Handbook of gis application

3 | P a g e
Contents
Page No
1. Introduction ………………………………………………………..6
2. Agriculture GIS Applications …………………………………..7
3. Astronomy/Planetary GIS Applications ……………………..10
4. Archaeology GIS Applications ………………………………..12
5. Architecture GIS Applications ………………………………..14
6. Arctic / Antarctica GIS Applications …………………………16
7. Aquatics GIS Application ………………………………………18
8. Aviation GIS Applications ……………………………………..20
9. Automobile Integration GIS Applications……………………22
10. Banking GIS Applications……………………………………..24
11. Business & Commerce GIS Applications…………………..25
12. Consumer GIS Applications ………………………………….27
13. Climate Change GIS Applications …………………………..28
14. Crime GIS Applications ……………………………………....30
15. Defense/Military GIS Applications ………………………….33
16. Disaster GIS Applications ……………………………………36
17. Ecology GIS Applications ……………………………………39

4 | P a g e
18. Economics GIS Applications ………………………………..43
19. Education GIS Applications …………………………………45
20. Energy GIS Applications ……………………………………..46
21. Engineering GIS Applications……………………………….48
22. Environment GIS Applications………………………………50
23. Forestry GIS Applications…………………………………..52
24. Gaming GIS Applications…………………………………….54
25. Gardening GIS Applications ………………………………..55
26. Geology GIS Applications …………………………………..57
27. Geostatistics GIS Applications …………………………….59
28. Groundwater GIS Applications …………………………….61
29. Healthy Mapping Applications ……………………………..63
30. History GIS Applications …………………………………….65
31. Hydrology GIS Applications ………………………………..68
32.Humanitarian GIS Applications …………………………….71
33. Insurance GIS Applications ………………………………..72
34. Internet GIS Applications …………………………………..73
35. Land Use Planning …………………………………………..74
36. Mail Services GIS Applications ……………………………77
37. Media GIS Applications ……………………………………..78
38. Municipality/Urban GIS Applications …………………….79
39. Mining GIS Applications …………………………………….82

5 | P a g e
40. Nautical GIS Applications …………………………………...84
41. Ocean / Marine GIS Applications …………………………..85
42. Oil, Gas and Petroleum GIS Applications ………………..88
43. Parks GIS Applications ………………………………………90
44. Politics/Government GIS Applications ……………………91
45. Real Estate GIS Applications ……………………………….92
46. Reporting/News GIS Applications ………………………...94
47. Society Applications – Built & Environment …………….96
48. Soils GIS Applications ……………………………………….99
49. Sports & Recreation GIS Applications ………………….101
50. Surveying/Geodesy GIS Applications …………………..103
51. Telecommunications GIS Applications ………………….104
52. Tourism GIS Applications ………………………………….106
53. Transmission GIS Applications……………………………108
54. Transportation GIS Applications …………………………110
55. Utilities GIS Applications …………………………………..114
56. Volunteer GIS and Open Technology …………………...116
57. Weather GIS Applications ………………………………….117
58.References Link ……………………………………………….120

6 | P a g e
1. Introduction
A geographic information system (GIS) is a system designed to
capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage, and present all types of
geographical data.
✓ GIS applications (or GIS apps) are computer-based tools, that allow the user to
create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information
output, edit datum presented within maps, and visually share the results of
these operations
✓ Geographic information systems are utilized in multiple technologies,
processes, techniques and methods. It is attached to various operations and
numerous applications, that relate to: engineering, planning, management,
transport/logistics, insurance, telecommunications, and business.
✓ The implementation of a GIS is often driven by jurisdictional (such as a city),
purpose, or application requirements. Generally, a GIS implementation may be
custom-designed for an organization. Hence, a GIS deployment 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.
✓ For this reason, GIS and location intelligence applications are at the foundation
of location-enabled services, that rely on geographic analysis and visualization.
Many disciplines can benefit from GIS technology.
✓ An active GIS market has resulted in lower costs and continual improvements
in the hardware and software components of GIS, and usage in the fields of
science, government, business, and industry, with applications including real
estate, public health, crime mapping, national defense, sustainable
development, naturalresources, climatology,landscape,architecture, archaeolo
gy, regional and community planning, transportation and logistics.
✓ GIS is also diverging into location-based services, which allows GPS-enabled
mobile devices to display their location in relation to fixed objects (nearest
restaurant, gas station, fire hydrant) or mobile objects (friends, children,
police car), or to relay their position back to a central server for display or other
processing.
✓ GIS student project ideas, GIS case studies, GIS projects, GIS uses – From
over 50 industries, this guide of 1000 GIS applications will open your mind to
our amazing planet and its inter-connectivity.

7 | P a g e
2. Agriculture GIS Applications
• GIS application in agriculture has been playing an increasingly important
role in crop production throughout the world by helping farmers in
increasing production, reducing costs, and managing their land resources
more efficiently.
• GIS application in agriculture such as agricultural mapping plays a vital
role in monitoring and management of soil and irrigation of any given
farm land.
• GIS agriculture and agricultural mapping act as an essential tools for
management of agricultural sector by acquiring and implementing the
accurate information into a mapping environment.
• GIS application in agriculture also helps in management and control of
agricultural resources. GIS agriculture technology helps in improvement
of the present systems of acquiring and generating GIS agriculture and
resources data.
• Related book: GIS applications in agriculture By Francis J. Pierce and
David Clay
Download link:
http://www.bizgis.com/?module=file&act=procFileDownload&file_srl=1
18691&sid=d2fd9a8821aed54b7bba68904dae7c31
1.Precision Farming – Harvesting more bushels per acre while spending less
on fertilizer using precision farming and software. Precision agriculture has
resulted in the cultivation of healthy crops that guarantees farmers optimum
harvests over a given period of time. (How to win the farm using GIS)

8 | P a g e
2. 3D Scanners for Biomass – Measuring with laser accuracy 3D biomass
using the FARO scanner.
3. Disease Control – Combating the spread of pests through by identifying
critical intervention areas and efficient targeting control interventions.
4. Swiss Alps Farming – Cultivating south-facing slopes in the Swiss Alps using
aspect data because it shelters from cold and dry winds which is critical to
successful crop growth.
5. Real-time Crop Yields – Shifting to real-time crop monitoring and
targeted, automated responses with drones and precision watering sensors.
6. Current Food Security – Safeguarding food insecure populations by
establishing underlying causes through satellite, mobile-collected and GIS data
storage.
7. Agri-tourism – Navigating through crop mazes with GPS receivers in the
developing field of agri-tourism.
8. Plant Hardiness – Defining distinct boundaries in which plants are capable
of growing as defined by climatic conditions.
9. Machine Performance – Logging geographic coordinates of agricultural
machinery in a farm field to better understand the spatially variability cost of
field operation and machinery performance.
10. Future Food Demand – Diagnosing the future food demand and planning
how to fulfill the needs of a growing and increasingly affluent population.
11. Crop Assimilation Model – Simulating soil, water and crop processes to
better understand crop productivity and monitoring using the Crop Assimilation
Model tool in GRASS GIS.
12. Water Stress – Balancing the ratio of local withdrawal (demand) over the
available water (supply).
13. Historical Agricultural Land – Plotting the historical and future farming
trends served.
14. Hunger Map – Raising awareness about global hunger and places that are
in need.

9 | P a g e
15. Agromap – Breaking down primary food crops by sub-national
administrative districts and aggregating by crop production, area harvested and
crop yields.
16. Crop Resilience to Climate Change – Adapting to climate change and
shifting weather patterns by promote the continued health of your fields.
17. Crop Productivity – Calibrating crop productivity using indices like
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to estimate global crop
productivity. (Satellite Image Corporation AgroWatch Green Vegetation Index)
18. Erosion-Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) – Prioritizing cropland
conservation program implementations through “Model Simulation of Soil Loss,
Nutrient Loss, and Change in Soil Organic Carbon Associated with Crop
Production”.
19. Agriculture Capability – Classifying the varying potential for agricultural
production using the Canadian Land Inventory.
20. Ranch Pasture Management – Collecting soils types, fence lines, roads
and other data for better management for more meaningful reports and maps.
21. Agricultural Pollution – Quantifying the impacts on climate and the
environment from agricultural pollution.
22. Agriculture Revenue – Determining the Effective Opportunity Cost
relating to deforestation and potential agricultural revenue with IDRISI GeOSIRIS
for REDD.
23. Irrigation – Capturing irrigation infrastructure for land management
decisions more than two-thirds of the world’s freshwater withdrawals are for
irrigating crops.
24. Farm Preservation – Establishing farm priority zones by analyzing the
local farming landscape and constructing criteria for high-quality farming areas.
25. Versatile Soil Moisture Budget – Simulating soil moisture conditions of
cropland areas taking into account evapotranspiration, rainfall, runoff and other
factors.
26. Drought – Minimizing the impact of drought by analyzing the spatial
distribution of rainfall and real-time sensors like SMAP, SMOS and synthetic
aperture radar.

10 | P a g e
27. Crop Forecasting – Predicting crop yields using NDVI, weather, soil
moisture, soil types and other parameters.
28. Drainage Ditches – Tracing farm field drainage lines using stereo imagery in
MicroImages TNTMips. (TNT Stereo Viewing Tools)
29. CropScape – Estimating acreage of crop types and spatial distribution using
satellite imagery with National Agricultural Statistics Services. (USDA NASS
CropScape)
30. Organic Farming – Managing various sources of data for organic farming
permits including tillage history, field inputs, crop rotations, and pest
management measures on a field-by-field basis.
31. Agricultural Non-Point Source (AGNPS) Model – Predicting the
effects of agriculture on water quality using Agricultural Non-Point Source
pollution model in MapWindow.
32. Drainage Ditches – Tracing farm field drainage lines using stereo imagery in
MicroImages TNTMips. (TNT Stereo Viewing Tools)
33. Length of Growing Period – Meeting the full evapotranspiration
demands of crops when average temperatures are greater or equal to 5°C and
precipitation plus moisture store in the soil exceed half the potential
evapotranspiration.
3. Astronomy/Planetary GIS Applications
• When we think of the tools involved in exploring outer space, images of
astronauts collecting mineral samples on the moon may come to mind.

11 | P a g e
• However, scientists also depend on more remote methods to deepen our
knowledge of the solar system and the universe beyond, like those
offered by geographic information science (GIS).
• GIS space exploration has become a crucial part of how NASA gets to know
the features of other worlds, develops our broader understanding of
geophysics and gathers valuable information about our own planet.
• Related Book: Planetary Cartography and GIS By Hargitai, Henrik
Download link:
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319628486
33. Asteroids – Gazing the sky and tracking asteroids with NASA’s bolide
events map. (NASA’s Bolide Events)
34. Mapping Mars with MOLA – Start mapping a whole entire new planet
using NASA’s MOLA. (USGS Planetary GIS Web Server – PIGWAD)
35. Mars Terrain – Going for a spin on the rugged terrain of Mars using data
captured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars
Global Surveyor (MGS). (Mars Terrain)
36. Mars Rover Landing – Examining how to landing the Mars Rover safely
with operations criteria including latitude for solar power, soil softness, slopes
using laser altimetry, dustiness, rockiness and a landing footprint.
37. Water Flow on Mars – Hillshading the Mars Digital Elevation Model to
augment legibility and understand where rivers may have flowed and oceans
flourished. (Mars Water Flow)
38. Satellite Orbits – Gazing the sky for satellites and even programming
satellites for image acquisition. (Satellite Map)
39. Magnetic Fields – Investigating magnetic field lines in 3D with
international geomagnetic field maps.
40. Astrogeology – Delivering planetary mapping to the international science
community in public domain – from planetary topology to lunar geology.
(Astrogeology Science Centre)
41. UFO Sightings – Speculating UFO sightings with proportional symbols with
over 90,000 reports dating back to 1905.

12 | P a g e
42. Light Pollution – Recognizing the artificial light introduced by humans in
the night sky and how it interferes with the observation of stars. (NOAA’s VIIRS
data) / Light Pollution Map)
43. Mars in Google Earth – Searching for Martian landmarks with Google
Earth’s “Live from Mars” layer.
44. International Space Station – Tracking the real-time location of the
International Space Station (ISS) in ArcGIS Online Data.
45. Venus – Mapping the altimetry, shaded relief and geology of Venus. (Venus
Map)
46. Magnetic Declination – Positioning with the magnetic declination, a
varying angle from a true geographic north using NOAA National Geophysical
Data Center 2015 data and the Magnetic Declination QGIS Plugin.
47. Gravity Anomaly – Understanding our Earth’s gravity by mapping the
unusual concentrations of mass in a different regions on Earth. (The Geoid)
48. NASA Visible Earth – Cataloging images and animations of our home
planet in the electromagnetic spectrum from various sensors. (NASA Visible
Earth)
49. Tycho – Mapping Tycho, the youngest moon crater.
50. Milky Way – Surveying the inner part of the Milky Way Galaxy with
GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Midplane Extraordinaire)
4. Archaeology GIS Applications

13 | P a g e
• Survey and documentation are important to preservation
and archaeology, and GIS makes this research and fieldwork efficient and
precise.
• Today most of the archaeologists are turning to GIS, Remote Sensing and
GPS for creation of large-scale databases for organising, analysing and
sharing the products of their field research and general patterns to the
process of increasing the use of technology involving the scale and timing
of database construction.
• Satellite Imageries and GPS have been one of the effective tools in
archaeological investigations. With the help of prototype software
programmes, the computer technology has enabled us to determine its
locational site and georeference the data as they are gathered.
• Related Book: Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology By
James Conolly
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Geographical-Information-Systems-
Archaeology-Cambridge/dp/0521797446
51. Lost Cities – Revealing lost cities in the ground and their forgotten past
using ground penetrating radar and infrared sensors. (LiDAR uncovers lost cities)
52. Archaeological Survey – Tackling a huge problem archaeologists face
every day – collecting physical locations of their excavation findings from a
wealth of sites.
53. Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities – Recording, monitoring,
and protecting archaeological sites to avoid impacting, factor cost for site
mitigation – developed by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the World
Monuments Fund (WMF). (MEGA Geodatabase)
54. Geographic Text Analysis – Incorporating a semi-automated
exploration of large written texts combining Natural Language Processing
techniques, Corpus Linguistics and GIS.
55. QGIS Archaeology Tools – Computerizing the archaeological community
with their record keeping with the pyArchInit QGIS plugin.
56. Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics – Modeling surface process
change and landscape evolution to better understand the long-term interactions
of humans and landscapes in the Mediterranean using GRASS GIS.
(Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics)

14 | P a g e
57. Preliminary Site Investigation – Searching ancient maps for buildings,
cemeteries, roads and fences as these sites present important clues to
archaeological sites.
58. Stone Tools – Characterizing geographic features suitable for making
stone tools and clay pottery such as lithic materials, water resources, stream
hydrology with geologic controls like bedrock outcrops and drainage basin
floodplains.
59. Viewshed – Scoping out a site by determining what is within eyesight
considering all prehistoric conditions associated to that viewshed.
60. Archaeological Site Prediction – Connecting favorable slope, aspect,
geology, hydrology and distance to water using the Multiple Criteria Evaluation
(MCE) to predict archaeological sites.
61. Cultural Heritage Inventory – Customizing and deploying the collection
of cultural heritage field observations with open source geospatial software
Arches. (Arches Heritage Inventory & Management System)
62. 3D Archaeology – Rendering accurate and efficient 3D recordings of
archaeological heritage sites, in particular archaeological excavations with aerial
imagery and 3D environments.
63. Shovel Test Pits – Logging transects, shovel test pits and other recordings
when they visit potential locations to conduct field investigations.
64. Predicting Dinosaur Tracks – Getting the inside track on understanding
exactly where dinosaurs once roamed the Earth with vegetation coverage,
slope, aspect and proximity to landslides.
5. Architecture GIS Applications

15 | P a g e
• Architecture is one of the most common fields where GIS not only
applies well but adds immense value to.
• Geographic Information System (GIS) has significant potentials to
contribute in contemporary architecture education.
• GIS has been applied in the field of architecture in many ways. Below
are some of the applications of GIS in Architecture.
• Related Book: Building a GIS: System Architecture Design Strategies for
Managers By Dave Peters
Download link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12772804-building-a-gis
65. Line of Sight – Planning high-rise buildings so they don’t obstruct the
view of the mountains in Portland using line of sight. GIS helps architects
plan the line of sight perfectly so that the buildings do not obstruct
important features in the horizon.
66. Exposure to Noise – Orchestrating urban mobility plans with special
consideration for the impact of environmental noise using OrbisGIS. GIS
helps urban highrise buildings to be designed and positioned in areas that
have little or no interference to the environment.(Urban Noise)
67. Development Planning – Making citizens happy through smart
development planning and understanding the bigger picture. GIS helps in
planning various development projects in urban areas and helping citizens
understand the importance of urban development holistically.
68. Crowd Simulation – Mastering the collective dynamics of interacting
objects in urban phenomena at the scale of individual households, people, and
units of real estate and at time-scales approaching “real time”. (Crowd
Simulation)
69. Solar Exposure – Harvesting light to assess the suitability of installing solar
(photovoltaic) panels on roofs using 3D city models and geometric information
such as the tilt, orientation and area of the roof.
70. City Engine – Assessing feasibility and plan implementation using Esri’s
City Engine improving urban planning, architecture, and overall design.
71. Pedestrian Behavior – Discerning the movements of pedestrians and
urban behavior throughout the city. GIS can help discern the possible
movement of pedestrians and vehicles and help in creating artistic
Impressions-of-cities.

16 | P a g e
72. Shadow Analysis – Diagnosing how much shadow will be casted in the
pre-construction phase onto its surrounding using Bentley Map.
73. Parking Availability – Orchestrating a parking available by collecting the
percent of spaces occupied versus search time.
74. Integration of GIS and BIM – Operating a facility with BIM (building
information modeling) because of its ability to analyze information and
integrate-data-from-different-systems.
75. Tangible Landscape – Experimenting with the potential impact of
different building configurations with an easy-to-use 3D sketching tool. GIS can
also be used to create life-size sketches of buildings and create proper
models of the actual buildings that need to be constructed. (Tangible
Landscape)
76. Geodesign – Conceptualizing building plans with focus on stakeholder
participation and collaboration to closely follow natural systems.
77. Propagation of Noise in Urban Environments – Modelling 3D data to
answer how urban citizens are harmed by noise pollution, and how to mitigate
it with noise barriers. GIS can give a proper picture of the actual area where
noise pollution is likely to affect the citizens and suggest measures to avoid
such.
78. Space Utilization – Augmenting NASA’s Langley Research Center by
applying optimization algorithms to space utilization. (Space Utilization)
79. Ordnance Survey Geovation – Pioneering location innovation in the
United Kingdom through Geovation – the collaboration, exchange of ideas and
inspiring innovation. (Ordnance Survey Geovation)
6. Arctic / Antarctica GIS Applications

17 | P a g e
• Related Book : Arctic and Environmental Change By Peter Wadhams, JA
Dowdeswell, A M Schofield
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Environmental-Change-Peter-
Wadhams/dp/9056990209
80. Quantarctica – Familiarizing yourself with Antarctic with the free, open-
source source collection of geographical datasets. (Quantarctica)
81. Exclusive Economic Zones – Carving out boundaries in the Arctic –
Canada, Norway, Russia, Denmark (via Greenland) and the United States are
limited to their economic adjacent to their coasts while all waters beyond is
Considered-international-water.
82. Shipping Route Shortcuts– Transporting goods through the Arctic
Passage-because-of-melting-ice-in-the-North-Pole.
83. Sea Ice Motion – Maintaining an inventory of sea ice extents snapshots
from NOAA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center. (Sea Ice Motion)
84. Aspect – Using aspect and incoming solar radiation data to understand
how glaciers accumulate on the poleward side.
85. Subglacial Lakes – Mapping lakes under glaciers – isolated from the
outside world for up to 35 million years, and may be final refuges for life, the
like of which exists nowhere else on Earth. (Subglacial Lakes)
86. Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project (ADMAP) – Uncovering
the tectonic evolution using near-surface magnetic anomaly data. (Antarctic
Magnetic-Anomaly)
87. Wildlife Tracking – Logging the species richness of marine mammals like
whales, seals, walruses and narwhals and seabirds or waterfowl in the Arctic.
88. Sea Ice Index – Bringing together data on Antarctica’s ice sheet surface,
thickness and boundary using passive remote sensing. (Sea NSIDC Ice Index)
89. Fish – Showing the probability of occurrence and observations for fish
species – from Atlantic cod to Walleye Pollock. (Commission for the
Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources)

18 | P a g e
90. Arctic Research Projects – Displaying research projects, showing
available data and exploring possible collaborations. (Arctic Research Projects)
91. Arctic Ocean Floor – Sculpting the Arctic Ocean with the sonic depth
finder and discovering dynamic with trenches, ridges and abyssal plains.
92. Arctic’s Geology – Interpreting the geology of the Arctic using enhanced
magnetic data, Landsat imagery and topographic data. (Arctic Geology)
93. COMNAP Facilities – Mapping out the COMNAP facilities in Antarctica
that currently supports a range of scientific research. (COMNAP Facilities)
94. Polar Bear – Keeping counts of the most vulnerable populations of polar
bear (due to climate change) by comparing two satellite images over time.
95. Search and Rescue – Lunging into search and rescue operations using the
Safety and Operability Index which calculates risk based on factors such as sea
ice, visibility, temperature, distance from SAR resources.
96. Environmental Risk – Assessing the environmental vulnerability of
marine resources with respect to oil spill as external stressor.
(Arcti Environmental Risk)
97. Polar Ice Melt – Monitoring the polar ice melt using satellites like GOCE
and GRACE that measures how much mass is on Earth. (GOCE and GRACE
Satellites)
7. Aquatics GIS Applications
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become an integral part
of aquatic science and limnology. Water by its very nature is dynamic.
Features associated with water are thus ever-changing.

19 | P a g e
• To be able to keep up with these changes, technological advancements
have given scientists methods to enhance all aspects of scientific
investigation, from satellite tracking of wildlife to computer mapping of
habitats.
• Agencies like the US Geological Survey, US Fish and Wildlife Service as
well as other federal and state agencies are utilizing GIS to aid in their
conservation efforts.
• GIS is being used in multiple fields of aquatic science
from limnology, hydrology,aquaticbotany, streamecology, oceanography
and marine biology. Applications include using satellite imagery to
identify, monitor and mitigate habitat loss. Imagery can also show the
condition of inaccessible areas.
• Scientists can track movements and develop a strategy to locate locations
of concern. GIS can be used to track invasive species, endangered species,
and population changes.
• Related Book: GIS / Spatial Analyzes in Fishery and Aquatic Sciences By:
Tom Nishida, Patricia J Kailola and Albert E Caton
Download link:
https://www.nhbs.com/gisspatial-analyses-in-fishery-and-aquatic-
sciences-volume-3-book
98. Stream Order – Defining stream size based on a hierarchy of tributaries
the Strahler Index (or Horton-Strahler Index) – an important indicator of
fisheries-and-aquatic-habitat.
99. Fish Habitat Models – Connecting fish species with their habitat using
habitat suitability indexes.
100. Whale Tracking – Stalking pigmy killer, sperm, beaked and false killer
whales in the Pacific Ocean with online mapping applications. (Whale Tracking)
101. Global Shark Tracker – Monitoring sharks recovery rates with acoustic
tags allowing detection in multiple dimensions. (OCEARCH)
102. Fish Eradication – Eradicating Northern pike which negatively affect
local trout fishery and the economy by tracking their movements with GPS.
(Northern Pike Eradication)
103. Spawning Sites – Drawing spawning site boundaries for migratory fish
that are known to release eggs.

20 | P a g e
104. Hydro-Acoustics – Listening to echoes with hydro-acoustics for the
Crean Lake Hydro-Acoustics project – capturing lake depth, fish class, fish stock
numbers, habitat preference related to temperature. (Crean Lake Hydro-
Acoustics)
105. Mercury in Stream – Grasping the origin of mercury – which are
contaminants to fish tissue – by studying the landscape such as soils and humus.
106. Fish Habitat Conservation Areas – Fine-tuning fish habitat
conservation areas by knowing the big picture of fish distribution.
107. Overfishing – Maintaining sustainable fish population levels with
satellite monitoring of sea surface temperature and ocean colors (because they
are indicative of specific fish species).
108. Stress Monitoring – Correlating fish stresses from the local
environment such as heat stress from the removal of trees along a stream.
109. SCIMAP – Identifying locations of diffuse pollution risk for polluted water
and aquatic habitat using SCIMAP. (Diffuse Pollution Risk Mapping)
8. Aviation GIS Applications
• Aviation is one of the biggest beneficiaries of GIS. Geographic
systems are used in various tasks in the airport as well as
management of aircraft.
• The kinds of GIS used in aviation must be very accurate, efficient,
and reliable. It must also work on a real-time base to ensure a
smooth running of the airports and flights at large.

21 | P a g e
• GIS ability to offer distributed and multi-tasking processing enables
various activities to be coordinated all at the same time. This is not
achievable through manual methods.
• Related Book: Use of GIS and Remote Sensing for Aviation &
Navigation By Nishani Cooray , Manjula Ranagalage
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Use-Remote-Sensing-Aviation-
Navigation/dp/3659742074
110. Live Air Traffic – Turning your computer into air traffic control center
using Flight Radar 24. (Flight Radar 24)
111. Airplane Identification – Pointing your phone to the sky and identifying
airplanes above you using Flight Radar 24.
112. World’s Busiest Airports – Surfing the world’s top 25 busiest airports
with the Esri Global Crossroads Story Map. (World’s Busiest Airports)
113. Voronoi Diagram – Discovering that Mataveri Airport in Easter Island is
the most remote airport in the world with the Voronoi airport proximity map.
(Voronoi Diagram)
114. Obstruction Evaluation – Securing safe take-offs and landings with the
Federal Aviation Agency’s (FAA) vertical obstruction database
115. Flight Path – Simulating flight paths integrated with elevation data,
imagery and other spatial data using Falcon View.
116. Search for Flight MH370 – Crowd-sourcing the search for flight MH370
with satellite imagery provided by DigitalGlobe.
117. Airspace Builder – Visualizing the air available to aircraft to fly in with
3D volumes using NASA’s World Wind. (NASA World Wind)
118. Air Traffic Control – Fine-tuning air traffic control with a common
operational picture for security vulnerability and land use permitting.
119. Drone No-fly Zones – Delineating drone no-fly zones where it’s illegal
to fly such as near airports and military bases.
120. Aeronautical Charts – Scouting out best routes, safe altitudes and
navigation aids in the sky with aeronautical charts.

22 | P a g e
121. Runway Approach Zone Encroachment – Pinpointing obstructions in
the approach zone of a runway using detailed elevation data to ensure no
collisions FAA Safety Analysis.
122. Airport Sound Exposure – Assessing the relationship between aircraft-
generated noise levels and land uses, noise receptors, and demographics in the
airport environs.
123. Fly Through – Cruising the high altitudes with interactive 3D viewing and
fly-throughs with Landserf. (Landserf)
124. Flight Simulator – Becoming a pilot in the cockpit with three-
dimensional perspective views of an area by combined with elevation and
imagery.(OnlineFlightSimulator)
125. Air Space Review – Automating the dissemination and portrayal of
Special Activity Airspace information via OGC Web Services. (Envitia Special Air
Space)
9. Automobile Integration GIS Applications
• Transportation data is usually associated with spatial data, like traffic
counts from particular sites, the traffic volumes along particular roads or
links, etc. (Taylor et al, 2000).
• Geographical Information System (GIS) can be used as a database for
storing transportation data. The primary advantage of using GIS as a
database for transportation data is the fact that GIS can integrate the
spatial data and display the attribute data in a user-chosen format.

23 | P a g e
• The Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely being used as a tool for
collecting the spatial data. Systems which chiefly use GPS as a spatial data
source for a GIS are called as GPS-GIS integrated systems.
• Today vehicles are increasing rapidly on roads and today’s modern
infrastructure consists roads and bridges. Usually, for location
analysis, the need of the Internet is there, but when it comes to
GIS, it becomes wider. GIS gives many facilities like real time
navigation, traffic control, and routing.
• Related Book: GIS-Based Modal Model of Automobile Exhaust Emissions
by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Based-Modal-Automobile-Exhaust-
Emissions/dp/1288825293
126. Toyota Vehicle Crowd Sourcing – Piecing together hyper-precise and
up-to-date maps using Toyota vehicle’s GPS and camera.
127. In-Vehicle Usage – Monitoring driving habits like speed, sudden
acceleration and pushing hard on the brakes for insurance underwriting.
128. GeoFencing – Immobilizing cross border travel with geofencing (virtual
barriers) – perfect for car sharing and rental programs. (To Geofence or not)
129. Self-Driving Vehicles – Sitting back and relaxing while Google’s
autonomous car does all the work equipped with LiDAR, GPS, an inertial unit and
sophisticated software. (Google’s Self-Driving Car)
130. GPS Receivers – Nurturing mapping technology as it’s almost standard
to have a GPS receiver and a monitor with all the latest maps.
131. Waze Real-Time Driving – Saving time and money on your commute as
drivers share real-time traffic information and road alerts with each other with
Waze. (Waze Live Map)
132. Estimated Travel Time – Locking in your destination and getting live
updates for estimated travel time.
133. Morgan Freeman’s Voice – Enjoying the calm, soothing voice of
Morgan Freeman as he delivers directions from your GPS navigation system.
(Morgan Freeman GPS)

24 | P a g e
10. Banking GIS Applications
• GIS can help in banking sectors various functional areas by providing
support in decision-making and strategic planning of the Business and
consumer. Effective resource management and operations management
can possible by adopting GIS in banking sector.
• A Geographic Information System (GIS) can be used effectively in
the banking and financial sector to make banks and financial institutions
more successful in sales and marketing, regulatory compliance, business
continuity planning, and service location and site evaluation.
• For More Information: https://www.igismap.com/gis-in-banking-sector/
134. Market Share – Examining branch locations, competitor locations and
demographic characteristics to identify areas worthy of expansion or determine
market share.
135. ATM Machine – Filling in market and service gaps by understanding
where customers, facilities, and competitors are with address locating,
database-management-and-query-tools.
136. World Bank Economic Statistics – Slicing and dicing raw financial
data from the World Bank. (World Bank Data)
137. Merger and Acquisitions – Profiling and finding opportunities to gain
and build where customers are with market profiling
138. Supply and Demand – Identifying under-served areas and analyzing
your-competitor’s-market.
139. Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) – Fulfilling the obligations to
loan in areas with particular attention to low- and moderate-income households
– using GIS to understand spatial demographics. (Bank of America-uses-
MapInfo-for-CRA)

25 | P a g e
140. Mobile Banking – Capturing locations where existing mobile transaction
occur and assisting in mobile security infrastructure.
11. Business & Commerce GIS Applications
• GIS, like many other industries, has found its way in business as well.
There are various aspects of the business and corporate world where
GIS has found meaning.
• GIS can keep track of where customers are located, site business,
target marketing campaigns, and optimize sales territories and
model retail spending patterns.
• Below are some of the applications of this very interesting invention
in the field of business. GIS is used for managing business
information based on its location.
• Related Book: Geographical information systems in business By James
Pick
Download Link:
https://www.igi-global.com/book/geographic-information-systems-
business/414
141. Fleet Management – Staying in route and solving scheduling problems
with fleet management.
142. Augmented Reality – Augmenting reality with commercial use in mind
– such as advertising and restaurant reviews. (Google Glass)
143. Direct Marketing – Revitalizing selling strategies by reaching out to
customers directly with locational intelligence.
144. Drive-Time Analysis – Determining a trade area based on how long a
customer must drive to get to the store – factoring in street speed limits, traffic
volumes-and-other-impedance.

26 | P a g e
145. Internet of Things – Improving efficiency, accuracy and economic
benefit through a network of physical objects such as devices, vehicles, buildings
and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network
connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange information with
oneanother.
146. Market Share Analysis – Optimizing the locations of facilities so the
allocated demand is maximized in the presence of competitors using tools like
location-allocation-in-ArcGIS.(Location-Allocation-Tool)
147. Nearest Location – Resolving the nearest gas station, restaurants or
coffee shop using GPS-based positioning and geocoded business data.
148. Property Appraisal – Appraising residential properties using Census
data and finding your property online through interactive property assessment
viewers.
149. Internet Geocoding – Mapping and analyzing user generated geocoded
data to get a glimpse of what internet users (in the aggregate) think about
particularplaces.
150. Geocoding Businesses – Pinpointing anything to everything from
restaurants, banks and donut shops with a list of addresses.
151. Reverse Geocoding – Geocoding in reverse; taking locations from a
map-and-listing-their-addresses.
152. Daytime Population – Marketing products effectively with detailed
daytime population demographics for an area reflecting who works in that area
as-opposed-to-residential-demographics.
153. Local Advertising – Advertising through social, local and mobile
mediums through location and making presence more known.
154. Tax Havens – Sheltering tax through tax havens then putting it all on a
map. (Open Corporates)
155. GeoBranding – Increasing credibility and increasing sales with
prospective clients, vendors and media by conveying complex data to increase
sales.
156. Desire Lines – Plotting desire lines showing stores that serves customer
(Origin and Destination – QGIS Oursins Plugin)

27 | P a g e
157. Commercial Establishments – Updating commercial establishment
using gvSIG Mobile and a local databases. (Commercial Establishment Database)
158. Supply Chain – Finding which supply chains are vulnerable to better plan
for-interruptions-(Boundless-Supply-Chain)
159. Integrated Freight Network Model – Integrating highly detailed
information about shipping costs, transfer costs, traffic volumes and network
interconnectivity properties in a GIS-based platform. (Integrated Freight
NetworkModel)
160. Capital Projects – Listing all the capital projects with different stages of
completion.
161. Gravity Models – Determining the likelihood of customers patronizing a
particular store based on the store’s proximity, competition, and other factors.
162. Employee Travel Times – Modelling travel times in urban networks for
employee-travel-times.
163. Store Openings – Historicizing a company’s store openings. (IKEA Store
Openings)
164. Foursquare – Recommending 50 million users search for restaurants,
recommend bars, and check-in around the world with a Mapbox custom
brandedmap.(Foursquare)
165. Infrastructure Expansion – Comparing historical data to current
conditions with satellite data from Astro Digital.
12. Consumer GIS Applications

28 | P a g e
166. Data Analytics – Analyzing location-based information to reveal
relationship between individuals, families, and communities, and the
Environment-in-which-they-live.
167. Huff Model – Calculating sales potential based on the Huff Model – an
interaction model measuring the probabilities of consumers at each origin
location patronizing a new store instead of other stores.
168. Consumer Profiling – Optimizing consumer profiling with location-
based information on age, ethnicity, education, housing and more.
169. Retail Customer Segmentation – Segmenting markets by customer
prototypes-to-improve-the-effectiveness-of-campaigns.
170. Buying Behavior – Correlating unthinkable variables like weather and
location with buying behaviors to find sales opportunities.
171. Retail Store Movement – Detailing how customers move through
retail stores, what they bought, rejected and looked at.
172. Real-Time Gas Prices – Crowdsourcing gas price updates at various gas
stations on or along a route. (Waze Crowdsourced Gas Prices)
173. Store Placement – Guiding the placement of new stores by studying
disposable income, population, or other variables to best serve the population.
13. Climate Change GIS Applications
• GIS technology is useful for environment understanding, in strategic
decision making and climate change monitoring also important in
predictions of disaster risks in forest and agriculture sectors.

29 | P a g e
• Worldwide scientists, researchers, different policymakers rely on
scientific analysis of GIS data and its database management functionality.
• GIS professional’s with varied expertise, knowledge, and having
experience of best practices for implementing this advanced technology
to climate change monitoring, carbon management, in disaster
management.
• This valuable technology is important for identification of current and
future risks and vulnerabilities of climate change, and so it is helpful for
design and implementation adaptation operations.
• Related book: Geospatial Technologies and Climate Change
By Sundaresan, J., Santosh, K.M., Déri, A., Roggema, R., Singh, R. (Eds.)
Download link:
174. Sea Level Rise – Collecting data to study sea level rise and climate change
from Jason-3 satellite. (Climate Central)
175. NASA Earth Observatory – Exploring the causes and effects of climate
change of our atmosphere, oceans, land and life through the use of satellite
data. (NASA Earth Observatory)
176. Climate Change Skeptics – Turning skeptics into believers. Maps make
climate change findings easier for skeptics to understand and accept. (Climate
Viewer)
177. Earth Interactions – Modelling vegetation, atmospheric, rainfall and
ecosystems-to-study-their-interactions-simultaneously
178. County Climate – See for yourself how average maximum temperature
rises/falls in each county in the United States. (County Climate)
179. Desertification – Understanding the underlying causes of desertification
such as inappropriate agriculture practices, deforestation and drought.
180. Land Surface Temperature Change – Using map algebra to see how land
surface temperature changes year-by-year. (Land Surface Temperature)
181. Piecing Together the Climate Change Puzzle – Combining various climate
change data sets from various sources – for example relating land practices with
atmosphere-aerosols.(ArcGIS-Online)

30 | P a g e
182. Pollution Modelling – Mapping air pollution sources and impacts on
environment and people.
183. Google Planetary Engine – Seeing with your own two eyes the alarming
changes of our planet. (Google Planetary Engine)
184. Bird Risk and Richness – Studying the effects of shrinking habitats on bird
populations in the world. (Audubon)
185. Carbon Sequestration – Deferring global warming through carbon
sequestration through location-based carbon management systems.
186. Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification – Modelling observed and projected
climate change scenarios with variables such as population growth, economic
development and varying energy use and technological innovations.
187. Smog – Squinting your eyes to see through all of that smog. (Mapbox
Smog from Space)
88. Temperature Change – Measuring the effects of greenhouse gases being
the main culprit of temperature change by mapping temperature at levels
above the Earth’s surface.
189. Climate Change Design – Redesigning to accommodate climate change
and pinpointing those locations needed most.
190. Land Change Modeller – Simplifying innovative land planning and decision
support with IDRISI’s Land Change Modeler. It includes special tools for the
assessment of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation) climate change mitigation strategies.
191. Vegetation Indices – Using remote sensing vegetation indices like NDVI,
CTVI, NRVI and PVI to monitor vegetation change throughout time.
14. Crime GIS Applications

31 | P a g e
• Crime activities are very saddening for most people. Most citizens usually
depend on government support to ensure security for them.
• Due to this expectation, the government must do all that it can to help
protect its citizens from crime.
• Many governments have therefore adopted digital systems for crime
control, prevention, and investigation. GIS is one of the information
systems implemented to help curb crime.
• Related Book: GIS Tutorial for Crime Analysis (GIS Tutorials) 2nd Edition
By Wilpen L. Gorr , Kristen S. Kurland, Zan M. Dodson
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Tutorial-Crime-Analysis-
Tutorials/dp/158948214X
192. Crime Patterns – Responding to crimes with a data-driven approach and
deliver tailored responses through rapid deployment of personnel and
resources. (Spillman CompStat)
193. Incident Map – Keeping the community safer by streaming visual
mediums for arson, assault, burglary, homicide, prostitution, robbery, theft, and
vandalism-in-a-city.
194. Auto Theft and Recovery – Tracking auto theft with GPS-enabled
vehicles.
195. Sex Offenders – Tracking past criminal offenders with GPS movement
patterns in relationship to schools and other entities.
196. Emergency Calls and Dispatch – An emergency call starts and ends at
a location. GIS can manage both 911 calls and dispatching units to precise
locations.(Zetron-Computer-Aided-Dispatch)
197. Law Enforcement Operations – Allocating and dispatching police
officers where it’s needed most by studying crime activities.
198. Unlawful Landlords – Capturing thermal signatures of illegal tenants in
sheds because renting out sheds is illegal in London, England. (Pitney Bowes
Crime-Solution)
199. Predictive Policing – Patrolling Mapping clusters of burglaries or other
crimes assigning more police in those locations using heat maps or Getis-Ord
General G and point patterns.

32 | P a g e
200. Missing Body Search – Narrowing down the search of a missing by
finding subtle terrain anomalies in the ground using LiDAR.
201. Megan’s Law – Obeying the requirement for local law enforcement
agencies to notify residents about the presence of certain sex offenders in their
area by only contacting a buffered area of the offender’s residence.
202. Forensic GIS – Applying science and geographic information for the
investigating of a crime – such as using GPS-recorded information in vehicles to
prove the location at the scene of a crime. (Forensic GIS – The Role of Geospatial
Technologies for Investigating Crime and Providing Evidence)
203. GeoEvent Notification – Avoiding high-crime areas with geofencing
when delivering high-valued goods.
204. Extra Penalties – Dishing out extra penalties to criminals if convicted of
selling drugs within a specified distance of a school property.
205. Illegal Smuggling – Monitoring cross-border smuggling activity by
placing a GPS on a vehicle with a warrant to do so.
206. Fear of Crime – Interviewing individuals for fear of crime using GPS-
enabled-mobile-computing.
207. Geographic Profiling – Using a connected series of crimes to determine
the most probabilistic location of a criminal offender or offense – useful for
finding-serial-criminals.
208. Stalking – Abusing GPS technology by stalking with a GPS receiver. A
GPS jammer prevents positional monitoring.
209. First Response – Getting to a crime scene quicker with all the critical
information needed in the field. (Adashi Incident Command Software)
210. Traffic Violations – Collecting and mapping traffic incident to assess if
units should be spread out or concentrated in certain locations.
211. Open Air Drug Markets – Uncovering relationship between crimes and
the location of open air drug markets based on analogous crimes throughout
other-communities
212. Ankle Monitor – Homing in on those under house arrest or parole. GPS
bracelets only have value if you know where they are going.

33 | P a g e
15. Defense/Military GIS Applications
• Since the beginning of civilization on the planet earth, Military forces
have played a dominant role. Mankind has since time immemorial
has a fetish for warfare and this continues till today.
• Only methods have changed with technology used in warfare, which
is changing rapidly with technological revolution, which has not only
changed the way wars are fought but has become a key factor in
attaining dominance in military power.
• The military has continued to implement processes and technology
that would advance their military prowess during wartime with
limited causalities and minimum costs. Below are some of the
applications of GIS in the military.
• Related Book: Military Geoscience By Peter L. Guth
Download link:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-32173-4
213. Augmented Reality Sandtable (ARES) – Improving battlespace
visualization with projected GIS data on a sandtable. (Augmented Reality)
214. Terrorism Search – Finding terrorist using remote sensing imagery with
biogeographic theory (distance-decay theory and island biogeography-theory).
215. Anti-aircraft – Answering anti-aircraft gun reach using 3D dome layers
to avoid dangerous airspace (Anti-aircraft)
216. Safe Landings– Parachuting from the skies safely by evaluation the
underlying surroundings of the area.

34 | P a g e
217. Intelligence Data Integration – Overlaying accurate geographic data
for battlefield application and make life saving decisions
218. Combat Flight Planning Software (CFPS) – Previewing combat
routes, weapon delivery and air drop planning in Falcon View. (Falcon View)
219. Reconnaissance Satellites – Spying on enemies with satellites – from
Corona in 1959 to the tiny CubeSat’s being used today.
220. Base Construction Planning – Constructing a base site without it being
visible from nearby major roads using the 3D skyline tool.
221. GEOINT – Revealing human activity through the use of geospatial
investigation-and-ultraviolet-to-microwave-imagery.
222. Military Simulation – Simulating ground vehicle in a highly realistic
virtual world.
223. US Army Corps of Engineers – Delivering vital public and military
engineering services keeping geospatial information in mind. (US Army Corps of
Engineers)
224. Pigeon Mapping – Spying on enemies in World War II with the Bavarian
Pigeon-Corps–a-flock-of-pigeons-equipped-with-cameras.
225. Chokepoint – Safeguarding chokepoints like bridges or dams where
critical infrastructure converge – explosions here would cause multiple effects.
226. Bird Strike – Flying safely through the Bird Avoidance Model (BAM) – a
temporal raster grids equal to the sum of the mean bird mass for all species
present.
227. Uranium Depletion – Mapping depleted uranium and preventing it
from getting into the wrong hands.
228. President Assassination – Preventing assassinations by understanding
the logistics of a past one. (Assassination Prevention)
229. Mobile Command Modeling – Setting up shop by finding the most
optimal-mobile-command-location.
230. Common Operating Picture – Getting everyone on the same page with
a-Common-Operating-Picture.

35 | P a g e
231. Military Mission Planning – Increasing operational awareness to
helicopter pilots through 3D for conducting ingress and egress movement.
232. Locational Intelligence – Creating safety and danger areas for ground-
to-ground weapons (Surface Danger Zones) and air-to-ground Weapon Danger
Zone.(Range-Management-Toolkit(RMTK))
233. United Nations Peacekeeping – Peacekeeping by means of having
the geographic necessary for humanitarian aid, developing peace in war-torn
countries and providing the necessary support.
234. Critical Features – Identifying threats to homeland security by collecting
knowledge-of-the-built-and-cultural-environments.
235. Tactical Planning – Deploying troops and military equipment to combat
zones intelligently by searching compressed and quick-loading reconnaissance
imagery.
236. Motion Video – Capturing georeferenced video to assess anything such
as operational status of an industrial plant, bomb damage on a target or length
of a runway. (GeoMedia Motion Video Analyst)
237. Homeland Security – Addressing vulnerabilities and formulating
preparedness measures in case of terrorism and emergency situations.
238. Virtual Reality – Simulating military and training in a 3D environment
using GIS data.
239. Attack Modelling – Modeling a potential attack to legitimize the needs
and have policy makers truly understand the consequences of an attack with
preparedness-expenditures.
240. Helicopter Landing – Inventorying potential landing zones to
helicopters-unseen,unheard-and-on-flat-terrain.
241. Guard Posting – Posting armed guards in optimal locations to eliminate
chokepoints.
242. 3D Fences – Building security fences with post interval and number of
wires/boards with heights in a 3D GIS environment.
243. War Maps – Familiarizing oneself with the enemy defenses and territory
by-mapping-strategic-attacks.

36 | P a g e
244. World Trade Center – Responding to terrorist attacks including real-
time data delivery, victim tracking, facility and resource vulnerability, data
availability, implementation, environmental exposure and air monitoring
(World-Trade-Center-GIS-Response)
245. Georeferenced Video – Cataloging and retrieving full motion video
using the ArcGIS Full Motion Video Add-In or Hexagon Geospatial GeoMedia
Motion-GeoVideo-Analyst.
246. Detecting IED – Monitoring disturbed surfaces one day to next to find
Improvised Explosive Devices
247. Logistics – Responding to military and security decisions with timely
logistics and support.
248. Camouflage Detection – Carrying out early reconnaissance missions
during war using near-infrared.
249. Military Grid Reference System – Locating points on the Earth with
from three parts – grid zone designator, square identifier and numerical
location.
16. Disaster GIS Applications
• All disasters are spatial in nature. GIS techniques act as a decision support
tool. Decision making can possible by analysis of different GIS layers..
Various departments and agencies who are stakeholders using GIS in the
disaster management process.
• Evolution of computer technology and availability of hardware is helpful
for rapid expansion of GIS in both disaster research and practice. GIS is
useful for hazard zone mapping and during emergency conditions
mitigation of people can easily possible using this maps.

37 | P a g e
• GIS and RS much beneficial in mitigation strategies and preparedness
plans. Real time geographic data can improve the allocation of resources
for response.
• GIS technologies is much useful in modeling of disaster risks and human
adaptations to hazards. It is also provides decision support system in
disaster management.
• Related Book: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Disaster
Management By Brian Tomaszewski
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Geographic-Information-Systems-Disaster-
Management/dp/1482211688
250. Richter Scale – Depicting earthquakes on a 3D globe like spikes on a
porcupine for each reading on the Richter scale. (3D Richter Scale Map)
251. Shared Operations – Responding to disasters with quickness and
reliability using a Common Operating Picture and cloud services (Cloud GIS for
Disaster-Monitoring)
252. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – Buffering a radius of 18.6 miles (30 km)
which is now known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
253. Landslide Vulnerability – Dodging landslides with relief maps and 3D
analysis.
254. Hurricane Response – Sidestepping the threat of hurricanes by tracking
historical hurricane paths and through better disaster response/assistance.
255. Earthquake Prediction – Obtaining earthquake signatures measuring
subduction events with GRACE satellite and the geoid. (Earthquake Prediction)
256. Coastal Surges – Estimating risk in three steps using HAZUS software by
FEMA.
257. Citizen Alert – Guaranteeing protection of citizens by delivering geo-
targeted alerts on mobile. (FME Server Real-Time Earthquake Reporting)
258. What-if Scenarios – Determining higher likelihood events based on
historical data and spatial analysis.
259. Evacuation – Evaluating evacuation capabilities neighborhoods may
face and generating effective design.

38 | P a g e
260. Oil Spill – Degreasing oil spills by identifying current direction and rate
of oil movement.
261. Tornado Warning Siren – Safeguarding residents with effective siren
coverage in tornado alley. (Tornado Warning Siren Modelling)
262. Fire Severity – Prioritizing prevention and planning efforts during forest
fires.
263. Flood Forecasting – Simulating with stream discharge hydrographs
with variations of water over time.
264. Tornado Alley – Finding patterns of historical tornadoes in Tornado
Alley.
265. Avalanche Modeling – Uncovering areas prone to avalanches by
assessing high slopes with sparse vegetation for residential planning, ski resorts
and-highway-safety-planning.
266. Tsunami Damage – Identifying high risk areas for tsunami damage
267. Emergency Shelter – Allocating emergency shelter at time of disaster
268. Consequences Assessment Tool Set (CATS) – Analyzing damage to
the environment, the exposed population, and provides real-time resource
allocation-information-to-mitigate-the-consequences.
269. Vulnerability to Natural Hazards – Deselecting hazard-prone land
for more resilient communities through smart land planning.
270. Search and Rescue – Rescuing missing persons drones using small,
highly maneuverable unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).
271. Volcanic Ash – Rendering volcanic ash clouds in 3D for their dispersion
of spillages underwater.
272. Earthquake Epicenter/Hypocenter – Establishing the epicenter,
hypocenters, faults and lineaments, radius and frequency of earthquakes.
273. Volcano Activity – Monitoring thermal emission from the volcano’s
summit in Iceland using Landsat’s Thermal Infrared.
274. Disaster Warning – Alerting citizens before a large-scale earthquake
happens with a new generation of inter-operable early warning systems for
multiple hazards. (DEWS – Distant Early Warning System for Tsunamis – uDig)

39 | P a g e
275. Earthquake Assistance – Assisting in the aftermath of the massive
Ecuador earthquake by listing “Safe Place” locations from government listings.
(Waze Community Assistance)
276. Disaster Debris – Estimating debris amounts to better prepare and
respond to a major debris generating event.
277. Earthquake-Landslide Susceptibility – Mapping the susceptibility of
earthquake induced landslides using an artificial neural networks and factors
such as slope, aspect, curvature and distance from drainage. (Earthquake-
Landslide Susceptibility Using Neural Networks)
17. Ecology GIS Applications
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become a useful tool in the
field of landscape ecology.
• A common application of GIS is the generation of landscape indicators,
which are quantitative measurements of the status or potential health of
an area (e.g. ecological region, watershed or county).
• With the increase in available landscape data from satellite imagery and
public agencies (most notably the USGS), GIS has become irreplaceable in
the spatial analyzes performed in conservation biology.
• Related Book: GIS For Ecology By Richard Wadsworth , Jo Treweek
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Ecology-Introduction-Richard-
Wadsworth/dp/0582246520
278. Telemetry – Collecting GPS locations from collared mammals for the
purpose of storing, displaying and analyzing their coordinates.

40 | P a g e
279. Habitat Suitability – Factoring in all the variables to understand the
habitat that animals select and avoid using linear regression.
280. Land Facet Corridor Analysis – Identifying linkages between wildlife
and landscapes. (Land Facet Corridor Analysis)
281. Landscape Fragmentation Tools (LFT) – Classifying land cover types
into forest fragmentation categories – patch, edge, perforated, and core.
(Landscape Fragmentation Tools LFT)
282. Migration Patterns – Simulating the East African wildebeest migration
patterns for the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem in East Africa.
283. Path Metrics – Calculates turn angles, step lengths, bearings, time
intervals for a point time series dataset using GME. (Geospatial Modelling
Environment-GME)
284. DNA Traits – Mapping the richness, distribution and diversity of
organisms on the landscape based on molecular marker (DNA).
285. Surui Tribe – Equipping the Surui tribe with geo-tagging equipment to
put an end to the deforestation and cultural devastation in their section of the
Brazilian rain forest. (Surui Tribe)
286. Species Biodiversity – Gauging over time a decrease in biodiversity or
an abundance of species using temporal GIS. (Refractions Biodiversity BC)
287. Honey Bees – Stimulating spatial thinking processes by analyzing
relationships between environmental characteristics and honey bee health and
abundance (GIS Honey Bee Research)
288. Elk Ranges – Estimating an average home range for an entire herd of
mammals using the Minimum Convex Polygon in Hawth’s Tools.
289. Anthropogenic Disturbances – Understanding the effects of
transmission line construction by monitoring mammals with helicopter surveys.
Get to the choppa!
290. Migratory Birds – Cross-referencing telemetry GPS migratory (Osprey)
bird locations with Langley Air Force Base flying operations in an effort to reduce
an aircraft strike. (NASA Langley Research – Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard)

41 | P a g e
291. Shannon’s H Diversity Index – Measuring mathematically species
diversity and richness in a community.
292. Microclimates – Analyzing exposure to sunlight with aspect data as an
indication of microclimates and species occurrence.
293. Topographic Ruggedness Index – Estimating terrain heterogeneity
which is useful for predicting which habitats are used by species
294. De-Extinction – Bringing extinct species back to life and marking their
previous habitats – like the passenger pigeon from 5 billion birds to zero in a
couple of decades.
295. Sky View – Maximizing the portion of visible sky and understanding
potential forest habitat.
296. FragStats – Computing a wide variety of landscape metrics for categorical
map patterns. (FragStats)
297. Topographic Position Index – Classifying the landscape into slope
position and land-form category
298. Global Ecology Land Units – Characterizing distinct physical
environments and associated land cover of global ecosystems (USGS). (Global
Ecology Land Units)
299. Biogeography – Studying ecosystems in geographic space and through
(geological) time along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation
area.
300. Species Modelling – Running the Maximum Entropy Model (MAXENT).
(QGIS Species Distribution Modelling (QSDM) plugin)
301. Flocking Birds – Mimicking flocking birds in a system of interactive
parts using Agent Based Modeling. (NetLogo Flocking Birds)
302. Risk of Extinction – Describing existing conditions of habitat and
predicting risk of extinctions, chance of recovery and mitigation measures – such
as prohibiting hunting.
303. Habitat Priority Planner – Prioritizing conservation, restoration, and
planning through NOAA’s Habitat Priority Planner. (Habitat Priority Planner)

42 | P a g e
304. DNA Barcoding – Attaching a specific location when barcoding life.
Smithsonian Institution national Museum of Natural History – (DNA Barcoding
–NaturalHistory)
305. Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) – Assisting conservationists
worldwide through community involvement and for the conservation of natural
resources and cultural heritage. (SCGIS)
306. Sanctuary Ecologically Significant Areas – Delineating remarkable,
representative and/or sensitive marine habitats, communities and ecological
processes as SESAs. (Sanctuary Ecological Significant Areas)
307. Mammal Magnetic Alignment – Discovering how deer can sense
magnetism through satellite image analysis and field observations of body
alignments of deer beds in snow. (Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 2008)
308. Sustainable Populations Counts – Counting polar bears and their
geographic distribution analyzing two satellite images over time.
309. Crocodile Eggs – Monitoring in real-time factors like temperature and
humidity for crocodile eggs. (Crocodile Eggs Real-Time Monitoring)
310. Into the Okavango – Trekking the Okavango in a journal style map – the
world’s last great wetland wildernesses and UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Into
the Okavango)
311. World Animal Protection – Becoming more resilient from future
disasters. (World Animal Protection)
312. Linear Directional Mean – Determining the trend for the movement
of elk and moose in a stream valley could calculate the directional trend of
migration routes for the two species.
313. Wa-Tor Predator-Prey Simulation – Simulating ecological predator-
prey populations with randomness and rule-based responses.
314. Golden Eagle Tracking – Tracking Golden eagle populations using a
Biodiversity Tracking System in Manifold GIS.
315. Ecological Barrier – Marking physically isolated barriers between
species.

43 | P a g e
316. Earth Trends Modeler – Assessing long term climate trends, measuring
seasonal trends in phenology, and decomposing image time series to seek
recurrent patterns in space and time in IDRISI TerraSet.
317. Geotagging Photos – Specifying wildlife photo locations through
geotagging and streamlining the importing process with ArcPhoto.
18. Economics GIS Applications
• GIS can map economic data with a spatial component, generate
additional spatial data as inputs to statistical analysis, calculate distances
between features of interest and define neighbourhoods around
objects. GIS also introduce economics to new data.
• For example, remote sensing provides large amounts of data on the
earth’s surface. These data are of inherent interest, but can also provide
an exogenous source of variation and allow the construction of
innovative instrumental variables.
• GIS is the spatial equivalent of a spreadsheet. Many of the most routine
problems that arise in economic development analysis can be done better
and more quickly with GIS than without it—and some problems can only
be solved with GIS.
• Related Book: Economic Development and GIS by J. M. Pogodzinski and
Richard M. Kos, AICP
Download link:
https://www.esri.com/news/releases/12-4qtr/new-book-from-esri-
press-advances-gis-for-economic-development.html

44 | P a g e
318. Spatial Econometrics – Intersecting spatial analysis with economics.
(GeoDa)
319. World Economic Outlook – Projecting the future economy and key
macroeconomic indicators with the World Economic Outlook – IMF (World
Economic-Outlook)
320. Goods Flow – Illustrating the flow of people or goods from point to point
based on values with desire lines.
321. Globalization – Measuring the degree and extent of economic
globalization using international trade data through time.
322. The Thünen Model – Distributing the production themselves in space
incorporating costs of transport and factor mobility.
323. Economic Freedom – Mapping economic freedom throughout the
world – an annual guide published by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage
Foundation (Economic Freedom Heat Map)
324. Geographic Portfolio – Diversifying your stock portfolio geographically
for different countries and stock markets of the world.
325. Global Trade – Exporting goods start at a location and ends up in
another.
326. Geographic Innovation Index – Investigating the relations between
geographic proximity to innovation resources and stock returns. (Geographic
Innovation Index)
327. Economic Base Indicator – Viewing economic indicators for business,
industry and demography based on radial, drive and proximity.
328. Thematic Mapping – Portraying economic data like unemployment and
labor information in time-series thematic maps because maps speak to people
329. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – Carving out boundaries for sovereign
rights regarding the exploration of marine resources below the surface of the
sea
330. Gross Domestic Product – Creating continuous area cartograms.
(Cartogram QGIS Plugin)

45 | P a g e
331. Global Transition to a New Economy – Prioritizing human well-being
through a crowd-sourced sustainable projects map. (Global Transition to a New
Economy)
332. Trade Area – Delineating the geographic area where a certain
percentage of a store’s customers live.
333. Economic Costs of Pollution – Assessing greener growth options and
the costs of pollution in India by understanding the current state of environment
degradation.
19. Education GIS Applications
• GIS education occurs in both formal and informal learning settings. In
more formal settings GIS is taught in schools, at technical colleges,
universities, libraries, museums, arboreta, and other educational
institutions.
• Teaching with GIS is emphasized at the elementary and secondary level
where GIS is increasingly used to teach concepts and skills in earth
science, geography, chemistry, biological science, history, and
mathematics courses.
• Currently GIS dominates at the university level, where courses in GIS
methods and theory are taught in geography, engineering, business,
environmental studies, geology, and other disciplines.
• Many major universities and community colleges in the United States
offer some type of GIS education.
• Finally, GIS is used as a fundamental research tool in institutes of higher
education for geography, demography, geology, and other disciplines.

46 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS for Education By ESRI
Download Link:
http://www.esri.com/library/bestpractices/education.pdf
334. Campus Navigation – Navigate through a university campus with online
mapping applications
335. Neogeography – Opening the floodgates for individuals to create their
own maps, on their own terms and by combining elements of an existing toolset
336. Projection Art – Investigating our Earth by understanding map
projections. (National Geographic – Projection Art)
337. Macroscope – Seeing through the macroscope – our earth as a whole
rather than be taken apart In their constituents. (Macroscope)
338. Bus Services – Assessing which addresses in proximity to a school are
eligible for busing.
339. Safe Routes to School Mapping Toolkit – Deciding the safest route
to school.
340. Geospatial Revolution – Captivating audiences with the Penn State
Geospatial Revolution
341. Cartographic Modelling – Using map algebra to depict the
relationships of transportation and geography on access to adult literacy centers
in Philadelphia.
20. Energy GIS Applications

47 | P a g e
• GIS is a valuable tool that helps in the planning organizing and subsequent
growth in the energy and utilities industries. The effective management
of energy systems is a complex challenge.
• GIS has enormous potential for planning, design and maintenance of
facility. Also it provide improved services and that too cost effectively.
• In the energy sector, GIS is used to assist with the siting of new generation
facilities, help determine the optimum route for new transmission and
distribution lines, to determine demographic changes as part of long-
range planning, and to develop emergency evacuation plans around
nuclear-generating facilities.
• With GIS technology and mapping, policymakers and planning
commissions can more easily determine the right location for
renewable energy. This is because GIS allows for deep analysis of wind
potential, solar potential, distance to cities, population size, and type of
land cover.
• Related Book: Assessment of Energy Sources Using GIS by Lubos
Matejicek
Download link:
https://www.amazon.in/Assessment-Energy-Sources-Using-
GIS/dp/3319526936
342. Nuclear Power Risk – Conceptualizing nuclear power plant radioactive
release with evacuation time and population exposed.
343. Marine Renewable Energy – Seeing the ocean of information with
wave heights and wind for electric dam selection.
344. Concession – Putting concession licenses that give a company the right
to drill for oil or gas and exploratory drilling boreholes on a map.
345. World Power Types – Seeing how much of the world is being powered
by fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable sources. (What Powers the World?)
346. Nuclear Waste Site Selection – Safeguarding people with proper
nuclear waste disposal
347. Water Yields and Scarcity – Estimating water yields and scarcity at a
sub-watershed level to calculate hydroelectric potential to the year 2100. Water
Scarcity with Ecosystem Services Modeler IDRISI – The Ecosystem Services
Modeler (ESM)

48 | P a g e
348. Access Limitation – Calculating access limitations for building like slope
being a major factor for getting wagons up the hill to the site.
349. Coal Stockpiles – Capturing satellite imagery of frequent shots of open
pit mines and resource stockpiles to better understand how much coal has been
mined each month. (Coal Stockpiles)
350. Shale Gas Plays – Depicting current and prospective shale gas resource
areas in shale basins from the Energy Information Association.
351. Dam Sites Selection – Comparing hypothetical dam sites by potential
water storage to understand how land use/land cover is impacted.
352. Energy Consumption – Drawing out energy capacity and consumption
on a map. (World Energy Consumption Map)
353. Wind Farm Site Selection – Selecting suitable wind farm by
understanding wind power, transmission capacity, road access and developable
land.
354. Turbine Visibility – Discerning visibility of wind for potential changes on
a landscape, such as the effect of adding wind farms, or the addition of a new
building to an urban area.
355. Radar Interference – Calculating potential radar interference and
conflicts between turbines and airport approach/landing surfaces with 3D
analysis.
21. Engineering GIS Applications

49 | P a g e
• (GIS)Geographical Information System is a system anticipated to
capture, analyze, manipulate, store, manage and present every type
of geographical data.
• In construction during the preparatory phase, the issues of spatial
positioning have to be solved cooperatively with the checking of the
purposely and feasibility, the traffic projects are operated out and
the alternative.
• GIS technology is gaining interest from a wide range of civil
engineering disciplines owing to its potential to offer a new way of
resolving environmental difficulties which could reduce costs,
support multi-discipline analysis and improve quality for complex
projects.
• Related Book: GIS, Environmental Modeling and Engineering By Allan
Brimicombe
Download link:
https://www.routledge.com/GIS-Environmental-Modeling-and-
Engineering-2nd-Edition/Brimicombe/p/book/9781439808702
356. Asset Management – Managing infrastructure data maintenance along
with their lifecycle (GeoMedia Asset Management)
357. Building Permits – Helping the user determine whether or not a
requested permit is in an historic district, an aquifer protection district, wetland,
or floodplain.
358. CAD Interoperability – Integrating CAD data (DWG, DXF) into GIS and
vice-versa.
359. Construction Environmental Management Plan – Mitigating the
potential negative impacts of engineering projects by identifying
environmentally sensitive sites and mitigation measures.
360. COGO – Constructing points, spirals, curves and arcs with coordinate
geometry.
361. Real-time Sensors – Monitoring carbon monoxide in real-time with
GeoEvent Extension with set thresholds and alerts (Valarm Monitoring
Company)
362. Augmented Reality – Pulling up engineering diagrams and real-time
sensor networks to view water pressure or amperage. (Augmented Reality)

50 | P a g e
363. Cut & Fill – Carving out 3D cut and fills for major civil engineering projects
such-as-major-road-constructions.
364. Department of Interior – Constructing dams, power plants, and canals
for protecting water and water-related resources in the United States. (Bureau
of-Reclamation)
365. Facility Management – Optimizing energy efficiency with building
automation services for a more comprehensive view of a building.
366. Artificial Dam – Damming a site artificially by raising the elevations along
a dam site using a Euclidean distance grid and map algebra.
367. Development Area – Getting the big picture by tapping into GIS data
like gentle slopes, and closeness to roads.
22. Environment GIS Applications
• GIS is a powerful tool for environmental data analysis and
planning. GIS stores spatial information (data) in a digital
mapping environment.
• A digital basemap can be overlaid with data or other layers of information
onto a map in order to view spatial information and relationships. GIS can
be used most effectively for environmental data analysis and planning.
• GIS helps in identifying the impact of human behavior on natural
resources and leads to more effective utilization of the same.
The major application of GIS in natural resource management is in
confronting environmental issues like a flood, landslide, soil erosions,
drought, earthquake etc.

51 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS for Environmental Applications by Xuan Zhu
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Environmental-Applications-practical-
approach/dp/0415829070
368. Environmental Impact Assessment – Measuring anticipated effects
on the environment of a proposed development project
369. Site Remediation – Removing contamination from a plot of land
detailing risk exposure and an overview with maps.
370. Fire Growth Simulation – Extinguishing fires faster by understand how
they grow in discrete steps bringing together wind, weather and fuel for the fire.
(FireScience-BehavePlus)
371. Surface Water Flow – Characterizing water flow to be identified as
high consequence for oil spill mitigation.
372. Dead Zones – Mapping out dead zones where marine life is unable to
be supported.
373. Canadian Land Inventory – Charting out land capability to sustain
agriculture, forestry and recreation.
374. Non-point Source Pollution – Modelling non-point source pollution
like soil erosion and sedimentation which are often controlled by variables
such as land use/cover, topography, soils and rainfall.
375. Wetland Inventory – Delineating wetlands by types and function.
(National Wetlands Inventory)
376. Invasive Species Modular Dispersal – Modelling the spread of a
species’ population distribution through time occupancy maps (GRASS GIS
Species Dispersal)
377. Storm Water Runoff – Conserving nearby resources such as water and
flora by better managing runoff.
378. Brownfield and Greenfield Sites – Digging up the background
information (Phase 1) and conducting the necessary geo-technical analyses to
explore economic opportunities at brownfield and greenfield sites.
379. Ozone – Motivating the world to do their part by mapping the spatial
distribution of ozone concentrations.

52 | P a g e
380. SWAT Model – Testing the effectiveness of agriculture and
environmental policies for pollution control systems in a given watershed like
the-mwSWAT-Plugin-in-MapWindow
381. Karst – Identifying known cave and karst resources into a sinkhole
digitization database for best interstate alignment selection. (Karst Database)
382. Permafrost – Interpreting permafrost probability in the Yukon. (Yukon
Permafrost Probability Map)
383. Traffic Sign Deterioration – Assessing the effects of air pollutants on
traffic sign deterioration. (Traffic Sign Deterioration)
384. Impoundment Index Tool for Wetlands – Unearthing wetlands with
Impoundment Index Tool to site potential wetland restoration projects, monitor
wetland drainage and model beaver habitat. (Whitebox GAT Impoundment
Index Tool)
23. Forestry GIS Applications
• Human beings have always considered forests as one of the best
renewable sources due to their important role in preserving an
environment that is ideal for life. Over the past fifty years, forest
management is a discipline that has been adopted by most of the
countries across the world.
• Forest management has been the driving force behind economics.
Economics that deals with the measurement of forest growth, volume,
timber harvest, usage and profits.
• Geographical Information System (GIS) is an amazing technology that is
used to create public policies related to forests and environmental
planning. This technology has been responsible for the decision making
processes for a couple of years now.

53 | P a g e
• GIS together with other foresting technologies have helped foresters and
environmentalists to keep clear records regarding forests and make
decisions based on the data obtained. With the rapid advancement of
technology, GIS is becoming popular every passing day due to its immense
benefits on the environment.
• Related Book: REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN FOREST
INVENTORY by Juwairia Mahboob
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/REMOTE-SENSING-APPLICATION-FOREST-
INVENTORY/dp/3639328590
385. Forest Inventory – Prioritizing timber harvesting units by referring to
age class and forest type to better measure timber acreage and average
estimates.
386. Forest Fires – Plotting out forest fires with MODIS. (University of
Maryland-Forest-Fires)
387. Deforestation – Gauging deforestation using land cover change in time.
388. Reforestation – Recharging forests through tree planting planning on a
map.
389. Forest Heights – Measuring tree heights with altimetry and noticing how
trees generally differ 20m with taller ones at the equator. (GLAS Satellite)
390. Vertical Point Profile – Viewing vertical profile of 3D LiDAR points to
better understand tree structure and height. (TNT LiDAR)
391. Cut Lines – Finding cut lines in ortho imagery to find easy access.
392. Tree Lines – Drawing tree lines in the Canadian Arctic.
393. Illegal Logging – Identify potential illegal activity with satellite data.
(Global-Forest-Watch)
394. Forest Carbon Reserves – Sequestering carbon through forest reserves
and-carbon-observed-in-atmosphere.
395. Agent-Based Simulation – Simulating the spread of an agent (like a
fire) triggered by random events (such as lightning) on a raster landscape in
discrete time. (GME Cellular Automata Model)

54 | P a g e
396. Global Forest Watch – Putting all the pieces together with an
integrated-forest-watch-online-platform.
397. Drones for Indonesia Indigenous – Promoting sustainable forests
using drones in Setulang village, Indonesia. (Drones for Indonesia)
398. Wildfire Rescue – Saving lives through real-time wildfire satellite
monitoring.
399. Vegetation Potential – Analyzing tree growth & distribution of
vegetation with west/east-facing and aspect data.
400. Leaf Area Index – Summing the total area of leaves per ground unit.
401. Amazon Rain Forest – Maximizing satellite potential viewing soil
erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and species extinction
in-Brazil.
402. Remnant Rain Forest – Studying aspect data to find how remnants of
rainforest are almost always found on east-facing slopes (with aspect) which are
protected-from-dry-westerly-wind.
403. 4D GIS – Getting to know the XYZ’s with time of timber harvesting and
subsequent-vegetation-0growth.
404. Age of Trees – Inventorying the XY position and rings of trees in a
database-to-understand-its-age.
405. Forest Disease – Mapping the impact of how forest infestations like the
mountain pine beetle has on forests and the economy. (Google Fusion Tables –
Disease-Map)
406. Wildfire Simulation – Automating the spread of wildfire in time using
the 3D virtual workspace of Capaware.
24. Gaming GIS Applications

55 | P a g e
• Most games today have a spatial component, and these virtual worlds are
becoming more complex and sophisticated. In fact, some game designers
and even players are already exporting rich spatial datasets from GIS to
create new realistic levels or worlds within video games.
• Use of GIS data and location in a game – Geospatial and design
information can be used directly in games. For decades, there has been
the concept of “Serious Games” which extend gaming experiences to real
world scenarios for scientific discovery, education, and training.
• Related Book: Geogames and Geoplay By Ahlqvist, Ola, Schlieder,
Christoph (Eds.)
Download link: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319227733
407. Oculus Rift – Building realistic 3D environments with Esri CityEngine
because virtual reality is all about location and a sense of place. (Esri CityEngine
and Oculus Rift)
408. Building Virtual Environments – Designing future buildings, roads,
cities, and parks with video game contributions. (GIS and Gaming – Matt Artz)
409. Geoguessr – Embarking on an educational journey that takes you all
over the world (Geoguessr)
410. Mercator Projection Game – Learning about shape, size, and
conformity of the Earth with map projections.
411. Spatial Data Integration – Intersecting the gaming world with rich,
real-world, spatial data integration.
412. Planet Hunters – Finding undiscovered planets with crowd-source style
online games. (Planet Hunters)
25. Gardening GIS Applications

56 | P a g e
• Gardening is largely about understanding spatial layout of plants. Given
this reality, from research and public gardens to home and backyard
plants one can find GIS being employed in the management and
understanding of gardening.
• Highly visible groups such as the Alliance for Public Gardens GIS provide
a way for GIS professionals and gardening experts to collaborate and find
GIS-based solutions for the care of public gardens.
• Major public gardens, including those used for research and as plant
references, such as Kew Gardens in the UK, have dedicated GIS
departments.
• These are used to both manage the garden itself, but they are also applied
to other regions being studied, including for efforts focus on conservation
and using GIS as a database for a Geographic-based taxonomy.
• Related Book: Guide to GIS for Public Gardens
Download link:
https://publicgardensgis.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk6621/files/inlin
e-files/Guide-to-GIS-for-Public-Gardens-March-2013.pdf
413. Living Plant Collection – Managing garden collections and plant
records with the ArcGIS Public Garden Data Model like the UC Davis Arboretum,
Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University and Smithsonian
Garden.(PublicGardensGIS)
414. Gardening Microclimates – Studying microclimates (temperature
from large bodies of water, topography, urban areas trapping heat) to carefully
choose and position their plants and make them thrive.
415. Information Delivery – Inspire and educate your visitors with
intelligent web maps of your park or garden.
416. Weeds – Storing weeds and herbicide dosage in a database to manage
effectiveness and control measures.
417. Roof Gardening – Assessing average temperatures by zoning, water
availability and position sheltering to identify buildings with the greatest
potential for rooftop gardens.
418. Garden Reporting – Creating data-driven reports and mapbooks on
collections of plants about conditions and hazards.

57 | P a g e
26. Geology GIS Applications
• GIS technology continues to play an important role in the study of
the earth and all that is on the surface.
• Through GIS, geologists have been able to identify and figure out the
puzzle that is the earth surface.
• We take a look at some of the importance of GIS in geology and how
geologists have harnessed the power of this technology to identify
solutions.
• Related Book: GIS in Geology and Earth Sciences By Klavdia
Oleschko , Sergei Cherkasov , Jose Luis Palacio Prieto , Claudia I. Gaona
Salado ,Ana Gabriela Castaneda Miranda ,Sergio Aurelio Zamora Castro
Download link:
https://www.bookdepository.com/GIS-Geology-Earth-Sciences-Klavdia-
Oleschko/9780735405288
419. Drill Hole Planner – Drilling with 3D planning tools including depth,
azimuth and positions.
420. Aquifer Recharge – Determining potential aquifer recharge using
steepness of slope and soil permeability
421. Well & Volumetric Data Visualization – Creating powerful, fast,
customized 3D models with a fusion of geologic data, GIS data, well/borehole
data, and point cloud data. (Voxler Golden Software)
422. Plate Wizard Project – Reconstructing converging and diverging plates
through geologic time.

58 | P a g e
423. Geological Interpretation – Digitizing surficial geology (surface
sediments, their morphology and properties) with air photo interpretation and
field validation.
424. qgSurf – Interpreting geomorphological analyses based on their surface
and orientation.
425. Marine Geology – Inventorying marine geology. (NOAA Marine
Geology)
426. Geomorphology Features – Studying the nature and origin of
landforms, including relationships to underlying structures and processes of
formation.
427. Dip and Strike – Plotting dip and strike readings and their geological
orientation with rotational symbols.
428. Digital Rock Engineering – Tunneling underground with attention to
existing topography and its surrounding which includes above-ground and
underground structures
429. Aeromagnetic Anomalies – Correlating aeromagnetic anomalies with
surface geology in tectonically active region.
430. Continental Drift – Measuring tectonics plate movement with GPS
431. EnterVol Geology – Creating full 3D, volumetric models of geology
direct from collected data integrating lithology data with surfaces. (EnterVol
Geology)
432. Subsurface Mapping – Mapping the subsurface through well-log data
by drillers with standard lithological terms and classification system
433. Landform Classification – Classifying landforms with qualitative
analysis of the surface like summits, passes, convex/concave break lines, crests
and more with gvSIG geomorphology tools.
434. Geologic Structure – Using photogrammetry in inaccessible regions in
2D and 3D cross-sections for geologic structure mapping. (Hexagon Geospatial
Photogrammetry)

59 | P a g e
27. Geostatistics GIS Applications
• Geostatistics is a branch of statistics focusing on spatial
or spatiotemporal datasets. Developed originally to predict probability
distributions of ore grades for mining operations.
• It is currently applied in diverse disciplines including petroleum
geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, geoche
mistry, geometallurgy, geography, forestry, environmental
control, landscape ecology, soil science, and agriculture (esp. in precision
farming).
• Geostatistics is applied in varied branches of geography, particularly
those involving the spread of diseases (epidemiology), the practice of
commerce and military planning (logistics), and the development of
efficient spatial networks.
• Geostatistical algorithms are incorporated in many places,
including geographic information systems (GIS) and the R statistical
environment.
• Related Book: A Practical Guide to Geostatistical Mapping By Tomislav
Hengl
Download link:
http://spatial-analyst.net/book/download?size=thumbnail
435. Spatial Autocorrelation – Testing whether the observed value of a
variable at one locality is independent of the values of the variable at
neighboring localities. (GeoDa Spatial Autocorrelation)
436. Data Mining – Automating the search for hidden patterns in large
databases
437. Spatial Regression – Building spatial regression to models for
estimating the relationship between spatial variables. (GeoDa Spatial
Regression)

60 | P a g e
438. Zonal Statistics – Summing, averaging or finding the range, minimum
or maximum in a given range.
439. Hexagon Tesselation – Defining sampling locations, helping to ensure
that all regions within the study area are represented by the sampling results.
(Hexagon Tesselation)
440. First Law of Geography – Using Tobbler’s First Law of Geography in
analysis- “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more
related-than-distant-things.”
441. Semi-variogram – Graphing the variance in measure with distance
between-sampled-paired-locations.
442. Space-Time Cube – Binning data (netCDF) into a cube input and running
statistics, trends and hot spot analyses over time. (ArcGIS Space-Time Cube)
443. Map-ematics – Making math operations in maps like adding,
subtracting, multiplying, dividing, exponentiation, root, log, cosine and
differentiation(Map-ematics–JosephBerry)
444. Kriging – Interpolating unknown measurements using kriging and other
techniques.
445. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) – Combining input layers and a
table with a number of factors comparing their comparative weights to calculate
a new layer as a linear combination of the input layers.
446. Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) – Calculating the weighted average of
a group of layers based on the order of values. (OWA – gvSIG)
447. Fishnet – Creating a fishnet to correlate coefficient between boating
accidents and dams using a fishnet.
448. Geospatial Modelling Environment – Leveraging open source
software R as the statistical engine to drive powerful analysis tools in ArcGIS.
449. Principal Components Analysis – Reducing dimensions with Principal
Components Analysis. (Principal Component Analysis)
450. Data Visualization in R – Writing each line of code to
programmatically create maps (R Data Visualization – Robin Lovelace)

61 | P a g e
451. Fuzzy Logic – Applying fuzzy logic with degrees of truth because often do
not-have-clearly-defined-boundaries.
452. Pivot Tables – Generate dynamic pivot tables in QGIS. (QGIS Group Stats
Plugin)
453. Monte Carlo Simulation – Modeling spatial phenomena in with
simulation-models.
454. Minkowski Generalization – Determining how complicated object are
with Minkowski fractal dimension (Minkowski–Bouligand dimension QGIS
plugin)
455. Map Algebra – Applying local, focal and zonal functions techniques.
(“GIS and Cartographic Modeling” by Dana Tomlin)
28. Groundwater GIS Applications
• Geographic information systems (GISs) have become a useful and
important tool in the field of hydrology to study and manage
Earth's water resources.
• Climate change and greater demands on water resources require a more
knowledgeable disposition of arguably one of our most vital resources.
Because water in its occurrence varies spatially and temporally
throughout the hydrologic cycle, its study using GIS is especially practical.
• Whereas previous GIS systems were mostly static in their geospatial
representation of hydrologic features, GIS platforms are becoming
increasingly dynamic, narrowing the gap between historical data and
current hydrologic reality.
• Related Book: Groundwater Modeling Using Geographical Information
Systems By George F. Pinder

62 | P a g e
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Groundwater-Modeling-Geographical-
Information-Systems/dp/0471084980
456. Darcy Flow – Examining the movement of groundwater flow through
coarse materials like sand.
457. MODFLOW – Modelling groundwater demand and predicting impact of
groundwater demand in basins. (Aquaveo Water Modeling)
458. Groundwater Availability – Analyzing land use practices with water
availability and quality.
459. Aquifer Recharge – Measuring permeability recharge and quantifying
growth over time.
460. Groundwater Plume – Delineating groundwater contamination and its
change.
461. Hydrostratigraphy – Identifying mappable units on the basis of aquifer
hydraulic properties.
462. DRASTIC – Evaluating the vulnerability of pollution of groundwater
resources based on hydrogeological parameters.
463. 3D Borehole – Symbolizing sub-surface data like bore holes magnitude
with inverted depths.
464. Groundwater Volume – Determining to drill a new well by examining
existing groundwater and surface water.
465. Stratigraphy – Plotting boreholes, cross section and well logs. (Golden
Software Strata)
466. Contamination – Evaluating the risk of impact for the construction and
situating industrial plants, landfills, agricultural activities and other potential
groundwater contamination sources
467. Porous Puff – Calculating mass per volume of a solute at a discrete point
into a vertically mixed aquifer with the ArcGIS Groundwater Tools.
468. Shallow Slope Stability (SHALSTAB) – Computing grid cells that are
critical shallow groundwater recharge values.

63 | P a g e
29. Healthy Mapping Applications
• Public health is another focus area that has made increasing use of GIS
techniques. A strict definition of public health is difficult to pin down, as
it is used in different ways by different groups.
• In general, public health differs from personal health in that it is (1)
focused on the health of populations rather than of individuals, (2)
focused more on prevention than on treatment, and (3) operates in a
mainly governmental (rather than private) context.
• Efforts fall naturally within the domain of problems requiring use
of spatial analysis as part of the solution, and GIS and other spatial
analysis tools are therefore recognized as providing potentially
transformational capabilities for public health efforts.
• Related Book: GIS and Public Health By Ellen k.Cromley, Sara
L.Mclafferty
469. HealthMap – Delivering real-time, global disease monitoring
(HealthMap)
470. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) – Serving county-level maps of heart
disease and stroke by race/ethnicity, gender, and age group, along with maps of
social and economic factors and health services for the entire United States or
for a chosen state or territory. (Interactive Atlas of Heart and Stroke)
471. Leukemia Research – Investigating leukemia clusters with proximity to
transmission-lines.
472. John Snow – Forging a whole new field of study (epidemiology) by
studying the spatial distribution of cholera cases and identifying the source of
the outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street.

64 | P a g e
473. Ebola – Mapping the change of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola
over time. (World Health Organization)
474. Distance to Health Care – Finding the closest doctor is a spatial
problem
475. Vital Records – Recording of events, such as births and deaths that are
maintained-by-public-health-agencies.
476. Lead Concentrations – Correlating how children with lead poisoning
were found to be closer to an old lead refinery.
477. Cluster Analysis – Identifying built environmental patterns using cluster
analysis and GIS: relationships with walking, cycling and body mass index.
(Cluster-Analysis)
478. Euclidean Distance – Finding the distance to disposal sites during an
avian flu outbreak.
479. Disease Surveillance – Monitoring West Nile Virus with GIS on
handheld devices.
480. Asthma – Connecting the dots of asthma and air pollution.
481. Epidemiology – Tracking disease and epidemiological information in a
spatial database. (CDC Epi-Info)
482. UV Exposure – Exposing the risks of harmful UV rays with birth rates.
483. Mobile Flu Shots – Determining an optimal site location for mobile flu
shot vehicles to service where demand is needed most with location allocation.
484. Geomedicine –Tracking patient’s location history to determine if
environmental and industrial hazards put them at risk for certain types of
diseases
485. Madrid’s Air – Visualization Madrid´s air (gases, particles, pollen,
diseases, etc) with the aim to make visible the microscopic and invisible agents.
(Madrid’s Air Map)
486. Ambulance Response – Responding to emergencies faster with the
quickest-geographic-route.
487. Infant Mortality – Track child immunizations with mortality rates.

65 | P a g e
488. Food Trust – Overlapping factors like poverty and obesity, fresh
supermarkets, diet-related disease – space to target for policy-makers
489. Public Health Informatics – Ensuring patients get the care they need
with public health care informatics.
490. Walgreens Prescription Mapping – Mapping and analyzing influenza
based on the prescriptions customers are making to respond to the need of
users more efficiently. (Walgreens Weekly Flu Index Webmap)
491. Disease Spread Patterns – Plotting ellipses for a disease outbreak
over time to model its spread.
492. Walkability – Piecing together walkable neighborhoods with health
diseases like heart disease, hypertension, obesity and even breast cancer.
493. Anti-Smoking Campaigns – Targeting Anti-smoking campaigns where
it’s needed most and most visible to target audience.
494. Cancer Research – Researching cancer from the sky with the Landsat
satellite. (Landsat Cancer Research)
495. Mosquitoes-borne Illness – Identifying areas with high indices of
mosquito infestation and interpreting the spatial relationship of these areas
with potential larval development sites such as garbage piles and large pools of
standing water.
496. HIV AIDS Database – Making the distribution of HIV/AIDS to manage
treatment.
497. Tele-medicine – Quantifying populations and health care availability
when distance separates patients and health care providers.
30. History GIS Applications

66 | P a g e
• Historical events are increasingly understood within geospatial contexts,
where key events, circumstances, and reasons as to why given outcomes
occurred are interpreted using GIS.
• As an example, historical geography is one area that has applied GIS to
understand outcomes of battles, why cities were built in given locations,
and using ancient technologies to understand length and difficulty of
travel at different times of the year.
• Related Book : History and GIS By von Lünen, Alexander, Travis, Charles
Download link:
498. Shipwrecks – Documenting the remains of shipwrecks, aircraft, hulks,
lost anchors and any other objects on the seabed through the SHIPS Project.
(SHIPS Project – Shipwrecks Mapping)
499. American Museum of Natural History – Apply biodiversity
information to collect, organize and analyze biological and environmental data
with the aim to provide new insights in conservation, ecology and evolution.
500. Topoview Slider Publishing maps with a slider style map to see how an
area looked before development and how it changes over time. (USGS
Topoview)
501. Micronesian Navigational Chart – Navigating by canoe using stick
charts-as-ocean-swell-patterns.
502. Historical Photos – Geo-locating historical photos in augmented
reality. (WhatWasThere application)
503. Babylonians – Etching the lay of the land on clay.
504. Old Weather – Tracking past ship movements and telling the stories of
the people on board by studying weather patterns. (Old Weather)
505. Pilgrimages – Setting foot on a pilgrimage and mapping the distances
traveled.
506. Boundary Changes – Carving out how boundaries change in time such
as after World War II.
507. Spy Glass – Time-travelling back to 1836 in New York powered by Esri.
(Smithsonian Institution)

67 | P a g e
508. Industrial Revolution Radioactivity – Putting radioactivity on the
map since the industrial revolution.
509. 3D Historical Fly-through – Soaring through historical imagery with
ArcScene.
510. Smoke Signals – Using viewsheds to put yourself in Native Americans
shoes when smoke signals were used.
511. Ancestry – Surveying through ancestry with geophylogeny – the
evolution and geographic spread of common ancestry and geographic
connectedness.
512. ArcGIS Online Historical Maps – Exploring the old USGS historic maps.
(USGS Historic Maps)
513. Manhattan Immigration Patterns – Showing how immigrants in
Manhattan varied not only through space, but also time. (Past Time, Past Place:
GIS For History)
514. Aztec vs Mexican Last Names – Aligning current place-names to
historical place-names to understand the ancient geography of Aztec culture.
(Aztec and Mexican Last Names)
515. Witchcraft Accusers – Gathering the geographic location of the
accusers and accused during the Salem witch trials to show inter-family feuds
were a strong case for the trials instead of hysteria among young girls.
516. Cultural Preservation – Preserving historic properties whose
documentation must still be located and entered into this GIS.
517. Pangea – Drawing the different stages of the continental evolution from
Pangea to the Earth we see today.
518. Napolean’s March to Moscow in 3D – Visualizing troop movement,
cities, basemaps, temperature in time slices using Esri’s CityEngine Napolean’s
March to Moscow. (Napolean March in 3D)
519. Georeferencing Historical Imagery – Straightening historical imagery
using georeferencing.
520. Lewis and Clark – Charting out the Lewis and Clark expedition.

68 | P a g e
521. Human Activity Patterns – Engraving activity on maps showing human
movement patterns with time-enabled GIS.
522. Land Bridges – Agreeing on an acceptable term for “land bridge” – which
was an area available due to the water tied up in ice sheets.
31. Hydrology GIS Applications
• Geographic information systems (GISs) have become a useful and
important tool in the field of hydrology to study and manage
Earth's water resources.
• Climate change and greater demands on water resources require a more
knowledgeable disposition of arguably one of our most vital resources.
• Because water in its occurrence varies spatially and temporally
throughout the hydrologic cycle, its study using GIS is especially practical.
• Whereas previous GIS systems were mostly static in their geospatial
representation of hydrologic features, GIS platforms are becoming
increasingly dynamic, narrowing the gap between historical data and
current hydrologic reality.
• Related Book: Hydrological Application Of GIS By A.M.Gurnell,
D.R.Montgomery
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrological-Applications-GIS-M-
Gurnell/dp/0471898767
523. Braided Rivers – Managing braided rivers with their complex geometry
and state in flux.

69 | P a g e
524. Sedimentation Rate – Characterizing erosion and sedimentation with
the Sediment Transport Index.
525. Catchment Areas – Delineating watershed catchment areas, where
rainfall flows into a river. (Mapping Watersheds in Whitebox GAT)
526. Topographic Wetness Index – Combining slope and upstream area to
give you relative measure of wetness as the first places where the ground
saturates, begins to pool, and generates runoff.
527. Flow Direction – Coding the direction of flow with eight valid directions.
(Flo 2D)
528. Flow Estimator – Estimating flow rates with a series of spatially-located
gauging stations.
529. Height Above River – Generating predictive surfaces for plant species
distribution modeling using high resolution DEM data. (LiDAR Height Above
River)
530. Sinuosity – Measuring the degree of channelization and meandering for
a given watercourse.
531. Stream Feature Extractor – Extracting stream features (wells, sinks,
confluences etc.) from a stream network. (Stream Feature Extractor QGIS
Plugin)
532. Hydrologic Volume – Measuring volumes for the Hydrologic Budget
Equation and amount of precipitation in a given watershed.
533. HEC-HMS – Simulating the complete hydrologic processes of dendritic
watershed systems with the HEC-HMS GIS-based methodology.
534. Flow Accumulation – Answering the question “where did water come
from” by picking a point (a single cell in the DEM) and tracing backwards showing
all the contributing cells. (TauDEM)
535. Scalgo – Understanding Earth’s hydrology as a function of topography
using the SRTM DEM. (SCALGO)
536. GHydraulics – Analyzing water supply networks using EPANET.
(Ghydraulics-QGIS-Plugin)

70 | P a g e
537. Aqueduct – Mining, Modeling and analyzing water risk with the current
and future stresses. (Aqueduct Atlas)
538. Contour Lines – Delineating contour lines because floods follow contour
lines.
539. Flood Extents – Digitizing flood extents worth satellite data like
synthetic-aperture-radar.
540. BASINS (Better Assessment Science Integrating point & Non-
point Source) – Running water quality assessments with land use, point source
discharges, and water supply withdrawals.
541. Crayfish QGIS Plugin – Animating flood model outputs and flood
propagation. (TUFLOW)
542. ArcHydro – Operating ArcHydro in ArcMap to delineate and characterize
watersheds.
543. Drainage Channel Builder – Cutting a simple, trapezoidal channel in a
DEM and calculate cut volumes. (Drainage Channel Builder QGIS Plugin)
544. HEC-RAS Flow Model – Predicting where the water will go (flooding) to
prevent inundated roads and inaccessibility. (RiverGIS QGIS Plugin)
545. Horton Statistics – Calculating the number of streams, the average
stream length, the average area of catchments for Strahler stream orders
(ILWIS)
546. Flow Stations – Marking flow stations on a map.
547. Water Shortage – Modelling water shortage California
548. Upstream/Downstream – Finding the origin of water from a specific
point.(Hydro-Hierarchy)
549. MIKE21 – Simulating physical, chemical or biological processes in coastal
ormarine-areas.(MIKE21)
550. Oxbows – Mapping the evolving process of how rivers change in time and
become oxbows

71 | P a g e
32.Humanitarian GIS Applications
• Related Book: GIS Tutorial for Humanitarian Assistance by Firoz Verjee
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Tutorial-Humanitarian-Assistance-
Tutorials/dp/1589482131
551. Election Violence – Reporting issues like outbreaks of violence,
intimidation, or vote fraud during Tanzania’s election. (Restless Development –
What3Words)
552. Ushahidi Haiti Project – Plotting out crisis reports during the Haiti
earthquake for humanitarian/tech workers aid with crowdsourcing. (Ushahidi
Haiti-Project)
553. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap – Responding to humanitarian issues and
economic development through open data sharing. (Humanitarian
OpenStreetMap)
554. Community Engagement – Harnessing human potential by leveraging open
data and civic technology. (Kathmandu’s Living Labs)
555. Kibera Slum – Mapping sites of rape and crime by the people themselves
to solve where a police station should be located (and more). (Kibera Slum)
556. Crisis Mapping – Using drones to aid Nepalese in a time of crisis.
557. Food Security – Delivering assistance with expected outputs to those in
need-most.
558. Humanitarian Assistance – Plotting the spatial distribution of humanitarian
assistance-for-planning-purposes.
559. Food Insecurity Drivers – Pinpointing the underlying drivers to food
insecurity such as farming practices, climate change and changing
demographics.

72 | P a g e
33. Insurance GIS Applications
• Insurance has a strong geographic component, from managing the
addresses of policyholders to the location of risk to the logistics of
handling claims.
• GIS provides tools that allow users to combine location- based data, such
as vegetation density, road access, and traffic flow patterns, to make
more informed decisions.
• Related Book : GIS For Insurance By ESRI
Download link:
https://www.esri.com/library/bestpractices/insurance.pdf
560. Insurance Risk – Charging higher insurance premiums in flood-prone
areas using radar
561. Monitoring Driving Habits – Fastening seat belts and monitoring
people’s usage to charge car insurance.
562. Insurance Fraud – Doing the detective work for fraudulent crop
insurance claims.
563. Floodplain – Minimizing losses by flooding through FEMA flood maps.
564. Real-time Hazard – Using location intelligence to Identify areas of
hazard in real-time.
565. Climate Change Risk – Adjusting to climate change with better future
risk prediction.
566. Social Media Integrating – Finding all Flickr posts within 100 meters of
a-property-during-incidents.

73 | P a g e
567. Sinkholes – Preventing risk by understanding landscape characteristics –
such as resulting depressions in a karst landscape.
568. Underwriting – Accelerating underwriting by sharing enterprise
geographic data with risk factors, customer interaction and economic
conditions.
569. Swimming Pools – Crowd sourcing the search for swimming pools from
sponsored campaigns who compile public and private sector data for a variety
of markets including education, public safety, and insurance.
34. Internet GIS Applications
• Internet GIS can be defined as network-based geographic information
services that utilize both wired and wireless Internet to access and
distribute geographic information, spatial analytical tools, and GIS web
services.
• The basic concept of a distributed GIS is a major paradigm shift from the
traditional desktop GIS model, which encouraged the use and
development of proprietary and all‐encompassing GIS software
programs and data models.
• With Internet GIS, the underlying design concept is radically changed to
shift the focus from proprietary architectures to standards-based
components with specialized functions that can interface with other
components and GIService providers.
• This shift has altered the landscape of GIS to foster the growth of many
small Internet GIS service providers and specialized services.

74 | P a g e
• Related Book: Internet GIS: Distributed Geographic Information Services
for the Internet and Wireless Network By Zhong-Ren Peng Ming-Hsiang
Tsou
Download link:
https://www.amazon.com/Internet-GIS-Distributed-Geographic-
Information/dp/0471359238
570. Geoblocking – Limiting your access to the internet, based on your
geographic location.
571. Hyperlinking – Embedding hyperlinks with access actual photos, video,
audio, text and data associated with map locations.
572. Mapzen Search – Searching geographically with a spatial search engine
for places based entirely on open-source tools and powered by entirely open
data. (Mapzen Search)
573. Geosocial Tools – Searching twitter geographically for tweets with the
gvSIG Geosocial Toolbox.
574. GIS-Based Search Engine – Correlating products and services to a GIS
database record that corresponds to a unique geographic location – to
geographically target advertising over the Internet (GIS-Based Search Engine)
35. Land Use Planning
• Land use planning will depend on the information provided by GIS
in deciding which part of the land should be subjected to what land
use.
• It becomes easier to know what crops will thrive on what part of the
land and this helps in improving yields.

75 | P a g e
• Related Book: Urban Land Use Planning By Philip R. Berke, David R.
Godschalk, and Edward J. Kaiser, with Daniel A. Rodriguez
Download link:
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/68wcc8wc9780252030796.html
575. Urban Model Development Feasibility – Evaluating multiple land
use scenarios; testing and refining transportation plans; producing small-area
concept plans, and modeling complex regional issues with Envision Tomorrow
(Envision Tomorrow)
576. Land-use Conflict Identification (LUCIS) Model – Making smart
land-use decisions with a model-builder framework land-use conflict
identification strategy. (Smart Land-Use Analysis: The LUCIS Model)
577. Beijing Building Footprints – Crowd-sourcing digital mapping of
Beijing building footprints.
578. Food Deserts – Accessing grocery stores in low income areas by
incorporating information such as sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and public transit.
579. Service Areas – Measuring how far paramedics and firefighters can
service an area.
580. Agent-Based Models – Exploring cities using Agent-Based Models and
GIS. (GIS Agents)
581. Cloud Computing-Based Land Base Mapping – Bringing land use
planning to the cloud for Smart Cities like the City of Portland. (Cloud
Computing)
582. OpenStreetMap – Harnessing the power of the OpenStreetMap by
download the physical data for free (OSM Download)
583. Landfill Site Selection – Analyzing and eliminating sites within a buffer
distance of sensitive populations (elderly, schools, hospitals, etc) and other
overlay information like groundwater, transportation networks and surface
water.
584. TerraClip – Clipping data like you’ve never clipped before – extracting
land cover, climate and agriculture data easily to the extent of your chosen
country.(TerraClip)

76 | P a g e
585. Green Roofs – Greening roofs in metropolitan areas with a focus on
lighting and shadow analysis.
586. Stamen Maps – Orienting yourself with Stamen’s terrain maps with hill
shading and natural vegetation colors.
587. Cellular Automata – Stimulating urban growth expansion simulation.
(IDRISI Cellular Automata)
588. Tax Parcel Viewer – Assembling tax parcels, zoning information with
color schemes on a web viewer.
589. Economic Viability – Making decisions of parcels of prime agricultural
land using Analytic Hierarchy Process.
590. Water Distribution – Tracking flow, pressure and chemical
concentrations for nodes, valves, pipes and tanks in a water distribution
modelling software. (EPANET)
591. Commercial Space Availability – Checking zoning data for any city
such as commercial space availability.
592. Land Use Policy – Reproducing individual behavior with agent-based
modeling to simulate their behaviors and outcomes having a direct impact of
the surrounding landscape. (Agent-Based Modeling)
593. City Heating – Addressing the GIS requirements of municipal hot water
heating networks in Tatuk GIS (Tatuk GIS- City Heating)
594. Commuter Shed – Finding where the commuter sheds are.
595. Recycling Centres/Drop-offs – Allocating recycling drop-offs centers
with data integration and quantification and assigning alternatives for vehicle
routing.
596. Walkshed – Calculating walking times using Tobbler’s hiking function
based on slope (QGIS Walking Time Plugin) Walkshed Web GIS
597. 3D Viewshed – Showing what is visible with distance, direction and pitch
with viewable areas in green and hidden areas in red. (3D Viewshed – Geomedia
3D)
598. Anaglyph 3D – Viewing anaglyph 3D images with the SAGA GIS Anaglyph
Tool.

77 | P a g e
599. Land Use Change – Summarizing statistics, graphs and tables in spatial
units
600. Tax Collection – Increasing tax revenue by updated land and building
property records, new construction records, and integrated departmental data
into a single cadastral information system using Bentley Map.
601. COAST COastal Adaptation to Sea level Rise Tool – Adapting to
climate change decisions (building sea walls, proactive building ordinance,
levees, zoning change, relocation with COAST. (COAST – Global Mapper)
602. Space Syntax Models – Gaining a better understanding of human
behavior and connectivity through graphic representation of space
configuration in urban structures.
603. Philadelphia Redevelopment – Developing urban planning scenarios
using a 3D swipe view. (Philadelphia CityEngine)
604. Future Development Patterns – Locating future growth and
evaluating scenarios such as loss of prime agricultural land. (Tale of Two Cities)
605. Land Use – Generating polygons and classification with the multi-
resolution segmentation algorithm. (Trimble ECognition)
606. Building Constraints – Prohibiting construction where the overall
stability of a bluff using aspect to understand how- south-facing slopes undergo
more extensive freeze/thaw cycles.
36. Mail Services GIS Applications
• Related Book: GIS In Postal Operations By ESRI
DOWNLOAD LINK :
https://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/events/parcel-postal/POSTI

78 | P a g e
607. National Addressing – Delivering parcels to a specific address, all speed
in a single national database.
608. Natural Area Coding System – Unifying the representations of
geographic coordinates, area codes, street addresses, postal codes, map grids
and property identifiers of every location or area in the world.
609. Shared Mailboxes – Spreading mailboxes out to address demand and
existing population with algorithms like location-allocation.
610. Amazon Mail Delivery Drone – Shipping parcels in style using drone
technology.
611. Non-Address Delivery – Generating addresses for businesses and
people without one using a 3×3 meter global grid system.
612. Zip Code Maps – Splicing the nation with geo-located zip/postal codes
and Mapping them out.
613. Daily Routing Efficiency – Balancing postal routes based on time and
optimizing routes, number of routes or volume with sequenced stops. (ArcGIS
RouteSmart)
614. FedEx Package Tracking – Meeting timelines and managing routes for
special types of deliveries.
37. Media GIS Applications
• Newspapers, online magazines, and television news shows have been
using GIS to bring more in-depth reporting, timelier coverage, and easier
comprehension of data to their audiences.
• The growth of the Internet has challenged publishers and producers to
find new ways to grow and maintain profitability.

79 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS For Media By ESRI
Download link:
http://www.esri.com/library/bestpractices/media.pdf
615. Targeting Advertising – Positioning advertisements for target
demographics using census data and the right location.
616. Communicating Stories – Storytelling in news events with maps such
as oil spills, crime scenes and weather damage.
617. Social Media Mapping – Monitoring social media by location.
618. Movie Maps – Creating ultra-realistic 3D cities for big box office movies.
(Esri Goes to Hollywood)
19. Bigfoot Field Researchers Network – Finding Bigfoot in a spatial
sightings database. (Bigfoot Research)
38. Municipality/Urban GIS Applications
• GIS technology is used to analyze the urban growth and its direction
of expansion, and to find suitable sites for further urban
development.
• In order to identify the sites suitable for the urban growth, certain
factors have to consider which is: land should have proper
accessibility, land should be more or less flat, land should be vacant
or having low usage value presently and it should have good supply
of water.
• GIS has been used in several industries and its applications cut
across a variety of professions. We take a deep look at some of its
applications in the field of urban planning and the role it plays in
this field.

80 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS in Sustainable Urban Planning and Management: A
Global Perspective By Martin van Maarseveen, Javier
Martinez , Johannes Flacke
620. Potholes – Reporting potholes or automatically detecting them with
LiDAR for infrastructure management.
621. Asset Management – Reporting infrastructure defects with photos and
geo-locations. (City of Portland PDX Reporter App)
622. Smart Cities – Integrating urban development visions with GIS such as
smart urban planning, smart utilities, smart transportation, smart public works
and citizen engagement.
623. London in Maps – Charting life in London, England like never before
with 100 maps and graphics.
624. 3D Printing Oslo – Printing off 3D models of the City of Oslo with data
preparation in FME. (3D Printing of Oslo)
625. Water Main Breaks – Knowing exactly where water lines and shut-off
valves are located, prior to work.
626. Lightscape – Lighting up bridges picking out the illuminated details and
obscured areas.
627. Curb Cuts – Finding curb cuts that give access to people with disabilities
628. Utility Poles – Inventorying utility poles with important attributes like
overhead/underground, number of lines and date of construction.
629. Waste Collection – Defining areas of waste collection, finding suitable
rounds of service when given a waste or transfer station. (Waste Collection –
uDig)
630. Fire Hydrants – Locating hydrants in a municipality marking its general
condition, date for greasing the caps and exercising the valve.
631. Spatial Data Infrastructure – Connecting multiple users in separate
departments for managing data, metadata, users and tools.
632. Insect Control – Spraying pesticides to eliminate mosquitoes and other
pests with knowing no-spray zones and status of previous spray.

81 | P a g e
633. Homeless Shelters – Analyzing urban inequalities and homelessness
with the aim of allocating homeless shelters appropriately.
634. CityScan – Managing city assets (road conditions, utilities, billboards and
sign inventories) with mobile LiDAR to inventory and ensure safety standards.
635. Sewer Network – Design sewer systems and their networks with right-
of-way considerations and using the flow by gravity.
636. Advisories – Alerting citizens for boil water advisories by taking an area
on a map, and connecting to a central database of phone numbers and
automated message alerts.
637. Street Cleaning – Plowing geographic zones of a city.
638. Speed Limits – Defining speed limits in a road network with proper
signage.
639. Road Closures – Advising citizens of road closures visually on a map.
640. Emergency Water Supply – Preparing emergency water supply when
contaminated. (Ordnance Survey – Geomedia)
641. Cemetery Mapping – Implemented a system to map cemeteries using
unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs) and storing graves in a spatial database.
642. Open Information – Reducing need of telephone operators by having
data displayed in a map.
643. Participatory GIS – Gearing towards decision-making from citizen input
and geo-spatial technologies.
644. Land for Development – Finding available serviced and unserviced land
available for development.
645. Toponymy – Giving each place, park, river and feature of interest a
name.
646. Lift Stations – Move the flow from a lower to a higher elevation for
sewerutility.
647. Stormwater Pollution – Measuring stormwater pollution by estimating
runoff and sources

82 | P a g e
648. Seismic Slope Stability – Modelling stability of slopes using geology and
digital elevation models to understand potential of seismically-induced landslide
hazards.
649. Water Wells – Developing constraints for water wells such as quality,
quantity, stressed aquifers and contamination for drinking.
650. Real-time Snow Plows – Seeing the grid of snow plows in real-time in
a municipal network and GPS.
651. Solid Waste – Picking up after ourselves with geo-referenced garbage
collection routes.
39. Mining GIS Applications
• Among areas where GIS has grown to be an effective monitoring and
planning tool is in underground mining of mineral resources. In particular,
mines can be dangerous places where unexpected gas pockets or collapse
could lead to major safety issues.
• GIS has been utilized to monitor tunnels and areas explored, as it
provides both 3D visualization and abilities to integrate various sets of
data for visual and quantitative analysis.
• Mining safety tools, such as ZigBee, which provide sensor data such as
temperature, humidity, and gas concentrations, are provided in real time.
Such tools are now integrated with GIS applications, including open
source and commercial products such as ArcGIS, where specific tunnels
and locations can be continuously monitored for abnormal changes in
conditions.

83 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS Solutions for Mining by ESRI
Download link:
https://www.esri.com/library/brochures/pdfs/gis-sols-for-mining.pdf
652. Subsurface Volume Calculation – Calculating depth values to
determine the volume of material between the surfaces or between a
subsurface layer and the ground level with Global Mapper.
653. Quarries – Capturing volumes of fill removal and forecasting future
volumes extracted to understand quarry lifespans.
654. Kriging – Using statistical approaches for mining valuation with the
geostatistical technique kriging from Daniel Krige.
655. Natural Resources – Mapping out natural resources like uranium,
metals, stones and gemstones. (United States Natural Industrial Resources
Map)
656. Mining Operations – Track mining assets in the field with mobile GIS.
657. Coal Exploration – Identifying new opportunities and areas for coal
exploration by assessing geological data and setting out exploration targets.
(Coal Exploration in GIS)
658. Mine Rehabilitation – Restoring mines back to their original state using
GIS tools like 3D profiling flooding of mine because almost all working mines
require pumps to remove water.
659. Hazards Assessments – Characterizing infrastructure, risk areas, and
disaster zones, planning and implementation of hazards reductions measures to
assist planners in selecting mitigation measures and emergency preparedness.
600. Diamonds – Searching for diamonds in Nairobi in fluvial diamond placer
deposits.
661. Hyperspectral Imagery – Discovering new minerals from the existing
4000 types of compositions using airborne and satellite data. (AVIRIS and AISA
Hyperspectral)
662. Mineral Titles – Administering mining titles for exploration and
acquisition available in web map.

84 | P a g e
663. Acid Runoff – Controlling acid waste runoff from mines by capturing
terrain topography, mine age and type and stream proximity.
40. Nautical GIS Applications
• Web-based GIS for nautical charting is particularly designed to provide a
proper method of data management. It will ensure the safety of data by
implementing a sound security system. The aim is to achieve a future
interactive way of managing nautical charts.
• Related Book: GIS For Nautical Organzations By ESRI
Download link:
https://www.esri.com/library/bestpractices/nautical-organizations.pdf
664. Anchor Search – Searching for a lost anchor in a restricted area with
electrical cables and gas pipelines using sonar and bathymetry. (Anchor Search
– Golden Software Surfer)
665. Open Sea Map – Sailing the big blue watery road with Open Sea Map.
666. Christopher Columbus – Tracing Christopher Columbus footsteps on
his voyages and discovery America.
667. Shipping Routes – Stitching together shipping routes using the
Satellite-based Automatic Identification Systems.
668. International Waters – Aligning the boundaries of international waters
in a georeferenced system.
669. Submarine Routes – Routing twenty thousand leagues under the sea
for submarine routes using 3D modelling.

85 | P a g e
670. Live Marine Traffic – Turning your computer into a marine traffic
monitoring station giving perspective of nearby ships on the ocean. (Live Marine
Traffic)
671. Trajectories and Magnitude – Using vectors (U and V) to depict
nautical wind speed and direction.
672. Global Trading Ports – Climbing buoys as if you’re at giant marine
trading ports – the arteries of our global economy. (Global Trading Ports)
673. Nautical Charts – Plotting out seamless, collarless, and dynamic mosaic
of some 2,100 NOAA raster nautical charts at varying scales. (NOAA Nautical
Charts Viewer)
41. Ocean / Marine GIS Applications
• GIS tools add value and the capability to ocean data. ArcGis is used
to determine the spatial data for a fisheries assessment and
management system.
• A GIS is an unconventional tool for ocean exploration. These components
work together as a system to provide a digital platform for viewing and
processing layers of spatial information.
• It is extensively used in the ocean industry area and we get accurate
information regarding various commercial activities.
• To enhance minimizing cost for the fishing industry. Also it can
determine the location of illegal fishing operations.
• Related Book: Undersea with GIS By Dawn Wright
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Undersea-GIS-Dawn-Wright/dp/1589480163

86 | P a g e
674. Pacific Ocean – Opening Google Earth and realizing how the Pacific
Ocean covers one side of the Earth in a global view.
675. Underwater Grasses – Diving into the ocean with satellite imagery and
delineating their extents.
676. Coastal Hazards – Minimizing loss by identifying potential hazards such
as algal blooms, eutrophication and tsunamis (Coastal Hazards)
677. Ocean Use Planning – Outlining sustainable oceans through careful
planning of ocean activity such as energy production, fishing and shipping.
(Planning Ocean Uses – Cindy Fowler)
678. Marine Pollution – Pinpointing the source of marine pollutants such as
industrial, agricultural and residential waste.
679. Algae Blooms – Monitoring algal blooms through multiple images over
time. (Algae Blooms)
680. Wave Reduction – Curtailing wave energy by mapping and building up
coral reefs and other coastal habitats as a nature-based solution.
681. Deepsea Dawn Wright – Understanding the relationship and patterns
of how oceans affect dry land and more. (Ocean Solutions, Earth Solutions)
682. Marine Tools Plugin – Geoprocessing with marine data to better
understand research, conservation and spatial planning problems. (MGET)
683. Whale Tracker – Studying the movement and migration patterns of
whales around the Hawaiian Islands. (Whale Tracker)
684. Underwater Street View – Submarining as if you’re underwater in
Google Earth’s underwater street view.
685. Build-Out Design – Developing and designing a build-out project in
Grenada.
686. Bathymetry – Exploring ocean bathymetry in an exaggerated 3D global
perspective. (Ocean Bathymetry)
687. Rising Sea Levels – Identifying areas of risk as sea levels gradually rise
from climate change. (National Geographic)

87 | P a g e
688. Aquaculture – Farming fish in a sustainable manner by understanding
where inland fisheries are located. (GISFish)
689. Coastal Management – Adapting to climate change through better
flood and erosion defense.
690. Coral Reef Conservation – Understanding the present state of coral
reefs through mapping to better understand future deterioration.
691. Energy Budgets – Simulating Earth’s energy budgets for anthropogenic
and natural changes with anomalies of surface temperature and sea-level
pressure. (Energy Budgets)
692. Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard
(CMECS) – Combining water columns, geoform, substrate and biotic
components that are collectively used to define marine ecosystems. (CMECS)
693. Wave Heights – Replicating ocean waves by factoring size, choppiness
and wind. (Wave Heights)
694. Sea the Animals – Tracking turtles, seals, porpoises and turtles in time-
animated webmaps. (CartoDB Sea the Animals)
695. Marine Bioregional Plans – Protecting the marine resources by
dividing the coasts of Australia in four geographical pieces.
696. General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) – Charting out
elevation paths along the ocean with GEBCO. (GEBCO)
697. Ocean Salinity – Measuring sea surface salinity from space with
Aquarius. (Ocean Salinity)
698. National Marine Sanctuaries – Designating 12 areas of the marine
environment as special significance to better understand marine ecosystems
and their spatial, temporal, and functional relationships among creatures,
environments, and human perturbations. (National Marine Sanctuaries)
699. Ocean Tourism – Getting out your towels and soaking some sun with
tourist maps of the ocean.
700. Coastline Fractals – Modelling complex natural shapes along coastline’s
fractal-like (jagged recurring pattern) properties.

88 | P a g e
42. Oil, Gas and Petroleum GIS Applications
• As an industry that fuels progress, development and basic human needs,
the oil and gas industry is a vital part of the global economy. It is also the
most capital intensive.
• Oil and gas data is strongly connected to geography. For
example, oil exploration, pipeline construction and the environment
use GIS. All of these features are spatial in nature. GIS in oil and gas
industry is a rapidly growing field of interest.
• The Oil and Gas industry is driven by an estimated 80% data that has a
spatial component. Revenues are large, as are the costs. It also makes
headlines for unforeseen accidents and environmental hazards.
• The ever changing dynamics of this industry drives sustained efforts for
increased efficiencies and risk mitigation. This is where GIS and supporting
technologies step in with limitless uses and seamless applications.
• Related Book: Introduction to GIS for the Petroleum Industry By Dean E
Gaddy
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Petroleum-Industry-Dean-
Gaddy/dp/0878148043
701. Directional Drilling – Logging depth, inclination and azimuth
(dependent on true and magnetic north) for directional drilling.
702. Active Licenses – Exploring active, operations and exploration wells all
locations-on-a-map.

89 | P a g e
703. Oil Exploration – Planning and exploring of drilling operations using 3D
GIS to analyse the data and visually inspect the results.
704. Offshore Production – Mapping oil activity offshore including pipeline,
significant oil and gas discoveries and restricted zones.
705. Pipeline Rupture – Responding to pipeline ruptures to better
understand surrounds and impact zones such as privately-owned parcels and
critical-fume-areas.
706. Oil Search – Magnifying the search for resources and extend beyond
the core elements (Oil Search – Boundless)
707. Pipeline Route Selection – Optimizing route selection by taking a
heuristic approach and multiple layers such as the environment, geo-hazards
and-engineering.
708. Geomagnetic Referencing – Using the Earth’s magnetic field obtained
by the USGS to more accurately drill direction and position. (Geomagnetic
Referencing)
709. Oil Reserves – Measuring how much shadow is being casted of a floating
roof’s oil tanks using geometry and high spatial resolution imagery.
710. Undersea Environmental Impacts – Assessing potential impacts of
the undersea environment as oil and gas activity increases.
711. Oil Reserves Map – Laying out the top 20 oil producing countries, with
reserves in billions of barrels of oil. (Manifold)
712. Environmental Impact Assessment – Gauging multiple layer
including existing infrastructure, river crossings, soils and vegetation,
groundwater and elevation/ slope to determine pipeline impact.
713. gvSIG Viewport – Panning along a linear pipeline corridor in 3D with an
overview viewport to know location in public consultation.
714. Pipeline Infrastructure – Surveying footprints and inventorying
pipeline infrastructure like pump stations, tank terminals and pipelines.
715. Gulf Basin Depositional Synthesis – Providing context for exploration
in the Gulf of Mexico and reducing overall risk oil and gas companies by
understanding the depositional history of drill.

90 | P a g e
43. Parks GIS Applications
• The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Program assists all levels of the
National Park Service by providing the expertise needed to use GIS in
support of research, planning and operational decision-making, and by
coordinating geospatial asset use and management throughout the NPS.
• To effectively manage widely distributed resources, the program is
organized around national offices, regions, and parks, all of which
collaborate to provide leadership and technical support to the NPS GIS
community.
• The GIS Program helps support more informed planning and decision-
making as well as enhances a broad public understanding of parks and
programs through data and tools for mapping, visualization, and analysis.
• Related Book: Park Management in Ghana Using Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing Technology By Yaw A.
Twumasi
716. Trail Planning – Valuing cells to pave out a path that accumulates the
least ‘cost’ from a source to a destination.
717. GPS Tracking – Applying tracking technologies on humans in an effort to
understand how their movements affect ecosystems in national parks.
718. Fuzzy Logic – Identifying suitable locations for the construction of parks
with relevant experts to determine significance and weighted of criteria.
719. Biodiversity – Managing biodiversity in parks with smart phones.
720. Noise Map – Mapping sound levels in parks to show how visitors and
wildlife interact with each other and park resources (Noise Map – National Park
Service)

91 | P a g e
44. Politics/Government GIS Applications
• Government uses GIS to improve their workflows and services to citizens.
Providing citizens a way to participate in redistricting are just some of the
ways GIS improves critical activities. GIS gives organizations an integrated
platform for creation, maintenance, and dissemination of land records
data.
• Related Book: GIS For Government By ESRI
Download Link:
https://icma.org/sites/default/files/18-137%20GIS%20e-Primer%20Report_final.pdf
721. Redistricting – Encouraging citizen involvement through web-based
applications for the redistricting process (Redistricting QGIS Plugin)
722. Voting Patterns – Reviewing how electoral districts voted at the polls.
723. Bosnia-Herzegovina – Dividing a road to peace of the former Yugoslavia
at the valley bottom using terrain data to support diplomatic negotiation.
(Geospatial Revolution Episode 3)
724. Stewardship of Land – Supporting Native American decision-making
through GIS implementation. (Tribal GIS Book – Joseph Kerski)
725. Gerrymandering – Manipulating the geographic boundaries of an
electoral constituency to favor one party.
726. Open Data – Opening up government (tax-payer) data through
geospatial open data portals and data sharing strategies.
727. Enabling Governments – Saving money by investing in GIS-based
system-for-decision-making.

92 | P a g e
728. Parcel Fabric – Editing zoning, dissemination areas and land designation
boundaries.
729. Breakaway/Disputed Areas – Delineating international and maritime
boundary dispute areas from Kashmir to the Elemi Triangle, Northern Cyprus to
Western Sahara (Natural Earth Data)
730. Tax Evaders – Catching tax evaders by recognizing areas of wealth such
as swimming pools.
731. Dissolving Political Boundaries – Grouping separated countries into
one like West and East Germany as well as North and South Vietnam.
732. International Joint Commission – Solving international watershed
issues through international collaboration. (Transboundary Watersheds)
733. National Geospatial Data Asset Management – Managing
geospatial data as a capital asset for effective sharing, collaboration to support
efficient and effective decision-making. (FGDC National Geospatial Data Asset
Management Plan)
734. Border Safety – Increasing safety at international borders often
stretching miles.
45. Real Estate GIS Applications
• GIS can be used in various industries and one of these industries is
the real estate. Besides mapping of the areas in real estate, GIS can
also play an important role spatial analysis and determination of the
absolute location where these need to be put up.

93 | P a g e
• Related Book: Real Estate and GIS: The Application of Mapping
Technologies By Richard Reed, Chris Pettit
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-GIS-Application-
Technologies/dp/1138187984
735. Buffer Zone Search – Buffering a search area for a query when house
hunting.
736. Market Analysis – Expanding businesses through customer profiling,
estimating sales potential and finding available lots.
737. Home Evaluation – Getting a big picture to understand home value
including proximity to schools or panoramic view.
738. Parcel Dimensioning – Analyzing a property parcel shape to determine
the area and dimensions of each identified parcel.
739. Viewshed – Prospecting viewsheds through observation points remotely
when setting property prices.
740. Property Appraisals – Supporting accurate property appraisals.
741. Foreclosures – Scoping out the effects of recessions on real estate
markets by mapping out foreclosures by neighborhood.
742. Geocoded Real Estate – Fetching geocoded real estate in Germany
through a JSON and R.
743. Housing with Mortgages – Charting out occupied houses that have a
mortgage or loan. (Housing with Mortgages)
744. Wendy’s Restaurant – Prospecting optimal locations for a Wendy’s
restaurants. (Real Estate Prospecting)
745. Domino’s Pizza – Streamlining the planning of Domino franchise
territories (Domino Pizza – Pitney Bowes)
746. Retail Site Selection – Inspecting space usage for available commercial
space.
747. Comparative Real Estate Analysis – Comparing value per square
meter in map-form to see how much the price is for similar properties on the
block.(Real-Estate-Comparative)

94 | P a g e
748. Wind Farm Noise – Assessing the population and number of affected
buildings affected by the noise of a wind farm.
749. High Rise Valuation – Characterizing commercial real estate by its
unique age, size, location, and proximity to ensure that the property values are
consistent between an assessed value and the sales price with Geomedia 3D
visualization.
750. Construction – Considering slopes for construction and livability as 15
degrees or less are considered buildable.
751. Home Sharing – Scoping out shared homes and surroundings.
752. Real Estate Metrics – Choosing the right house to buy or build based on
distance to schools, parks, transit stops and other geospatial metrics.
753. Google Cardboard – Visiting properties in Google Cardboard’s virtual
reality experience.
754. Walkability – Understanding health factors like active transportation,
bike paths and walking paths in a neighborhood.
46. Reporting/News GIS Applications
• A map can be a powerful tool when it comes to finding and reporting the
news and there is currently no shortage of mapping software currently
available to journalists None however are more suited to uncovering
geographic patterns in data than a geographical information system (GIS).
• A GIS allows a journalist to place various layers of information onto a map
in order to conduct spatial analysis and thereby uncover patterns that
may either prove a theory or to uncover something new which warrants
further investigation.

95 | P a g e
• Related Book: Mapping the News: Case Studies in GIS and
Journalism By David Herzog
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-News-Case-Studies-
Journalism/dp/1589480724
755. Hurricane Andrew – Comparing geographically which homes fared
better from Hurricane Andrew’s destruction because of changes in building code
from Steve Doig’s piece that earned him a Pulitzer Prize.
756. North Korea – Mapping how far North Korea’s missile projectiles
threaten other nations – previously a buffer – now corrected. (North Korea
Missile Extent)
757. GeoJournalism – Assisting journalisms dive into a world of data
visualization using geographic data.
758. Geotagged Tweets – Spreading the word to make world headlines from
local Missouri and eventually the whole world. (CartoDB Geotagged Tweets)
759. Mapping Conflict – Putting any crisis, destruction or terror attack on the
map.
760. Google News Lab – Storytelling around the globe with Google Maps and
Fusion Tables (Google News Lab)
761. Super GIS – Estimating the number of protestors at a Hong Kong rally by
obtaining the average density of the crowd and estimating the number of
protesters through aerial photo interpretation. (Protestor Estimate – Super GIS)
762. Highway Accidents – Reporting the location of highway accidents on a
map.
763. Demographics Research – Delving into census information for a deep
research news story.
764. Ballot Counts – Depicting the spatial Distribution of states, districts, and
parties that won an election.
765. The Financial Times – Utilizing tools like Mapbox to create elegant
basemaps with all the right details. (Financial Times – Mapbox Studio Classic)

96 | P a g e
47. Society Applications – Built & Environment
• Geographic information systems technology (GIS) has successfully met
many needs of society. The technology was built on early business and
scientific computers of the 1960s and initially created resource maps for
use in environmental planning and management, parcel maps for land
data systems, drawings for computer-assisted design, and images from
space.
• Since then, GIS has grown to support many applications for government,
the private sector, natural resource management, community groups,
and individuals. The benefits of these applications have been significant.
• Benefits can be measured as efficiency (doing things quicker and with less
effort), effectiveness (doing things better), and equity (sharing benefits
widely and equally).
• Related Book: GIS And Society By Craig W.J
Download Link:
https://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C01/E6-72-03-05.pdf
766. Thematic Mapping – Thematic mapping poverty with equal-intervals,
quantiles, natural breaks and unique schemes. (“Making Maps Third Edition by
John Krygier”)
767. Socio-Economic Data and Application Center (SEDAC) – Serving
socioeconomic and Earth science data as an information gateway between the
Earth and social sciences focuses on human interactions in the environment.
(SEDAC)
768. World Languages – Mapping the world’s languages through social
media and micro-blogging platforms. (World Languages)
769. Poverty – Sizing up poverty with the FAO GeoNetwork socio-economic
indicators.(FAO-GeoNetwork)

97 | P a g e
770. Hunting Zones – Tracing out hunting zones for cultures around the
world.
771. Citizen Engagement – Empowering populations who have little voice in
the public arena to change geographic involvement and awareness on a local
level. (Ushahidi Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS))
772. Needs of Services – Allocating the proper needs and inclusion of
marginalized-populations.
773. Census – Utilizing decennial TIGER data to support and improve selected
demographic-and-economic-studies.
774. World Religions – Mapping the intricate details of religions
internationally.
775. Space-time GIS – Comparing scientific practice in the US and in China
(Space-Time-GIS–Michael-F.Goodchild)
776. Center of Population – Centering in on population drift watching its
shift in dasymetric mapping. (Population Drift – Joseph Kerski)
777. Earthworks – Downloading data from Stanford including labor supply,
sex ratio and society data. (Earthworks)
778. Gender Inequality – Showing the history of how women are working
in the GIS field.
779. Demography – Projecting populations worldwide with a dot density
style map.
780. Chart Symbology – Taking advantage of pie charts, line graphs and bar
charts to display socio-economic data by area.
781. Indigenous People – Keeping record of traditional land use of
indigenous-people.
782. Public Transportation Availability – Reviewing public transit
availability-in-societies.
783. Population Disaggregation – Estimating per-building population
through-disaggregation-of-census-blocks
784. Distance Decay – Observing distance-decay between locations of ethnic
groups- the further apart they are, the less likely it is that they will interact very
Much.

98 | P a g e
785. Refugee Camps – Capturing the movement patterns of refugees
through-time.(Refugee-Patterns)
786. Traditional Knowledge – Preserving cultural beliefs and its associated
location in a spatial database.
787. Tapestry Segmentation – Dividing U.S. residential areas into 67
distinctive segments based on their socioeconomic and demographic
composition—then further classifies the segments into LifeMode and
Urbanization-Groups.(Tapestry-Segmentation)
788. Migrant Rescue – Improving Humane operations and rescuing migrants
through the deployment of emergency water stations on routes known to be
used by migrants coming north through our desert. (Migrant Rescue)
789. Prism Maps – Drawing each boundary object as a raised prism, where
the height of the prism is relative to the associated data value. (Golden Software
Map-Viewer)
790. Group Decision Making – Mediating interests and getting valued-
concerns in community and society through PGIS.
791. Maori Tribe – Recording, organizing, and making available information
of traditional values from Maori elders. (Maori Tribe Elders)
792. Human Mobility – Measuring of human mobility using mobile phone
records-enhanced-with-GIS-data.
793. Graffiti – Studying clusters of graffiti with other factors such as proximity
to city constructs such as crossing guards, phone boxes and electricity boxes.
794. Storytelling with Maps – Harnessing the power of story maps such as
understanding the gap between minimum wage and high income earners.
(Income-Earning-in-Maps)
795. Illiteracy in Myanmar – Building literacy in Myanmar and evaluating
literacy programs in a GIS database with indicators such as budgeted funds,
dropout-levels-and-available-training.
796. Gender Studies – Exploring how transportation infrastructure support
mobility access to basic services vital to achieving poverty reduction, gender
equality, and sustainable development objectives in Ghana.
797. Child Abuse – Allocating family service facilities to sites where child
abuse is more prevalent.

99 | P a g e
48. Soils GIS Applications
• Soil is a natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) resulting from the
interplay between climate, topography, organisms, parent material
(underlying geologic bedrock), and time.
• Accurate soil data are needed in order to develop reliable and high-
resolution soil maps for hydrological analysis, environmental protection,
agriculture, and forest management.
• The several items of information required for soil characterization,
deriving from sources with different spatial resolution, can be easily
stored and managed within a geographic information system (GIS).
• Digital soil mapping (DSM) allows one to analyze the relationships
between soil properties and ancillary data through several pedometric
techniques.
• Related Book: Spatial Modeling of Soil Salinity Using Remote Sensing,
GIS, and Field Data by Ahmed Eldeiry , Luis Garcia
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Spatial-Modeling-Salinity-Remote-
Sensing/dp/3639065972
798. Soil Types – Modelling soil types through Jenny’s model involving
climate, organisms, topography, material and time.
799. Soil Grid – Helping agriculture decision-making with ISRIC’s 1km scale soil
property and class maps of the world. (SoilsGrid)
800. Texture Classification – Digging up the dirt on soil texture through the
USDA soil texture classification
801. Soil Moisture – Estimating soil moisture from space with the SMAP and
SMOS satellites

100 | P a g e
802. Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) – Making sense of soil
parameters like conductivity in the United States. (USDA SSURGO Database)
803. Water Retention Capacity – Determining water retention capacity for
different type of soils and topographic characteristics.
804. Erosion Reduction Strategy – Identifying erosion hot spots through
topography, soil and land-use characteristics. (Erosion and Sediment Control)
805. Slope Parameters – Developing slope profiles such as convex and
concave using 3D profile graphs.
806. Soil Loss Equation – Measuring the average annual soil loss caused by
rainfall and associated overland flow as defined by the United States
Department-of-Agriculture.
807. Lead Concentration in Soils – Collecting soil samples and mapping the
lead geochemical landscape. (Mapping Lead Concentrations)
808. LS Factor – Calculating slope length (LS) factor as part of the Universal
Soil Loss Equation (USLE) based on slope and specific catchment area.
809. Angle of Repose – Computing the steepest angle (depending on the
material) of a surface at which loose material such as soil will remain in place
rather than sliding or crumbling.
810. Salinity – Inspecting salinity with electromagnetic surveys to find the
electrical conductivity in soils and interpolating the results to find unknowns.
811. Peaks and Summits – Detecting peaks and summits on a landscape to
help model salinity with elevation such as depression areas have higher salinity.
(Landserf)
812. Vegetation Erosion – Finding the dominant vegetation types
dependent on aspect and enhancing erosion modelling using aspect and
vegetation to see how slopes will erode over time along with precipitation,
temperature and growing periods.
813. Stereoscopy Tools – Creating stereo pairs from two aerial photographs
with anaglyph and virtual-z mode. (PurVIEW)
814. Normalized Difference Soil Index (NDSI) – Gauging soil water
content from space using shortwave infrared, near infrared wavelength and
NDSI.

101 | P a g e
49. Sports & Recreation GIS Applications
• Analysis of sport and recreation data at a national, state and local
community level, for planning and development by government and the
sport and recreation development
• Analysis for major sports of continuing participants and those who have
dropped out. This includes participation trends, demographics, barriers
and facilitators, analysed by geographical location. This is vital
information to guide recruitment and development strategies to gain,
maintain and retain players and members.
• More Information:
http://www.sportandrecreationspatial.com.au/index.php
815. Strava Heat Map – Heating up the road with over 375 billion data points
showing you exactly which routes other cyclists are taking. (Strava Bicycle
Routes)
816. Fitbit – Plugging in your Fitbit to map your runs.
817. Tennis Analytics – Dominating your tennis opponent with in-depth
spatial analytics. (Tennis Analytics)
818. Ski Hill – Creating vicious triple black diamond ski runs using steepest
path.
819. Hiking Trail – Incorporating factors in trail development like gentle
slopes for an accumulated least cost path.
820. Optimal Road Trip – Planning a road trip of the century across the
United States using the shortest route for all major landmarks.
821. Mountaineering – Climbing steep slopes in Google Street View.

102 | P a g e
822. Golf Course Water Systems – Planning a golf course’s underground
water system and sprinkler system in 3D.
823. Rollercoaster – Creating realistic a fly-through from interpolated paths
using 3D animation capability in ArcGIS Pro. (Rollercoaster Animation)
824. Heli-skiing – Assessing the impacts of heli-skiing on mountain animal
behavior using GPS trackers and frequently skiing areas.
825. Stadium Security – Getting the big picture by giving police and
emergency responders to track activities on a web-based geospatial platform.
826. Surf Breaks – Sizing up wave heights from satellite radar altimeters in
orbit. (GlobWave Project)
827. Marathon Routing – Planning the route of a marathon using elevation
and base maps.
828. 3D Ski Maps – Touring a mountain virtually in realistic 3D virtual tours.
(3D Ski Maps in Golden Software)
829. Football Stadiums – Turn maps into straight line journeys with FME’s
Shortest Path Finder transformer. (Football Stadiums Journeys)
830. Google Earth Elevation Transect – Pulling out steep slopes using the
elevation transect tool in Google Earth for any given cycling and jogging route.
831. Geocaching – Hunting for treasures and even survey monuments
through geocaching.
832. Swisstopo – Sculpting beautiful topography maps in 3D. (SwissTopo)
833. Fishing Maps – Creating 3D bathymetric maps in real-time with Sonar
(Navionics)
834. Ride Sharing – Providing optimal and dynamic ride sharing in urban
areas.
835. Mapbox Outdoors – Powering your fitness and outdoor applications
with terrain maps that highlight thousands of biking, hiking and running trails as
well as ascents through topography lines. (Mapbox Outdoors)
836. Sports Stadiums – Viewing complex geometries like sports stadiums in
3D. (Vizitown QGIS 3D Plugin)

103 | P a g e
50. Surveying/Geodesy GIS Applications
• Surveyors depend on a variety of software and technology to gather
existing information, collect new information, analyze data, produce
plans, manage projects, and deliver accurate data.
• Geographic information system (GIS) technology brings this functionality
and more to one place, providing a central location to conduct spatial
analysis, overlay data, and integrate other solutions and systems.
• GIS is built on a database rather than individual project files, enabling
surveyors to easily manage, share, and analyze data, saving them time.
• Related Book: Geodesy for Geomatics and GIS Professionals By James A.
Elithorp , Jr. , Dennis D. Findorff
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Geodesy-Geomatics-Professionals-James-
Elithorp/dp/158152658X
837. Coordinate Calculator – Converting coordinate conversion tool of
choice for GIS. (Geography Calculator – Global Mapper)
838. Fibre Optic Cable Design – Extracting LiDAR ground points to assist in
fibre optic cable design at water crossings.
839. Tissot Circles – Characterizing distortion from map projections
(Indicatrix Mapper QGIS Plugin)
840. Global Positioning Systems – Locating the position of anything and
anywhere on Earth.
841. Ordnance Survey – Drafting out maps as one of the largest producers
of maps in the World. (Ordnance Survey)

104 | P a g e
842. Equator Bulge – Measuring the bulge of Earth at the equator
843. Bearings – Importing bearings and distances from a survey for parcel
mapping and transcribing it on a map.
844. Triangulation – Using trigonometry to measure the angles in a triangle
formed by three survey control points.
845. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) – Obtaining a global
digital elevation model from inSAR. (SRTM)
846. Geodetic National Adjustment – Adjusting datum positions with the
Geodetic National Adjustment.
51. Telecommunications GIS Applications
• Mapping telecommunication networks is of great importance to both
urban and rural regions, particularly as telecommunication networks
become even more vital for our daily lives.
• Studies that forecast the placement of cellular network towers are one
area of focus for researchers and planners. Terrain, vegetation, urban
regions, and other potential interference are often assessed together and
GIS tools such as ArcGIS have developed into an industry standard for
forecasting cellular tower locations. Furthermore, data are not always
static, as some interference may be temporary, long-term, or recurrent.
• Related Book: GIS in Telecommunications Management By Lisa Godin
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Telecommunications-Management-Lisa-
Godin/dp/1879102862

105 | P a g e
847. Radio-Wave Propagation – Estimating the propagation of radio-waves
for network with complex reflections and diffraction and line-of-sight.
848. Locating Cell Towers – Locating cell tower placements in urban areas
using 3D building structures.
849. Network Management – Managing a network of telecommunication
cables and towers in a network data set.
850. Fresnel Zones – Finding the region of space between wireless
transmitter and receiver where obstructions cause interference to the signal.
851. Antenna Height Optimization – Optimizing antenna height using GIS
3D-modelling.
852. Operations Support Systems (OSS) – Ensuring that network
functions properly including outages, billing, and testing through GIS shared
services.
853. Submarine Cable – Sketching out submarine cables that stretch across
oceans.(Submarine-Cable-Map)
854. Network Signal Interpolation – Clustering geographically high and
low network signals and interpolating results in cellular signal maps.
855. Cellular Coverage Analysis – Maximizing cellular coverage using tower
height by using interference analysis including viewshed and line-of-sight.
856. Frequency Management – Regulating radio spectrum to evaluate
frequency interactions when approving applications using use terrain,
environment, and building data. (Spectrum Regulation)
857. Fibre Optic Cable – Planning fibre optic cable infrastructure through
network views showing capacity, equipment and customer demographics.
858. Market Segmentation – Segmenting customers geographically and
forecast the demand for services where growth is likely to occur.
859. Operations – Investigating interruptions in service and managing repair
and maintenance work with the Autodesk Topobase infrastructure model.
860. Signal Expansion – Planning expansion by better understanding signal
strengths in three dimensional buildings – or mapping your home Wi-Fi signal
in 2D.

106 | P a g e
52. Tourism GIS Applications
• GIS applications in the field of tourism goes back several years.
Tourists can now rely on maps and other GIS related material to find
their way around the world. Below are some of the applications of
GIS in tourism.
• Related Book: GIS Approach for Tourism Development By Virendra
Nagarale
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Approach-Tourism-Development-
Maharashtra/dp/3846518204
861. Personality Atlas – Assigning personality stereotypes to countries
around the world based on a sample size of global population’s perspectives.
(Personality Atlas)
862. Tourist Map – Plotting out landmarks in tourist maps.
863. Sunrise and Sunset – Finding the perfect sunrise and sunset during at
any given location. (SunCalc)
864. Subway Map – Simplifying maps for the reader to better understand
such as the lines of a subway map in high contrasting colors.
865. Linear Referencing – Using linear referencing along shorelines to track
volumes of organic debris.
866. Off-Beaten Tracks – Finding the off-beaten track for backpackers and
marking its position with 3 words. (Off-Beaten Track Location – What3Words)
867. Safe Travel – Advising travelers where unsafe location are on a map.

107 | P a g e
868. Tourism Dollars – Tracking the exports of purchased goods and services
using desire lines.
869. Sustainable Tourism Planning – Identifying conflicting interests from
tourism and solving issues by examining suitable locations for proposed
developments.
870. Hotel Search – Searching geographically for five star hotels using a circle
radius.
871. Horizon Blockage – Calculating the horizon blocking line in all directions
from a given observation point with gvSIG’s Horizon Blockage.
872. Travel Mode Detection – Detecting travel mode (walk, car, bus,
subway and commuter rail) from a multi-modal transportation network using
GIS and GPS in New York City.
873. Finding Islands – Using satellite to find uninhabited islands around the
world – Landsat found Landsat Island near the coast of Canada.
874. Time Zones – Representing time zones around the world.
875. Eco-Tourism Site Selection – Gauging environmental impacts for
sustainable eco-tourism sites.
876. Virtual Travel – Seeing your destination before physically being there.
(Google Earth Street View)
877. Geo-tagging – Discover places with 360 panoramic camera views.
(Mapillary)
878. Highway Planning – Constructing viewpoints with multiple layers like
ecology, topography and cultural features for a three-dimensional visual
highway.
879. Virtual Arctic – Exploring the Arctic in Google Street View without
getting out of your chair.
880. 3D Synthetic Scene – Overlaying synthetic scenes over real scene.
(Manifold)
881. Life Travels – Accompanying travellers in their life travels in map-form.
(Where in the World is Andrew?)

108 | P a g e
882. Yellowstone – Putting all the pieces together in a GIS database at
Yellowstone National Park including its geologic past, geyser recharge and
seismic activity.
883. Trip Planning – Adventuring around for your next road trip with pit stops
and offbeat using suggested sites.
884. Observer Points – Calculating visibility through multiple observer
points.
885. Historic Street View – Time-travelling in the past to see just how much
a location has changed over time with historic street view.
53. Transmission GIS Applications
• Power companies have a new tool for approaching the challenges of
transmission line siting. Public web map services such as Google Earth and
Yahoo! Maps have made basic mapping functionality and common data
layers available to practically everybody who connects to the Internet.
• However, more sophisticated geographic information system (GIS)
technology enhances the methods electricity providers use to consider
variables in their line siting processes and is a means for accessing and
sharing related geographic data throughout their companies.
• Transmission companies worldwide use GIS to manage and map the
location of millions of miles of overhead and underground circuits. Within
GIS, your utility’s assets can be linked directly to your customer
information system, allowing you to proactively monitor work orders,
vegetation management, and outages.

109 | P a g e
• Related Book: GIS for Enhanced Electric Utility Performance By Bill
Meehan
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Enhanced-Electric-Performance-Engineering-
2013-06-30/dp/B01FIZG0Q4
886. Corridor Analyst – Identifying possible corridors and preferred
transmission routes using Least Cost Path engineering, environment and
combined routing algorithms. (Trimble Corridor Analyst)
887. Transmission Line Monitoring – Monitoring overhead transmission
towers with active and passive satellite data.
888. Viewshed – Understanding the impacts of how a transmission line would
look-using-viewsheds.
889. Right-of-way – Buffering proposed transmission lines which will be
areas-cleared-for the transmission line.
890. Transmission Line Design – Considering slope, soils and land use for
factoring into transmission line design.
891. Tree Encroachment – Reducing risk of falling trees with LiDAR in search
for dead and dying trees near utility lines.
892. Public Consultation – Visualizing the transmission line with towers
during public using 2D and 3D environments.
893. Line Vision – Synchronizing 2D viewing in 3D environments with
viewports. (gvSIG 3D Plugin)
894. 3D Geometry – Sketching up custom 3D transmission towers and lines
for import into ArcScene. (Google SketchUp and COLLADA)
895. Line Profile – Utilizing slope profiles to generate terrain profiles with
Manifold-GIS.
896. Environmental Monitoring – Referencing environmentally sensitive
sites along a linear transmission and reporting conflicting points.
897. Map Automation – Generating maps automatically from tiles along a
transmission corridor with ArcGIS Data Driven Pages or QGIS Atlas.

110 | P a g e
54. Transportation GIS Applications
• The transport sector is one of the backbones of a country’s economy.
It’s through transport systems that goods and people can move as
they go about their social and economic activities.
• Automation of most tasks has been witnessed not only in industries
but also in transport. Geographic information systems is a computer
system used in highway maintenance, accident analysis, route
planning, environmental assessment, and transport safety as well as
construction management. The following are thus the description of
some of the applications of GIS in transportation.
• Related Book: Geographic Information Systems for Transportation By
Harvey J. Miller , Shih-Lung Shaw
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Geographic-Information-Systems-
Transportation-Applications/dp/0195123948
898. Travelling Salesman – Constructing efficient journeys that visit any
number of points on a network in no particular order. (Travelling Salesman)
899. Hadoop – Leveraging the Hadoop framework for millions of data points
with big data spatial analytics. (Hadoop Framework)
900. Deadliest Roads – Pinpointing the safest and deadliest roads on the
planet with the Roads Kills Map. Spoiler: Dominican Republic has the most
dangerous roads. (Roads Kill Map)
901. Multimodal – Getting cars off the road for multi-modal options by
studying cycling paths and walkability.

111 | P a g e
902. Turn Restrictions – Adding restrictions to U-turns in a network dataset.
(TNT Network Analysis)
903. Parking Demand – Estimating parking demand and its fit with parking
capacity with Python. (PARKFIT)
904. A/B Testing – Making real-world choices sending cars to various routes
for the fastest deliveries. (Spatial A/B Testing)
905. Closest Facility – Solving the cost of traveling between incidents and
facilities for which are nearest to one other.
906. Infrastructure Damage – Reporting damaged infrastructure in a
browser web mapping system.
907. Motor Vehicle Collisions – Correlating motor vehicle collisions with
spatial attributes such as speed limits, guardrails and on-street parking.
908. Intersection Analysis – Improving intersection safety through crash
and road safety analysis with the MapWindow Safety Software Plugin.
909. Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) – Feeding data from GPS
units, video cameras, and road monitoring units to advance efficiency and safety
of transportation systems.
910. Shortest Path – Generating the shortest, fastest, or least-costly route
between any number of origins and any number of destinations, with any
number of intermediate points. (Shortest Path)
911. Vessel Tracking – Plotting automatic identification system (AIS) points
on a map in real-time.
912. Network Travel Costs – Determining travel costs from each origin to
all destinations.
913. Road Asset Management – Using ground survey data showing assets
on a roadway in Manifold GIS.
914. UPS Parcel Delivery – Seeing every driver in near-real time to study
safety and find shorter routes – saving time, tire tread, and costs.
915. Floating Car Systems – Displaying taxi fleet in one hour. (Floating Car
Systems – Anita Graser)

112 | P a g e
916. Logistics Management – Planning, implementing, and controlling the
efficient effective flow and storage of goods and services from a point of origin
to point of consumption.
917. Street Repair – Inventorying and reporting repairs on streets.
918. Road Assessment – Taking measure of pavement through aerial and
mobile-LiDAR.
919. Trip Generation/Production – Estimating the number of trips that are
produced or originate in each zone of a study area. (TransCAD Trip Generation
and-Production)
920. Railways – Tying railways together with CartoDB’s railways map – from
cargo to passenger trains. (Railroads – A Staple for Growth)
921. Service Areas – Identifying service areas from a fixed points along a
network route to show response coverage for emergency vehicles.
922. OD Cost Matrix – Improving coordination amongst transportation
providers when given multiple origins and multiple destinations.
923. Paratransit – Accessing rides through address entry and buffering points
to find nearest routes.
924. World Traffic – Helping drivers get to destinations efficiently with traffic
conditions around the world. (World Traffic Map)
925. Transportation Master Plan – Planning future highways and roads by
looking at growth of communities and traffic demand.
926. Airline Planning – Navigating to safer airspace by including nearby land
use to runway lighting systems.
927. Routing Workers – Optimizing routes by seeing overlap which saves fuel
costs.
928. Traffic Ways – Seeing the world as only traffic ways. (Traffic Ways)
929. Carpooling – Adding carpool lots by analyzing the number of incoming
trips in a city.
930. Bus Route – Designing transit routes with cost and demographic impacts.
(TransMix Transit Planning)

113 | P a g e
931. Active Transportation Planning – Leveraging the public with
Participatory Geographic Information Systems and active transportation.
932. Conflation – Conflating two road datasets with OpenJump Vivid
extension “Road Mapper” or Spatial Adjustment in ArcGIS.
933. Infrastructure Life Cycle – Reiterating the process of planning,
designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining a transportation system.
934. Inter-modal Transportation – Compiling two different modes of
transportation (such as rail and truck) to move goods or passengers.
935. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy – Converting unused railway into a paved
multi-use paths. (Rails-to-Trails)
936. Traffic Congestion – Alleviating traffic congestion by making the best
possible use of the existing transportation network and gathering data to
improve decisions for modifying the network.
937. Sidewalk Inventory – Storing sidewalk data in a database with
attributes like width, surface type and clearing priority.
938. Transit Ridership – Collecting statistics on how many passengers ride
transit in a given neighborhood.
939. National Bridge Inventory – Making a repository of bridges in a
national-wide database.
940. UPS Telematics – Monitor performance and safety of package cars
Safety including seatbelt usage, speed and whether or not a door was shut.
941. Urban Traffic Air Pollution – Recording urban traffic air pollution and
quality trough 3D visualization in planar and non-planar views.
942. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis – Selecting highway route using
multiple criteria. (Multi-criteria Decision Analysis QGIS Plugin)
943. Walkability – Mapping out hot spots and cold spots with walkability and
kernel density.
944. Bike Sharing – Optimizing locations bike-sharing programs stations.

114 | P a g e
55. Utilities GIS Applications
• The GIS is used for different type of utilities like electricity, telecom
and cooking gas on a daily basis and utilities to help them in
mapping, in inventory systems, track maintenance, monitor
regulatory compliance or model distribution analysis, transformer
analysis and load analysis.
• Related Book: GIS In The Utilites By JR MEYERS
Download Link:
https://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~gisteac/gis_book_abridged/files/ch57.pdf
945. Billing Systems – Updating and correcting billing system for the cost of
street and security lighting. (Spatial Billing Systems)
946. Network Management – Visualizing complex spatial webs of utility
networks as the foundation to manage the lifecycle of network assets for
utilities. (GE Smallworld)
947. Emergency Repairs – Flagging potential emergencies with weather
forecasts, staging support where needed and logistics for the movement of
people.
948. Underground Utilities – Penetrating the ground with radar for precise
locations of underground gas, water, electrical and telephone utilities.
949. Pole Inventory – Pinning down with GPS accuracy utility poles.
950. Power Distribution – Figuring out where in a distribution line could take
down an entire network.
951. Vegetation Encroachment – Overlaying LiDAR data with transmission
to see where and how much vegetation is encroaching.

115 | P a g e
952. Subsurface 3D Utility Model – Viewing underground utilities in 3D.
953. Lifecycle Management – Updating life cycle status of utility
information as existing or proposed in GE SmallWorld.
954. Permafrost – Assessing the impacts of permafrost freezing and thawing
on-utility-lines.
955. Utility Pole Replacement – Obtaining all the information when
replacing utility poles and other business operations (Asset ID, construction
date, overhead/underground conductor and conductors it supports with
number-of-wire-and-cable-segments.
956. Power Outages – Helping customers keep the lights on with assets and
attributes such as poles and transformers in AutoCAD Map 3D.
957. Cost Path – Laying out a gas pipeline from one location to another
location with a CAD schematic in AutoCAD 3D.
958. Energy Usage – Mapping trends of electricity usage that are metered to
a-network.
959. Smart Grids – Determining optimal locations for smart grid and real-time
analytic components.
960. Infrastructure Design – Planning network infrastructure, build,
operations and maintenance with Smallworld Core.
961. Energy Demand Estimation – Combining building volume, number of
floors and other characteristics to predict the energy demand for heating and
cooling using 3D city models in Germany. (Energy Demand Estimates)
962. Schematics – Representing a complex utilities network in a simple
schematics diagram with ArcGIS Schematics.
963. Street View Measure – Examining utility operations in street view and
measuring distances (MM Plugin in ArcGIS)
964. Line Extension Easements – Creating electrical line extension
easements (legal rights of access) in GE SmallWorld Electric Office Geospatial
Asset-Management
965. Cloud Computing – Building and sharing maps in the cloud for common
operating and faster decision-making. (GIS Cloud)

116 | P a g e
56. Volunteer GIS and Open Technology
966. GIS Corps – Volunteering in GIS projects such as bridging the divide
between the world’s insurance markets and the most vulnerable, low-income
people. (GIS Corps)
967. National Geographic Society – Preserving and protecting our planet
as a global non-profit organization funding hundreds of projects each year.
(National Geographic Society)
968. Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) –
Solving challenges in local and national governments through GIS and other
information technologies. (URISA)
969. Wikimapia – Describing the world in online, editable maps and mashups
with free data available for you to experiment with and create unique
applications. (Wikimapia)
970. OpenStreetMap – Establishing open information as a free, editable map
through volunteered input. (Founder Steve Coast)
971. Open Geospatial Consortium – Making quality open standards for the
global geospatial community. (Open Geospatial Consortium)
972. USGS Earth Explorer – Opening up satellite data to the world for free.
(USGS Earth Explorer)
973. NASA World Wind – Monitoring weather patterns, visualize cities and
terrain, track the movement of planes, vehicles and ships, analyze geospatial
data, and educate people about the Earth with the cross-platform, Java-based
NASA World Wind. (NASA World Wind)

117 | P a g e
974. Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) – Supporting the
collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promoting
its widespread use. (OSGeo)
975. ArcGIS Open Data – Exploring tens of thousands of data sets around the
world from thousands of organizations around the world. (ArcGIS Open Data)
976. Real-Time Collaboration – Collaborating in OpenStreetMap with
multiple user entries. (Real-time Collaboration)
977. Natural Earth – Producing public domain data with beautiful
cartography-layers.
978. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) – Harnessing tools to
create, assemble, and disseminate geographic data provided voluntarily by
individuals (Citizens as Sensors – Goodchild, 2007)
979. QGIS – Pioneering the #1 option for open GIS software. (QGIS Founder –
Gary Sherman)
57. Weather GIS Applications
• Use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software viz.Analysis of
the data for visualization and interpretation of weather systems over wide
geographic areas become possible with less effort and error.
• Facilities available include, provision for superimposition of synoptic
weather maps of the past with the present for tracking of movement of
weather systems, computation of their persistence, tendencies and
trends.

118 | P a g e
• Weather maps at different levels, or different days (past, present and
future) can be superimposed and removed with the click of the mouse for
analysis and visualization of weather developments.
• Advancing the weather systems forward or backward geographically for
visualization of past and future (as forecasted) movement of weather
systems across geographical areas becomes easier.
• Climatological data can also be plotted, departures from normals,
tendencies, etc. calculated and presented as charts. Satellite pictures,
topographical information, etc. can also be plotted and superimposed
with other weather parameters for assistance in weather forecasting.
• Related Book: Mapping and Modeling Weather and Climate with
GIS By Lori Armstrong
Download Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Modeling-Weather-Climate-
GIS/dp/1589483766
980. Real-time Lightning – Capturing real-time lightning strikes in a map
with monitoring stations located around the world. (Real-time Lightning)
981. Global Wind Vectors – Displaying gusting winds with vectors as
directions. (Global Wind – Null School)
982. Albedo – Measuring albedo for Earth’s heat budget using surface
reflectance satellite data – bright areas reflect more than dark areas.
983. Solar Irradiance – Harnessing the power of solar energy with the Global
Horizontal Solar Irradiance. (Global Horizontal Irradiance)
984. Night-Day Boundary – Illustrating which parts of the Earth that people
are fast asleep and are wide awake with the night-day boundary map. (Night-
Day Boundary)
985. Rainfall – Illustrating rainfall in NOAA’s National Weather Service web
map.
986. NASA Ocean Color – Downloading chlorophyll-a concentrations and sea
surfaces temperature data sets for studying the increasing risk from ocean
acidification and hypoxia. (NASA Ocean Color)

119 | P a g e
987. Historical Weather – Discerning weather patterns by studying old
weather. (Old Weather)
988. Temperature – Mapping out temperature with multi-dimensional
NetCDF which includes dimensions of latitude, longitude, altitude, and time.
(NASA Temperature NetCDF)
989. Snowfall – Knowing how much snowfall occurred where. (NOAA
Snowfall Data)
990. Azimuth – Calculating solar elevation, solar azimuth, and sun hours in the
sky for each location (R.Sun – GRASS GIS)
991. Weather Anomalies – Tracking weather events in a spatial database
such as snow in the Sahara desert or southern Algeria.
992. 3D Snow Depths – Plotting out 3D snow depths at ski resorts using
Golden Software. (Snow Depth Map)
993. Pacific Ocean Blob – Mapping the extent of “The Blob” – an anomalous
body having sea surface temperature much above the normal.
994. 3D Atmospheric Data – Visualizing layers of the atmospheric features
as a vertical profile.
995. Ocean Surface Current Analysis Real-Time (OSCAR) – Delivering
near real-time global ocean surface currents. (OSCAR Data)
996. Weather Warnings – Feeding out live warnings with physical locations
from National Weather Service. (Weather Warnings)
997. Historical Precipitation – Observing historical precipitation from
ground stations and radar in NetCDF with MapWindow Meteobase.
998. Cirrus Clouds – Detecting cirrus cloud with Landsat’s Cirrus band.
999. Hovmoller Diagrams – Plotting meteorological data with latitude and
longitude as axis. (Hovmoller Diagrams – ILWIS)
1000. Doppler Radar – Predicting rainfall using Doppler Radar.
1001. Sky View Factor – Considering the visible sky and topographic
influences to estimate radiation balances, temperature and evapotranspiration.

120 | P a g e
1002. Weather Stations – Obtaining the latitude and longitude positions of
weather stations around the world.
58.References Links
• www.gisgeography.com
• www.monde-geospatial.com
• www.gisresources.com
• www.geospatialworld.net
• www.weather.gov
• www.gislounge.com
• www.grindgis.com
• www.esri.com
• www.power-grid.com
• www.ieeexplore.ieee.org
• www.sportandrecreationspatial.com.au
• www.researchgate.net
• www.cmrpc.org
• www.bookauthority.org
• www.springer.com
• www.routledge.com
• www.e-education.psu.edu
• www.nhbs.com
• www.goodreads.com
• www.igi-global.com
• www.newaprads.com
• www.ed.ac.uk
• www.esds.co.in
• www.arcus.org
• www.pgc.umn.edu
• www.jstor.org
• www.gisandscience.com
The
End

Handbook of gis application

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Handbook of gis application (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Handbook of gis application