Description
Synthesizing the vast amounts of data being collected about natural resources, population, health, education, public safety, and more - all within highly accurate and specific geographic contexts - GIS can help people assess and understand their community and environment, and change policy and practice at all levels, from the individual to the international. A System for Survival: GIS and Sustainable Development describes examples of how GIS has been crucial in many democratic governance and civil liberty programs, and serves to help make people more aware of how geographic technologies can play a creative and constructive role as we deal with the monumental challenges humanity faces.
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"Published in support of the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, this handbook details ways that geographic information system (GIS) technology is being used to raise living standards worldwide so that natural resources and habitats are not destroyed in the process. Explained are how to put GIS to work at such tasks as studying the spread of urbanization; analyzing the availability of fresh water and arable land; and visualizing, with disturbing clarity, what deforestation is doing to the planet. Additionally, a primer on the basics of GIS and other related technologies, such as GPS and satellite imagery, and a glossary of relevant technological nomenclature are provided. GIS professionals, environmentalists, and conservationists are provided with an insight into a new technology and how this technology can help preserve and protect the world."
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