Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and relational database management system technology have increasingly provided a foundation for integration and analyses of water environment data in context with other geographically related data.. While large scale GIS projects can pose expensive undertakings, an ever-widening variety of applications are enhancing the understanding and management of natural and human-made systems and the relationships and impacts to each other. The degree of data diversity within a geographic framework employed in many water environment applications today extend to include economic, ecological, physical, political and hydrological, to name a few examples. Technical tools, such as global positioning system (GPS) technology, satellite remote sensing and modeling integration, has allowed GIS to con tinue to expand beyond digital mapping to embrace a growing number of water resource protection and management domains.