)
But you should always be
thinking about how you might
apply the skills & knowledge
you gain from the class
elsewhere
Design &
Conduct
Experiment
Summarize
Results
Select,
Find, and/or
Create
Appropriate
Data
Produce
Text,
Tables, &
Graphics
(i.e. maps)
Select &
Apply
Appropriate
Methods
Interpret
Results &
Apply
Findings
What you can expect
 Lectures on Monday & Wednesday
 Case studies (group discussion) on Friday
 Recitation time will primarily be used for
working on your lab assignments (5 total)
 1 Class project with a presentation & short
paper
 2 Exams (1 midterm, 1 final)
Lecture Format
(Mondays and Wednesdays)
 Discuss types of geographic information
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How they are linked to locations on the earth
How they are made
How they are analyzed
Strengths and weaknesses of each type
Appropriate applications for each type
How to find and/or produce these information
yourself
Case Study Format (Fridays)
 Quickly form groups of 4 or 5 people
 Mix up the group to get to know different
people
 Discuss the presented case study
 Produce a sheet containing:
 1) Responses to the discussion questions
 2) The names of the group members
 This sheet will be turned in at the end of class
and will also serve as a method of taking
attendance
Purpose of Case Studies
 Apply what you’ve learned to new problems
 Learn how to plan for and design GIS
projects starting from scratch
 Build a sense of community (a.k.a. a support
network for GIS questions in this course)
 To keep things interesting & keep you
focused on the big picture while we learn the
nuts-and-bolts
Tell me the name of your neighbor
 What can you tell me about you neighbor?
Review
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What is geography & why is it useful?
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What are geographic data?
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Geography is a discipline that uses space as a
framework to examine complex natural and social
problems, often by including data & expertise from
many fields of study (i.e. interdisciplinary research).
Data that are associated with specific spatial
locations.
What are Geographic Information Systems (GIS)?
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Computer programs that allow us to analyze
geographic data & produce maps.
Assignment
 Log on to the class webpage where you will
find the class syllabus
 Read the syllabus for Monday