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Populating Your GIS: What Data Should Be Collected?
Author(s) -
Adams Gary
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
opflow
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1551-8701
pISSN - 0149-8029
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8701.2007.tb01940.x
Subject(s) - computer science , data collection , feature (linguistics) , baseline (sea) , simple (philosophy) , geographic information system , data science , database , information retrieval , world wide web , data mining , geography , remote sensing , statistics , mathematics , philosophy , linguistics , oceanography , epistemology , geology
This article discusses the importance of good data in a useful, functioning, believable geographic information system (GIS). The article focuses on data collection, specifically what should be collected, and gathering baseline (system configuration) data, not operational data. It suggests that the clients and users of the GIS need to be determined first, along with their needs and expectations, the information requirements, followed by a list of each feature and its attributes. Follow‐up by reviewing the list and dropping unnecessary items, always focusing on keeping it simple. The article stresses maximizing calculated data, attributes that can be derived in the office based on other information, and provides an example of generating calculated data.