GIS Analysis: expectations for the class

Objectives of lecture:

Present Syllabus for class
Expectations for Exercises, Discussions, Project, Learning Assessment
Resources for students: class meetings, office hours, readings, web pages
Ring diagram (see text Preface Figure P-1)
Present an application (Dane County Land Records Project)

PART 2: What is a GIS?

Syllabus: WEB-BASED.
Web pages contain lecture notes, exercises, case studies and pointers to other resources (data, explanations, etc.)
http://faculty.washington.edu/chrisman/Geog_460.html

Textbook:

Chrisman, N.R. 2001: Exploring Geographic Information Systems, (second edition) John Wiley

Comments from students strongly encouraged!

Ring Diagram

Geographic information has a number of distinct 'levels' of analysis. Some courses follow a work-flow, leading from input to processing to output.

Such an organization focuses on what is done, not why is it done.

This course adopts a nested set of concerns, each influencing the others.

Outwards: measurement, representation, operations, transformations, context.

Dane County Land Records Project

in answer to the question: "What is this course about?"

It is about EACH of these layers, but they are built upon each other.

(presented from outside inwards)

from external context (Why)

to operations (What was done)

to representations (maps, tables, relationships)

and measurements (How is was done...)

Social Context:

Society (politics, media, etc.) has become aware of soil erosion produced by farming practices.

Institutional:

Legislature created a mandate requiring counties to produce a plan to meet certain soil erosion goals by a given date.

Information component

1982: Most counties proceed using manual methods, in Dane County, University of Wisconsin attempts to demonstrate GIS (still experimental at that time)

Transformations:

Existing records must be made compatible. Soil erosion require six distinct 'layers' of information, measured differently. Result desired is AVERAGE soil loss over a parcel, not in the physical units measured.

Operations:

Overlay, primarily. (prediction of soil loss and possible changes in farming practices)

Representation:

Structure information resources to meet the objectives of the mandate. Unified spatial reference system had to be assembled, each source registered to a set of known points.

Measurement:

choices to obtain raw facts about environment to serve the purpose. Project relied on existing records: soils maps (many attributes attached to a set of zones), parcels, wetlands, etc.

Bottom Line:

Order of Magnitude improvements in geopositioning, automation, interpretation and processing

For further reading, begin with:

Niemann, B. J.; Sullivan, J. G.; Ventura, S. J.; Chrisman, N. R., 1987: Results of the Dane County Land Records Project, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 53, October, 1371-1378.