A geographic information system (GIS) or geospatial information system is a system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages and presents data with reference to geographic location data.
In the simplest terms, GIS is the merging of cartography, statistical analysis and database technology. GIS may be used in :
– archaeology
– geography
– cartography
– remote sensing
– land surveying
– public utility management
– natural resource management
– precision agriculture
– photogrammetry
– urban planning
– emergency management
– GIS in Environmental Contamination
– landscape architecture
– navigation
– aerial video and localized search engines.
A GIS can be thought of as a system - it digitally creates and "manipulates" spatial areas that may be jurisdictional, purpose or application-oriented for which a specific GIS is developed. Hence, a GIS developed for an application, jurisdiction, enterprise or purpose may not be necessarily interoperable or compatible with a GIS that has been developed for some other application, jurisdiction, enterprise, or purpose. What goes beyond a GIS is a spatial data infrastructure (SDI), a concept that has no such restrictive boundaries
