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Instructor: Jordan Shannon Email: Jordan@northerngis - Ca

This document provides information about a GIS instructor named Jordan Shannon. It includes their name, email, education background of graduating from a 3-year GIS Technologist program, over 9 years of GIS experience as a specialist for Northern GIS, and previous employment. The document also outlines topics to be covered in the course, including what a map is, types of maps, what GIS is, why use GIS, and an introduction on how to look at data in GIS.

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John Zephyr Tyska
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34 views

Instructor: Jordan Shannon Email: Jordan@northerngis - Ca

This document provides information about a GIS instructor named Jordan Shannon. It includes their name, email, education background of graduating from a 3-year GIS Technologist program, over 9 years of GIS experience as a specialist for Northern GIS, and previous employment. The document also outlines topics to be covered in the course, including what a map is, types of maps, what GIS is, why use GIS, and an introduction on how to look at data in GIS.

Uploaded by

John Zephyr Tyska
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Instructor: Jordan Shannon

Email: jordan@northerngis.ca
 Graduated from the 3 year Geographic Information Systems
Technologist course at Algonquin College

 Over 9 years experience using GIS

 Currently the GIS Specialist for Northern GIS

 Previously employed by Rainy River First Nations, MNR,


Municipal District of Opportunity, Township of Marathon and
OZ Minerals Canada
 Overview of the course requirements
 What is a map?
 What kind of maps are out there?
 What is a GIS?
 Why use GIS?
 First look at what a GIS is…
 An intro on how to look at data
According to Borden Dent a map is usually a graphical
representation of the physical and cultural values of our
environment
Although there are many different kinds of maps, we will
look at the GEOGRAPHIC Map
“The geographic cartographer understands the spatial
perspective of the physical environment, and has the skills
to abstract and symbolize this environment.”
Dent, 1999

A geographic map will usually include the following:


› A defined projection
› Spatial relationships
› A defined scale
Thematic Map

General Purpose or
reference map
Mental Map
 GIS users will most often create Thematic maps
 Historically general purpose maps were created since
people were still trying to figure out where
everything was located
 Thematic maps were developed in the 18th century as
a way of showing spatial characteristics of social and
scientific change
› Climate
› Vegetation
› Geology
› Military
Thematic Maps refer to maps that are specialized. There
are many different types of thematic maps, and they are
important in GIS for different reasons.
 A choropleth map uses
reporting zones to display data
 These zones may represent
true geographical boundaries
(such as veg types), or they
may represent abstractions
such as political zones, etc.
 This is important because the
zone boundaries are
established independently of
the data, and may be used to
report many different sets of
data.
 An isopleth map shows an
imaginary surface by means of
lines joining points of equal
values. i.e. the isolines of
weather maps or the contours
on a topographic map.
 This is important in GIS
because it is used for
phenomena that varies
smoothly across the map.
i.e. temperature, pressure,
rainfall or population
density.
 Qualitative
› Shows the spatial location of nominal
data (like city locations, political
boundaries, etc)
 Quantitative
› Shows the spatial characteristics of
numerical data (such as population,
income, accident frequencies, etc)
 We’re stepping all over each
other

 Resources have limits

 Problems are more complex

 Improved capabilities
 A GIS is “a computer assisted process designed
to acquire, store, analyze and display spatial
data” (Dent 1999)

 A GIS is made up of data, software, hardware


and most importantly, people
“The purpose of a Geographic Information System is to
provide a spatial framework to support decisions for the
intelligent use of earth’s resources and to manage the man
made environment”
Zeiler, on behalf of ESRI
 Cartography has quite an influence on GIS, but GIS really came about
with the computer age
 The first mapping systems drew lines (vectors), having large print
labels to define what they represented
 Computer Assisted Drawing (CAD) was developed in the 60’s and 70’s
to aid engineers draw very detailed spatially correct diagrams – but
there was still very little information attached to each line
 ESRI came out in 1981 with a revolutionary way to store both spatial
and aspatial data
(Zeiler, 1999)
 Spatial data (i.e. lines, points, polygons) can now store
attribute data
 A road line can now store a name, travel speed, surface condition,
node networks, etc
 This spatial data can now have a topological relationship with
other layers
 This means a line will know if it has a polygon to the left or right of it,
where it intersects, and also the quickest way to get to a certain point
 A GIS offers a whole number of different processes to allow
the user to analyze their data
GIS can quickly turn into a complicated thing to learn,
(and trust me it takes time!), but there are a number of
good resources out there to help you learn more about it.
The following presentation PDF was taken from
www.gis.com, which is an excellent resource for first
learning about GIS, and what it can do.
 Can create maps with any type of geographic data

 Make better decisions using spatial solutions

 Improve organizational integration and efficiency


 Forestry
› Determining harvesting system options
› Developing long term strategy options
› Forecasting silviculture stock
› Reporting on harvest activities (depletions)
 Engineering
› Site Analysis
› Watershed modelling
 Modeling our World – Michael Zeiler, 1999
 Cartography,Thematic Map Design – Borden D. Dent 1999
 Mastering ArcGIS – Maribeth Price
 Geographic Information Systems – Pete Bettinger and Michael G. Wing
 www.gis.com

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