Geographic Information System Knowledge Research Articles

An analysis of qualifications and requirements for geographic information systems (GIS) positions in the United States

AbstractAs the demand for geospatial analytics continues to grow, geographic information systems (GIS) professionals are needed to build, operate, and maintain GIS technologies, data, and software to provide geospatial insights for modern industries and organizations. To best train the next generation of GIS professionals, an understanding of qualifications and requirements of GIS positions is needed. Thus, this work analyzes 508 GIS positions, grouped by position type (analysts, developers, educators, managers, specialists, technicians) to provide insights on key pre‐requisite requirements, such as education, experience, certifications, soft communication skills, programming skills, and knowledge of GIS or IT. In general, possession of a bachelor's degree in GIS, geography, or computer science, prior professional experience, and knowledge of GIS and IT software were common pre‐requisites for most GIS roles. Soft communication skills were also frequently desired for GIS roles. We also found that some position requirements tended to vary by position type, such as manager and developer roles requiring on average 5 years or higher prior experience, while analyst, specialist, and technician roles had much lower experience and education requirements. Higher education institutions and GIS training programs should note the desired requirements for GIS position types and continue to refine programs and develop pathways for success for aspiring GIS professionals.

QGIS a constantly growing free and open-source geospatial software contributing to scientific development

QGIS is the most popular free geospatial software in the world. QGIS belongs to the Open-Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). Among the main strengths of this Geographic Information Systems are: the incorporation of tools via plugins, and a community of users and developers in constant growth. Despite the importance on the use of QGIS on the scientific community, to date there are no systematic studies indicating how the acceptance of this software has evolved through time. Therefore, the objective of this research was to characterize the scientific production and extent where QGIS has been used as their main geospatial tool. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of documents published in Scopus from 2005 to 2020 (931 manuscripts). The annual rate of publications increase was 40.3%. We found strong and positive correlations regarding the number of contributing code programmers (r=0.66, p<0.005); and the total income of the QGIS project (r=0.88, p<0.001). Seventy-two percent of the publications were included in six fields of study, being Earth and Planetary Sciences the most representative. Italy was the country with larger scientific production, while the USA was the most influential country (being the first, regarding the number of citations). In terms of the countries, the larger number of papers found were from Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and France. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives stands among journals with the largest number of publications (47). In terms of collaborative networks among countries, we found strong links between authors from Germany, Switzerland, Greece, and Spain. Author network analysis showed three solid networks in different fields of study. We observed a favorable trend in the acceptance of QGIS across the world and a widespread development of collaborative networks. The present paper allowed increase the knowledge of geographic information systems, especially the development of scientific production using QGIS.

The C2G Framework to Convert Infrastructure Data from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Making smart and informed decisions often requires the integration and analysis of large amounts of data. However, integrating these data is rarely straightforward, mainly because of heterogeneities in data structure and format. In this study, we focus on two widely used data formats by municipalities to store digital maps of their infrastructure: Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). While most municipalities still maintain infrastructure data in CAD format, many have started converting them to GIS since GIS includes geographical coordinates. However, the inherent differences between these two formats pose challenges to accurately converting information from CAD to GIS. The main goal of this study is to develop a procedure to help municipalities to perform CAD-to-GIS conversion. To that end, potential problems in CAD-to-GIS conversion were first identified through interviews with practitioners at different U.S. municipalities and through a literature review. Taken together, we propose the C2G framework to streamline the conversion process while minimizing information loss. The framework consists of five stages, and the execution of this framework and tasks involved in each stage are explained. Moreover, we apply the framework to real-world underground stormwater infrastructure data obtained from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to illustrate the framework’s applicability. The case study explains details about the technical difficulties we encountered in the process and provides recommendations to circumvent those difficulties. The results from the case study showed that the C2G framework was able to successfully convert CAD data to GIS data. Although the framework is developed specific to the needs of CAD/GIS practitioners in the US municipalities, it can be adopted in most CAD-to-GIS conversion situations. The information learned during the interviews supports the need for a standard CAD-to-GIS conversion process. The contribution of this study is to fill this gap by developing a generalized framework to carry out CAD-to-GIS conversion which only requires basic knowledge of CAD and GIS.

Tridimensional geotechnical database modeling as a subsidy to the standardization of geospatial geotechnical data

Geotechnical data is often produced and managed by several producers in isolation, in their own formats and standards, which aim to meet the unique needs of specific users, because there is not a defined geospatial geotechnical data storage standard. This article presents the physical implementation of a three-dimensional geotechnical database, based on a data model generated using the Object Modeling Technique for Geographic Applications, composed of information produced by the academy and various administrative institutions of the Federal District Government. More than four thousand quantitative e qualitative geotechnical investigations are available in this structured database that can be accessed by anyone with some geographic information system knowledge using QGIS. Considering that the compiled information was stored by their producers in distinct formats and most of them in a non-digital and without locational information, this work reinforces the need to adoption a standardization of geospatial geotechnical data storage on a unified basis compatible with the National Spatial Data Bank to disseminate this information.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Monitoring method based on GIS for submarine cable fault data

With the growth and advancement of the times, people have more and more means of obtaining knowledge. In order to further increase the efficiency of information transmission and energy transport, people have started to lay cables on the seabed. The region of the sea is huge. Cable laying wi ll provide people with wider networks of information transmission and space. Various factors are unpredictable when laying submarine cables, making the precise work more complicated. It takes a lot of time and expense to successfully install the submarine cable, so it is important to ensure its safe operation. Combining the construction of submarine cables with geographic information systems may rely on visualization methods to combine geography and seabed map information and provide intuitive data for people to understand the situation of submarine cables. In order to minimize the uncertainty created by the U-boat environment for cable safety, this article incorporates knowledge of geographic information systems and uses electronic maps to detect the conditions of the U-boat in real time, and designs a device that can control U-boat cable accidents and provides cable security assistance.

GIS as a Bridge Across the Digital Divide: Engaging Participatory Methods to Build Capacity in Research Communities

Abstract While access to information-communication technology (ICT) infrastructure such as smartphones and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) web applications has steadily increased in many middle- and upper-income regions of the world, the use and impacts of these resources often remain limited by lack of exposure and training. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted under disaster recovery conditions in Dominica to describe how the process of spatial data collection can be leveraged to help bridge this specific type of digital divide. Incorporating participatory elements into a research design can enable the transfer of valuable GIS skills and knowledge to local practitioners. These new capabilities can then be mobilized to address community problems. Results indicate that this approach has the potential to amplify the power of GIS data by making it more accessible, useable, and impactful to local communities who participate in research.

Loose programming of GIS workflows with geo-analytical concepts.

Loose programming enables analysts to program with concepts instead of procedural code. Data transformations are left underspecified, leaving out procedural details and exploiting knowledge about the applicability of functions to data types. To synthesize workflows of high quality for a geo‐analytical task, the semantic type system needs to reflect knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS) at a level that is deep enough to capture geo‐analytical concepts and intentions, yet shallow enough to generalize over GIS implementations. Recently, core concepts of spatial information and related geo‐analytical concepts were proposed as a way to add the required abstraction level to current geodata models. The core concept data types (CCD) ontology is a semantic type system that can be used to constrain GIS functions for workflow synthesis. However, to date, it is unknown what gain in precision and workflow quality can be expected. In this article we synthesize workflows by annotating GIS tools with these types, specifying a range of common analytical tasks taken from an urban livability scenario. We measure the quality of automatically synthesized workflows against a benchmark generated from common data types. Results show that CCD concepts significantly improve the precision of workflow synthesis.

Perspectives of GIS Education in High Schools: An Evaluation of uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) education in South Africa and elsewhere has been envisioned to be a strategy that can contribute to new ways of teaching, learning and understanding. However, very few studies have assessed how GIS is taught in South African high schools. Consequently, this study aims to analyze GIS education dynamics and perspectives in uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. A survey with both open and close-ended questions was conducted with geography educators and geography students. Questions focused on GIS content, how the content is taught, challenges in GIS education, educators’ GIS proficiency and GIS education perspectives. The sample was guided by purposive sampling that intentionally selected schools with the desired qualities. From the results, it was evident that GIS is progressively taught in secondary schools. However, the full potential of GIS education has been restricted by challenges such as inadequate resources and limited exposure of students to GIS’s practical uses. Subsequently, the study recommends that GIS education in South African schools should be accompanied by appropriate hardware, software and opportunities for exposing students and educators to practical methods of teaching and learning GIS. Furthermore, educators should also be trained to be able to adequately equip students with GIS skills and knowledge.

Use of Automated Change Detection and VGI Sources for Identifying and Validating Urban Land Use Change

Land use and land cover (LULC) mapping is often undertaken by national mapping agencies, where these LULC products are used for different types of monitoring and reporting applications. Updating of LULC databases is often done on a multi-year cycle due to the high costs involved, so changes are only detected when mapping exercises are repeated. Consequently, the information on LULC can quickly become outdated and hence may be incorrect in some areas. In the current era of big data and Earth observation, change detection algorithms can be used to identify changes in urban areas, which can then be used to automatically update LULC databases on a more continuous basis. However, the change detection algorithm must be validated before the changes can be committed to authoritative databases such as those produced by national mapping agencies. This paper outlines a change detection algorithm for identifying construction sites, which represent ongoing changes in LU, developed in the framework of the LandSense project. We then use volunteered geographic information (VGI) captured through the use of mapathons from a range of different groups of contributors to validate these changes. In total, 105 contributors were involved in the mapathons, producing a total of 2778 observations. The 105 contributors were grouped according to six different user-profiles and were analyzed to understand the impact of the experience of the users on the accuracy assessment. Overall, the results show that the change detection algorithm is able to identify changes in residential land use to an adequate level of accuracy (85%) but changes in infrastructure and industrial sites had lower accuracies (57% and 75 %, respectively), requiring further improvements. In terms of user profiles, the experts in LULC from local authorities, researchers in LULC at the French national mapping agency (IGN), and first-year students with a basic knowledge of geographic information systems had the highest overall accuracies (86.2%, 93.2%, and 85.2%, respectively). Differences in how the users approach the task also emerged, e.g., local authorities used knowledge and context to try to identify types of change while those with no knowledge of LULC (i.e., normal citizens) were quicker to choose ‘Unknown’ when the visual interpretation of a class was more difficult.

Scaling up research using GIS and WebGIS spatial tools: case study of MicroVeg project

Sustainable intensification of agriculture is a pressing issue for the countries of Benin and Nigeria. Amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus L.), solanum (Solanum macrocarpum L.), fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis f. Hooke), and parsley (Ocimum gratissimum L.) have been identified as important indigenous vegetables with the potential to enhance food and household security in West Africa. An international collaboration known as MicroVeg was established in 2015 to scale up the production and consumption of these nutritious vegetables. Traditional agronomic field research has a relatively small spatial footprint; by using a geographic information system (GIS), we expanded the reach of MicroVeg research to a regional scale. A GIS database allows for data to be represented by varying methods and to create larger inference spaces. With GIS, we can use the data to infer areas which are similar to the characteristics of a site. GIS data were stored, analyzed, compared, and extrapolated to infer where scaling up of the MicroVeg agronomic package is likely to be most successful. GIS has enabled this project to expand potential areas from several research sites with an approximate total area of 50 hectares, to a potential extent exceeding 100,000 square kilometres for each crop, independently of seasonal variation. As it is a challenge to disseminate such information to audiences, we developed and implemented an interactive, online, database (termed webGIS) of agronomic trial data designed for use with minimal GIS knowledge. The results of this project will be important for policymakers and agronomists who are scaling up vegetable production in Benin and Nigeria.

Geografiska informationssystem som en integrerad del av lärarutbildningen och skolundervisningen<br/>Geographic information systems as an integral part of the teacher and school education

The Swedish school education in geography has developed slowly and still focuses on names of, for example, countries and capitals, rather than geographical concepts and processes. To implement the secondary and upper secondary school curricula, teachers need both broad and deep geographical knowledge. For example, teachers need knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS), which are computerised information systems for analysis and presentation of geographical data. This literature-based discussion article aims to analyse opportunities and difficulties with using GIS programs in the teacher and school education. In summary, the preconditions are good, with few technical barriers, for developing GIS-based teaching in the teacher and school education that promotes active, inquiry-based, cooperative, and problem-based learning. This would make the school education more problem-oriented and interdisciplinary so that it promotes pupils’ opportunities to achieve the competencies stipulated in the curricula. Such development requires that teacher educators and school teachers get the time and resources needed to develop technological pedagogical content knowledge. However, it is probably enough for educators and teachers to get started with simpler internet- and web-based GIS and then develop their knowledge at an appropriate pace.

Study on Multi-Scale Window Determination for GLCM Texture Description in High-Resolution Remote Sensing Image Geo-Analysis Supported by GIS and Domain Knowledge

Texture features based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) can effectively improve classification accuracy in geographical analyses of optical remote sensing (RS) images, with the parameters of scale of the GLCM texture window greatly affecting the validity. By analyzing human visual attention characteristics for geo-texture cognition, it was found that there is a strong correlation between the texture scale parameters and the domain shape knowledge in a specified geo-scene. Therefore, a new approach for quickly determining the multi-scale parameters of the texture with the assistance of a geographic information system (GIS) and domain knowledge is proposed in this paper. First, the validity of domain knowledge from an existing GIS database is measured by spatial data mining algorithms, including spatial partitioning, image segmentation, and space-time system evaluation. Second, the general domain shape knowledge of each category is described by the GIS minimum enclosing rectangle indices and rectangular-degree indices. Then, the corresponding multi-scale texture windows can be quickly determined for each category by a correlation analysis with the shape indices. Finally, the Fisher function is used to evaluate the validity of the scale parameters. The experimental results show that the multi-scale value keeps a one-to-one relationship with the classified objects, and their value ranges are from a few to tens, instead of the smaller values of a traditional analysis; thus, effective texture features at such a scale can be built to identify categories in a geo-scene. In this way, the proposed method can increase the total number of categories for a certain geo-scene and reduce the classification uncertainty, as well as better meet the requirements of large-scale image geo-analysis. It also has as high a calculation efficiency and as good a performance as the traditional enumeration method.

Sosialisasi Potensi Bencana dan Sistem Informasi Geografi (SIG) Kebencanaan di Kabupaten Seluma

Knowledge and understanding of geographic information systems (GIS) in the field of disaster, GIS can provide a spatial visualization of the potential and mitigation. In implementing this devotion Seluma has a high potential for disaster. So the role and knowledge of GIS in Determining the potential for disaster in Seluma need to be socialized and simulated in order to provide a general description of potential disasters and SIG. GIS in disaster mapping capability to provide trend geographic information that can be understood and support the process of decision making in disaster. Socialization and simulation in service activities aim to: equip public knowledge of potential disasters and provide disaster mitigation efforts of community-based alternatives were alert, responsive and resilient to disasters. Service activities performed by a lecture and demonstration. Lecturing to socialize about potential disasters and GIS. Demonstration method to implement community-based disaster mitigation simulation. The results of the simulation activities of dissemination and disaster mitigation in the Cahaya Negeri Village, Sukaraja District of Seluma country, the regions most vulnerable to disasters is a top priority in mitigation measures. GIS for disaster preparedness is effective as a means of equipping the public knowledge of potential disasters and provide disaster mitigation efforts of community-based alternatives were alert, responsive and resilient to disasters. Judging from the success of the socialization of the target number of participants (85%), achievement of the objectives of socialization (72%), achievement of the target material that has been planned (78%), and the ability of the participants in the mastery of the material (70%). The success can also be seen from the satisfaction of participants socialization and simulation. Keywords: Socialization and Simulation, Disaster Potential and GIS

Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (GIS): An untapped research approach for social work

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a digital technology that integrates hardware and software to analyze, store, and map spatial data. GIS allows users to visualize (i.e., map) geographic aspects of data including locations or spatial concentrations of phenomena of interest. Though public health and other social work related fields have embraced the use of GIS technology in research, social work lags behind. Recent technological advancements in the field of GIS have transformed what was once prohibitively expensive, “experts only” desktop software into a viable method for researchers with little prior GIS knowledge. Further, humanist and participatory geographers have developed critical, non-quantitative GIS approaches that bring to light new opportunities relevant to social workers. These tools could have particular utility for qualitative social workers because they can help us better understand the environmental context in which our clients reside and give credence to their assessments of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for intervention. This article provides an introductory overview of the history of GIS in social work research and describes opportunities to use spatially informed approaches in qualitative social work research using a case study of a participatory photo mapping research study.

GIS Education in U. S. Public Administration Programs: Preparing the Next Generation of Public Servants

Geographic information systems (GIS), data, and analysis are common and crucial resources for public agencies throughout the United States. Applications of GIS run the gamut from delivery of emergency services to monitoring the spread of infectious diseases and environmental contamination and more. Today’s public sector job descriptions often identify GIS knowledge as a must-have skill for new public administration graduates. Thus, public administration programs have a responsibility to their students, to the public agencies who hire their graduates—and to the citizenry—to provide adequate preparation in GIS skills. This article reports the results of a survey of public administration programs in the United States to determine how well such programs have integrated GIS instruction. Our results suggest that although there is interest in GIS among public administration programs, GIS is not yet well integrated into their curricula; however, there is momentum to enhance the role of GIS.

Teachers' in-service training in geographic information system (GIS) and different integration behaviors in lectures

This project explores whether and how in-service training for Taiwan’s secondary school geography teachers has affected their adoption of geographic information system (GIS) in lectures. According to our survey analysis, active GIS adopters show a greater propensity for teaching about and with GIS. It does not matter whether GIS is mandatory in certain lectures; the active adopter would choose to use it for teaching. Passive adopters would teach about and with GIS only in lectures for which its use is mandatory. Compared with the other types, laggards are less likely to use GIS. The success of in-service training does not lie in its offering of GIS skills and knowledge. What is more important is that the training has been designed to cultivate teachers’ GIS technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) that makes teachers ready to use GIS in their lectures.

Teaching GIS outside of geography: a case study in the School of International Development, University of East Anglia

The importance of developing employability skills of graduates has become a strategic priority in higher education. Knowledge of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools is a valuable skill for graduates both in terms of the specific skillset it provides and of the wider transferable skills. This paper discusses the importance of GIS as an interdisciplinary and employability skill within the setting of a weeklong intensive GIS course taught in the School of International Development at UEA. GIS as an employability skill within a commercial setting is discussed, with the focus on how to teach GIS most effectively in this setting.

ECOLOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL POTENTIAL OF TRANS BOUNDARY REGION: THE TRAINING NEEDS

The need in information and training of specialists of environmental organizations in the Baikal transboundary region are studied in the article. On the basis of self-assessment of ecological and educational potential (matrix needs) of interviewing and conducting polls of specialists and managers, the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, the level of professional competence of the target audience, knowledge and skills in the field of environmental protection are revealed. The needs of professionals in additional education in the control of the quality of the environment, using of new methods and technologies, knowledge of geographic information systems, cartographic information, modeling of the dynamic processes of environmental components, the development of implementation mechanism of international normative documents are revealed. The results of the research were used by the UN Office for Project Services, the Global Environment Fund.

Exploring the GIS Knowledge Domain Using CiteSpace

Since the 1980s, geographic information systems (GIS) have developed rapidly and have been applied widely in the social, natural, and space sciences. In line with this explosive development and use, thousands of articles have been published on GIS, detailing both technical development and application-oriented research. Given this flood of material over the past thirty years, the purpose of this article is to apply a suite of scientometric and bibliometric approaches to help discover and benchmark the most important and highly cited papers in this burgeoning field. Not only do these techniques facilitate the connection of research themes and authors in the GIS community, but the approaches help highlight how research interests and foci evolve over time, greatly contributing to our understanding of the GIS knowledge domain. Although the scale and scope of this analysis are somewhat limited, the outlined method is highly generalizable and its results show that several key publications have helped forge the field and facilitate new trends in the literature.

Geographic information systems (GIS) and libraries: concepts, services and resources

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an introduction to core geographic information systems (GIS) concepts, prominent GIS software, the role of libraries in providing GIS services and support and resources for professional library staff to increase GIS knowledge and skills to fulfill the mission of serving the information needs of library patrons. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an overview of GISs core concepts and terminologies, Library GIS services and resources for library staff development. Findings – As GISs are being used by researchers in an ever-growing number of disciplines, librarians must increase their proficiency with geospatial technologies. Originality/value – While GISs have been used by certain researcher populations for some time, the increased use of such geospatial technologies creates a need for librarians who possess the skills and knowledge to assist patrons with their GIS needs. This paper introduces professional library staff to important GIS concepts, potential GIS services and resources to increase library staff’s competence with GISs.