The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008 
76 
Environmental Applications of GIS 
Contributing Disciplines to GIS 
Where can you use GIS? 
Environment 
Landscape Ecology 
Anthropology 
Infrastructure and Utilities 
Geography 
Archaeology 
Business Marketing and Sales 
Cartography 
Atmospheric Science 
Computer Cartography 
Remote Sensing 
Meteorology 
Land Information 
Photogrammetry 
Botany 
Natural resources management 
Surveying 
Conservation 
Wildlife habitat modelling 
Geodesy 
Ecology 
Recreation resource management 
Statistics 
Environmental Science 
Floodplain management and flood 
Operations Research 
Forestry 
control 
Computer Science 
Geography 
Wetlands restoration 
Mathematics 
Geology 
Aquifer and groundwater management 
Forest management 
Coastal management 
Fisheries management 
Civil Engineering 
Flistoric Preservation 
History 
Hydrology 
Marine Science/ 
Oceanography 
Paleontology 
Seismology 
Soil Science 
Zoology 
Table 1 : GIS as an Integrating Technology 
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An operational GIS also has a series of components 
that combine to make the system work. These 
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components are critical to a successful GIS. A 
working GIS integrates five key components: 
• hardware, 
• software, 
• data, 
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• people, 
• methods. 
(The GIS PRIMER, http://www.innovatiYegis.com/education/primer/concepts.html) 
Figure 2: Components of a GIS 
CONCLUSION 
Many governmental agencies and private organizations are 
beginning to use GIS to improve their services, assist in 
managing resources, and provide support for more informed 
decision making and policy planning activities. The applications 
of GIS technology seem endless because of the geographic 
nature of data used by so many different disciplines. Most GIS 
professionals will agree that GIS technology is truly a 
multidisciplinary resource that benefits a wide range of interests 
(Huxhold, 1994). 
GIS is useful because drafting maps is easier, direct analysis of 
movements from GIS data is possible using the Animal 
Movement extension, visualization of trends (years, individuals, 
behaviors) is made easy, and query searches make finding the 
trends easy. 
APPENDIX 1: Technical aspects of GIS and Tools 
Complementary to GIS