GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY

Data, data, data… data is everywhere. It’s collected every time you go to the grocery store and
use their card to reduce the costs when you click on a link on Facebook, or when you do any
kind of search on a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo!. It is used by the state department
of transportation when you are driving on a freeway, or when you use an app on a smartphone.
Futurists believe that in the near future, face recognition technology will allow a sales
representative to know what types of clothes you like to buy based on a database of your recent
purchases at their store and others. Now there are two basic types of data you need to know:
spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial data, also called geospatial data, is data that can be linked
to a specific location on Earth. Geospatial data is becoming “big business” because it isn’t just
data, but data that can be located, tracked, patterned, and modeled based on other geospatial
data. Census information that is collected every 10 years is an example of spatial data. Non-
spatial data is data that cannot be specifically traced to a specific location. This might include
the number of people living in a household, enrollment within a specific course, or gender
information. But non-spatial data can easily become spatial data if it can be linked in some way
to a location. Geospatial technology specialists have a method called geocoding that can be
used to give non-spatial data a geographic location. Once data has a spatial component
associated with it, the type of questions that can be asked dramatically changes.
Remote sensing can be defined as the ability to study objects without being in direct physical
contact with them. For example, your eyes are a form of passive remote sensing because they
are “passively” absorbing electromagnetic energy within the visible spectrum from distant
objects and your brain is processing that energy into information. There are a variety of remote
sensing platforms or devices, but they can be categorized into the following that we will look at
throughout the course. Satellite imagery is a type of remotely sensed imagery taken of the
Earth's surface, which is produced from orbiting satellites that gather data via electromagnetic
energy. Next is aerial photography, which is film-based or digital photographs of the Earth,
usually from an airplane or non-piloted drone. Images are either taken from a vertical or oblique
position. The third is radar, which is an interesting form of remote sensing technology that uses
microwave pulses to create imagery of features on Earth. This can be from a satellite image or
ground-based Doppler radar for weather forecasting. Finally, a fast-growing realm of remote
sensing is called Light Detection and Ranging or Lidar, which is a form of remote sensing that
measures the distance of objects using laser pulses of light.

Figure 1.7 Remote sensing of the environment. Used with permission from [Link]
Another type of geospatial technology, and a key technology for acquiring accurate control
points on Earth’s surface, is global positioning systems (GPS). In order to determine the location
of a GPS receiver on Earth’s surface, a minimum of four satellites are required using a
mathematical process called triangulation. Normally the process of triangulation requires a
minimum of three transmitters, but because the energy sent from the satellite is traveling at the
speed of light, minor errors in calculation could result in large location errors on the ground.
Thus, a minimum of four satellites is often used to reduce this error. This process using the
geometry of triangles to determine location is used not only in GPS but a variety of other
location needs, like finding the epicenter of earthquakes. A user can use a GPS receiver to
determine their location on Earth through a dynamic conversation with satellites in space. Each
satellite transmits orbital information called the ephemeris using a highly accurate atomic clock
along with its orbital position called the almanac. The receiver will use this information to
determine its distance from a single satellite using the equation D = rt, where D = distance, r =
rate or the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second), and t = time using the atomic clock.

Figure 1.8 Visual Representation of Themes in a GIS. Image is in the public domain.

There is a technology that is capable of bringing together remote sensing data, GPS data points,
spatial and non-spatial data, and spatial statistics into a single, dynamic system for analysis, and
that is a geographic information system (GIS). A GIS is a powerful database system that allows
users to acquire, organize, store, and most importantly analyze information about the physical
and cultural environments. A GIS views the world as overlaying physical or cultural layers, each
with quantifiable data that can be analyzed. A single GIS map of a national forest could have
layers such as elevation, deciduous trees, evergreens, soil type, soil erosion rates, rivers and
tributaries, major and minor roads, forest health, burn areas, regrowth, restoration, animal
species type, trails, and more. Each of these layers would contain a database of information
specific to that layer. Nearly every discipline, career path, or academic pursuit uses geographic
information systems because of the vast amount of data and information about the physical and
cultural world. Disciplines and career paths that use GIS include conservation, ecology, disaster
response and mitigation, business, marketing, engineering, sociology, demography, astronomy,
transportation, health, criminal justice and law enforcement, travel and tourism, news media,
and the list could endlessly go on.

Now, GIS primarily works from two different spatial models: raster and vector. Raster based GIS
models are images much like a digital picture. Each image is broken down into a series of
columns and rows of pixels and each pixel is georeferenced to somewhere on Earth's surface is
represents a specific numeric value - usually a specific color or wavelength within the
electromagnetic spectrum. Most remote sensing images come into a GIS as a raster layer. The
other type of GIS model is called a vector model. Vector-based GIS models are based on the
concept of points that are again georeferenced (e.g. given an x-, y-, and possibly z- location) to
somewhere specific on the ground. From points, lines can be created by connecting a series of
points and areas can be created by closing loops of vector lines. For each of these vector layers,
a database of information can be attributed to it. As an example, a vector line of rivers could
have a database associated with it such as length, width, streamflow, government agencies
responsible for it, and anything else the GIS user wants to tie to it. What these vector models
represent is also a matter of scale. For example, a city can be represented as a point or a
polygon depending on how zoomed in you are to the location. A map of the world would show
cities as points, whereas a map of a single county may show the city as a polygon with roads,
populations, pipes, or grid systems within it.