What would it be like without GIS?

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This column is sponsored by ESRI

These are fitting questions for Halloween, when we’re confronted with all sorts of horrors. Going back to paper, mylar map sheets, and rows upon rows of drafting tables is truly a frightening thought. It’s frightening primarily due to the loss of efficiency and productivity that this would represent. It’s also scary to think that the real-time collaboration that digital tools provide would go away completely, as paper-based maps and plans provide little means for interactivity.

There are a large number of reasons why technology has taken hold to allow us to store, manage and manipulate geographic data on computers. Certainly many jobs that rely on GIS technology can be carried out without it, but many jobs simply wouldn’t exist. GIS has revolutionized our way of working more than simply how we map.

What We Unlock

Instead of rows upon rows of drafters and map makers, the computer now holds all of the data that makes up our definition of a place. But it’s much more than just the data repository that makes GIS revolutionary, it’s the ability to integrate that data, to pull it together and query it for deeper understanding.

GIS technology provides great insight into data and the relationships of map layers that we couldn’t have synthesized without this tool. Any person sitting in front of a GIS has the ability to manipulate how they view that data, and to unlock the relationships and links between layers for greater understanding. Without GIS this level of understanding might be the domain of just a few governments or large institutions. GIS democratized our ability to gain geographic insight, and GIS on the Internet is spreading that ability far and wide.

Open access and the ability to analyze map data have done a great service to combat abuse of power, particularly in land development. The nature of these jobs without GIS meant that access to this data provided power. Prior to the ease of information access to land and property information that we have today, a connected few had a far greater advantage to manipulate the development process for their financial advantage. It was also much easier to hide environmental abuse of the land. The advent of geospatial technologies means that we all have the ability to have insight and be stewards of the land without manipulations about the truths of our planet by a knowledgeable few.

Field-Based Fits

Perhaps the scariest aspect of life without GIS technology has to do with project-based work out in the field. The gains in our efficiency are most pronounced when taking digital technologies out of the office to query and deal with issues where they exist. There are a myriad number of workers that collect data and require access to map-based data out in the field, such as surveyors, archaeologists, biologists, foresters, electric utility workers, hydrologists, road workers, etc. All have a need to find the right location, record information about that location, and gain inference from the information that they already know about the area.

Without GIS technologies, such fieldworkers would be required to take great reams of information along with them to even come close to matching the insight they have with this technology. The lack of this tool would mean much greater time spent trying to understand a place or take action with the knowledge that they’ve been handed from the office. The communication capability between field and office would be greatly hampered because conveying knowledge about a place is much harder without giving the worker a way to visualize and manipulate that information themselves.

Having information out in the field, and accurately updating details when and where they occur, are one of the primary advantages of modern GIS. Going back to notes that then had to be typed into the system back at the office (often times by someone else if it’s a business setting) means that much of the field reality gets lost. We have a much better understanding of our planet by having these tools in our hands in the field.

Thankfully, the GIS genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not going back. Rather than moving backward toward old ways of doing things, it seems that every week there’s a new technology that bends our minds to adjust the way we’re doing business and to expand the tools to an ever widening audience. Just this week Google added the Google Earth application to Apple’s iPhone, effectively placing rich and interactive digital map exploration right in the palm anyone’s hands.

Rather than exploring ways of dealing without GIS, I’m glad to have the problem of trying to take full advantage of all the great GIS technology that we have.

Read Jeff Thurston’s take on this topic here.

Further Reading:

If we lost all the technology, would there still be geospatial insight?