Pankaj Prashar
In our routine life, we come across several queries such as what is the shortest route from my residence to office, what type of crops the farmer should cultivate to enhance the productivity, geographical areas which are vulnerable to various kinds of natural disasters, what is the land suitability classification for various types of land uses or what is the optimal location for building suitable water harvesting structures etc. All these questions are concerned with geographical patterns or processes on the surface of the earth. To answer such simple questions, we need to integrate data from different sources in a consistent form. The art science, engineering or technology associated with answering such geographic questions is called GIS. Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool which can accept a large volume of spatial data derived from a variety of sources, store, manipulate, analyze and display the results according to user defined specifications. GIS is not a data bank to present results in tables or maps. It has the capability to analyze different parameters for getting solutions of variety of problems in planning and development. It can provide a range of possible scenarios and their outcome on the landscape before taking a decision. GIS is rapidly becoming a standard tool for management of natural resources. Applications of GIS are growing every day and it is difficult to think of a government department or an industry or an academic institute without using GIS.
GIS has evolved in 1960s, generating massive interest worldwide. Dr. Roger Tomlinson (1933-2014) is generally recognized as the “father of GIS”. He is the visionary geographer who conceived and developed the first GIS for use by the Canada Land Inventory in the early 1960s.Computer based Geographic Information Systems have been in use since the technology has emerged. But their manual predecessors were in use perhaps hundreds of years earlier. The early explorers searched for new lands, new people and new resources. They investigated the spatial distribution of people, plants, animals and natural resources. They represented the spatial data in the form of maps to study the settlement patterns. The use of statistical methods for spatial analysis started during 1940s. With the availability of digital computers during 1960s, quantitative analysis of spatial data started growing and GIS evolved out as a new tool. Along with new ways to produce maps, new ways to collect and process spatial data have also emerged. These include remote sensing satellites, which provide synoptic view over large areas at frequent intervals and global positioning systems. The availability of new sources of data combined with GIS technology has opened new areas of research,development and applications.Modern GIS owes its phenomenal success to the advent of computer technology. From a humble beginning in mid1960s, today GIS has grown into a 12 billion dollar industry annually in terms of software, data, services, publishing and education. GIS technology has moved from the academic environment to become a part of Information Technology mainstream. Today GIS is a vibrant, active and rapidly expanding field generating considerable private and public interests. GIS technology has been quick to adopt the technological innovations such as Internet, World Wide Web, object relational data basemodel, global standards etc. Number of users has grown many folds. Millions are using GIS services in the Internet. The finest example is Google Earth.
There is an explosive growth in GIS applications. Large number and varieties of GIS applications in use show its maturity and success.For example one can identify suitable areas in a village where paddy can be cultivated by combining layers such as soil, slope, rainfall, water sources, existing land use practices, and socio-economic parameters. A community involved in municipal planning might want to know how suitable different areas of the town are for development. In that case GIS can be used to generate maps showing where various existing conditions such as: prime agricultural land, surface water, high flood frequency, and highly erodible land.Planners (Town Planners/City Planners) can use this information to make decisions about zoning designations and building permits. Under resources planning and management sectors, there is hardly any area where GIS is not applied. GIS can evaluate the functionality of systems and ensure compliance for the effective implementation of schemes like MGNREGA, PMGSY, IAY and others.
Disaster Management Services, Health Management Services, Transportation and Traffic Management, Urban and Regional Planning, Business Development and Marketing, Environment Monitoring and Management, Forest Reso-urces Management, Land Resources Management and Agriculture Services, Water Resources Management, Rural Development Planning and Monitoring are some of the areas where GIS can be a boon. If we consider micro level planning, the application areas are watershed delineation, micro-watershed management, ground water modeling, land suitability analysis, crop yield estimation, precision farming, land record management, infrastructure development, emergency planning, epidemiology, and so on. In fact, Rural Health is an area where GIS technology plays a vital role. Precision farming aims to direct the applications of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and water within fields in such a way that optimizes farm returns and minimizes chemical inputs and environmental hazards and so on.GIS may allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response time and the movement of response resources (for logistics) in the case of a natural disaster. Implementing GIS technology in Defense may lead to the advancement of the military of a nation.
One of the most direct applications of GIS in rural sector is participatory mapping where specialists can interact with local communities to create spatial inventories of natural resources, property status, land use practices, infrastructure availability, socio-economic conditions etc. Because local people know about their areas very well better than outsiders and they can become stakeholders in this development. Such an inventory will help to build more equitable and Sustainable Resources Management Strategies and also will help in constructive community building. Geographic information System is the key to better decision-making; just about everything a community, business, or public agency does, whether in day-to-day operations or long-term planning, is related to its geography. Participatory mapping and GIS can bring Government closer to communities that it serves and planning can address the local characteristics and unique needs keeping in mind national priorities.
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