Some challenges of integrating spatial and non-spatial datasets using a geographical information system

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Rob, Mohammad A.

Affiliations: Management Information Systems, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Texas, USA. E-mail: rob@cl.uh.edu

Abstract: Geographical Information Systems or GIS are becoming useful tools in making strategic decisions in a variety of government and business activities in areas such as housing, healthcare, land use, natural resources, environmental monitoring, public health, transportation, retail, and routing. This usefulness emanates from the capability of GIS to present a large amount of data in a short period of time on a map, using a geographical coordinate system. In most cases, spatial datasets required for GIS mapping are already available free from many governmental agencies. GIS use more of computing technology than geographical concepts, however, the capabilities of GIS software did not reach the level of simplicity encountered in most software used on a daily basis. Most organizations perform GIS analysis on their data without getting involved with the mapping technology. A typical GIS analyst faces various challenges while incorporating non-spatial dataset to spatial dataset in order to present resulting dataset on a geographical map. In this paper, we present some data manipulation complexities that are encountered while using a GIS software to provide spatial twists to a large user dataset. We also provide ways to facilitate the data manipulation process through a practical example of asthma epidemiology. The solutions will be beneficial to many GIS users in varieties of industries.

Keywords: GIS, geographical information systems, asthma, spatial data analysis

Journal: Information Technology for Development, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 171-178, 2003