GIS stands for Geographical Information System.

It is defined as an integrated tool, capable of mapping, analyzing, manipulating

and storing geographical data in order to provide solutions to real world problems and help in planning for the future.

Components of a GIS
A GIS has following components:
Hardware: It consists of the equipment’s and support devices that are required to capture, store process and visualize the
geographic information. These include computer with hard disk, digitizers, scanners, printers and plottersetc.
Software: The GIS software must have the basic capabilities of data input, storage, transformation, analysis and providing desired
outputs. The GIS software’s being used today is ArcGIS by ESRI is the widely used proprietary GIS software.
Data: The data is captured or collected from various sources (such as maps, field observations, photography, satellite imagery etc)
and is processed for analysis and presentation.
All data in a GIS are either spatial data or attribute data. Every GIS provides the ability to store and manipulate both the spatial
data and the associated attribute data.
Procedures: These include the methods or ways by which data has to be input in the system, retrieved, processed, transformed
and presented.
Users: The term "user" may refer to any individual who will use GIS to support project or program goals.

Functionality of GIS

The Functions of GIS describe the steps that have to be taken to implement a GIS. The steps involved are:
I) Data Capture. II) Data Compilation. III) Data Storage (GIS Data Models). IV) Manipulation. V) Analysis.

1. Data Capture; Data sources are mainly obtained from Manual Digitization and Scanning of aerial photographs, paper maps, and
existing digital data sets. Remote- sensing satellite imagery and GPS are promising data input sources for GIS.
 2. Data Compilation: The end results of compilation is a set of digital files, each accurately representing all of the spatial and attribute
data of interest contained on the original map manuscripts. These digital files contain geographic coordinates for spatial objects
(points, line polygons and cells) that represent mapped features.
3. Data Storage : Once the data have been digitally compiled, digital map files in the GIS are stored on other digital media. Data storage
is based on a Generic Data Model that is , the two most common types of data models are Raster and Vector. Both types are used to
simplify the data shown on a map into a more basic form that can be easily and efficiently stored in the computer.
4. Data manipulation: once data are stored in a GIS, many manipulation options are available to users. These functions are often available
in the form of "Toolkits." A toolkit is a set of generic functions that a GIS user can employ to manipulate and analyze geographic data.
5. Analysis: The heart of GIS is the analytical capabilities of the system. What distinguish the GIS system from other information system
are its spatial analysis functions. The analysis functions use the spatial and non-spatial attributes in the database to answer questions
about the real world. Geographic analysis facilitates the study of real-world processes by developing and applying models.

Recent trends and applications of GIS

GIS is involved in various areas. These include topographical mapping, socioeconomic and environment modeling, and education. The role of GIS is
best illustrated with respect to some of the representative application areas that are mentioned below:

Tax Mapping: Raising revenue from property taxes is one of the important functions of the government agencies. The amount of tax payable
depends on the value of the land and the property. The correct assessment of value of land and property determines the equitable distribution of the
community tax. Managing as well as analyzing all this information simultaneously is time consuming and hence comes the need of GIS. Information
about property with its geographical location and boundary is managed by GIS.
Business: Businesses manage a world of information about sales, customers, inventory, demographic profiles etc. Demographic analysis is the basis
for many other business functions: customer service, site analysis, and marketing. Understanding your customers and their socioeconomic and
purchasing behaviour is essential for making good business decisions. A GIS with relevant data such as number of consumers, brands and sites they
go for shopping can give any business unit a fair idea whether their unit if set up is going to work at a particular location the way they want it to run.

Logistics: Logistics is a field that takes care of transporting goods from one place to another and finally delivering them to their destinations. It is
necessary for the shipping companies to know where their warehouses should be located, which routes should the transport follow that ensures
minimum time and expenditures to deliver the parcels to their destinations. All such logistics decisions need GIS support.

Emergency evacuation: The occurrence of disasters is unpredictable. We as humans are unable to tell when, where and what magnitude of disaster
is going to emerge and therefore solely depend on disaster preparedness as safety measures. It is important to know in which area the risk is higher,
the number of individuals inhabiting that place, the routes by which the vehicles would move to help in evacuating the individuals. Thus preparing an
evacuation plan needs GIS implementation.

Environment: GIS is being increasingly involved in mapping the habitat loss, urban sprawl, land-use change etc. Mapping such phenomena need
historical land-use data, anthropogenic effects which greatly affect these phenomena are also brought into GIS domain. GIS models are then run to
make predictions for the future.

Geographic data:

Spatial and non-spatial;

Spatial data refers to the data or information that describes the absolute or relative location of geographic features on the earth. It includes
location, shape, size and orientation information of features or objects. For example, a particular square in which its center (the intersection of
its diagonals) specifies its location; its shape is a square; length of one of its sides specifies its size and angle its diagonals e.g., the x-axis
specifies its orientation. Spatial data includes spatial relationships, for example, the arrangement of three stumps in a cricket ground.
The non spatial data or the attribute data on the other hand describes the characteristics of the spatial features. These characteristics can be
quantitative or qualitative. It consists of the characteristics of spatial features which are independent of all geometric considerations. Let us
illustrate this with the help of an example. The non-spatial data of town comprise of name of the town, its population, settlement type, ,
education institutions, occupations and facilities.

Data models: Raster and vector;

Data models are conceptual models of the real world. These describe us the representation and storage of the geographic data. The data
models used in GIS are described below:
a. Vector Data Model

In vector data model, geographical phenomena are represented in three different forms;-point, line and polygon. The shape of a spatial entity
is stored using two-dimensional (x, y) coordinate system.
Point: A location depicted by a single set of (x, y) coordinates at the scale of abstraction.
The wells in a village, electricity poles in a town and cities in the world map are the examples of spatial features described by points.

Note: A city can be marked as a single point on a world map but would be marked as a polygon on a state map. The scale plays an important
role in deciding the geometry of a geographical feature.

Line/Arc: Ordered sets of (x, y) coordinate pairs arranged to form a linear feature. The curves in a linear feature are generated by increasing
the density of points/vertices.

The roads, rails and telephone cables are the examples of the spatial features described by lines.
Polygon: The set of (x, y) coordinate pairs enclosing a homogeneous area.
The land parcels, agricultural farms and water bodies are the examples of the spatial features described by polygons.
b. Raster Data Model

The raster data model is commonly associated with the field conceptual model. Here, geographic space is represented by array of cells or
pixels (picture elements) which are arranged in rows and columns. Each pixel has a value that represents information. The value can be in the
form of integer, floating points or alphanumeric.

A point can be represented by a single pixel in raster model. A line is a chain of spatially connected cells with the same value. Similarly, a water
body in raster data is represented as a set of contiguous pixels having same value that represents a homogeneous area.

Database Management System (DBMS):

A database management system (DBMS) is a computer program that stores and manages large amounts of data. One can define, construct,
edit and share the database among various users and applications.
When you create a table or add a field to a table in the geodatabase, fields are created as a specific data type. Data types are classifications
that identify possible values for and operations that can be done on the data, as well as the way the data in that field is stored in the
database.
Geo-database
At its most basic level, an ArcGIS geodatabase is a collection of geographic datasets of various types held in a common file system folder, a
Microsoft Access database, or a multiuser relational DBMS (such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Informix, or IBM DB2).

The geodatabase is a "container" used to hold a collection of datasets. There are three types:

1. File geodatabases—Stored as folders in a file system. Each dataset is held as a file that can scale up to 1 TB in size. The file geodatabase
is recommended over personal geodatabases.

2. Personal geodatabases—All datasets are stored within a Microsoft Access data file, which is limited in size to 2 GB.
 3. Enterprise geodatabases—Also known as multiuser geodatabases, they can be unlimited in size and numbers of users. Stored in a
relational database using Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, IBM Informix, or PostgreSQL.

Data Structures: Relational, hierarchical and network;

The main difference between hierarchical network and relational database model is that hierarchical model organizes data in a tree-like
structure while network model arranges data in a graph structure and relational database model organizes data in tables.
Data models are the conceptual models that describe the structures of databases. Structure of a database is defined by the data types, the
constraints and the relationships for the description or storage of data. Following are the most often used data models:
Hierarchical Data Structure Model
It is the earliest database model that is evolved from file system where records are arranged in a hierarchy or as a tree structure. Records are
connected through pointers that store the address of the related record. Each pointer establishes a parent child relationship where a parent
can have more than one child but a child can only have one parent. There is no connection between the elements at the same level. To
locate a particular record, you have to start at the top of the tree with a parent record and trace down the tree to the child.

hierarchical data structure

Network Data Structure Model

A network model is an extension of the hierarchical model, which arranges data in a structure similar to a graph. Unlike in the hierarchy
model, a node in the network model can have multiple parents. Furthermore, the data in the database created using the network model will
have more relationships.

Network data structure

Relational Data Structure Model

The relational database relates or connects data in different files through the use of a common field. A flat file structure is used with a
relational database model. In this arrangement, data is stored in different tables made up of rows and columns. The columns of a table are
named by attributes. Each row in the table is called a tuple and represents a basic fact. No two rows of the same table may have identical
values in all columns.

There are two crucial data integrity constraints viz. primary key and foreign key. A primary key is an attribute whose value is unique across all
tuples (rows) in a relation (table). The primary key of one table appearing as an attribute of another table is known as a foreign key in that
table.
Digitization of maps and imageries

Digitization: A conversion process which converts paper maps into digital format that can be stored in the computer. Digitizing simplifies map
data into sets of points, lines, or cells that can be stored in the GIS computer. The x,y coordinates of these features are automatically recorded
and stored as spatial data.

Digitization is a simplification process that converts all spatial data to a point (e.g., traffic intersection), a line (e.g., a Road), a polygon formed
by a closed, complex line [e.g., Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ)], or a grid cell. Digitization reduces all spatial entities to these simple forms because
they are easy to store in the computer. A GIS database cannot readily recognize features or entities as human map users do. For example, we
cannot enter the entity "TAZ" into a GIS. Rather, we enter the spatial data coordinates for the TAZ's boundary as a polygon. Later, the
attributes of the TAZ will be entered into the GIS database and will be associated with the polygon.