What is GIS analysis?
GIS analysis is a process for looking at geographic patterns in your data and at relationships between features. The actual methods you can use can be very simple – sometimes, just by making map you are doing analysis – or more complex, involving models that mimic the real world by combining many data layers.
After figuring out what information you need and being as specific as possible about the question you are trying to answer, it is time to approach the analysis, deciding which method to use and how to present the results.
Understanding your data
The type of data and features help determine the specific method to conduct a GIS analysis. Conversely, if you need to use a specific method to get the level of information you require, you might need to obtain additional data. It also depends on what you’ve got, and what you need to get or create. Creating new data may simply mean calculating new values in the data table or obtaining new layers.
Choose a method
These are almost always two or three ways of getting the information one need. Often, one method is quicker and gives more approximate information. Others may require more detailed data and more processing time and effort, but provide more precise results. Which method to use depends on original question and how the results of the analysis will be used.
The results
The results of the analysis can be displayed as a map, values in table, or a chart – in effect, new information. Using GIS it is necessary to decide what information to include in the map, and how to group the values to best present the information.
GIS also makes it easy to rerun the analysis using different parameters or even different method, if there is a need, to make changes and create new output. It is easy to compare the results from different analysis to decide which method presents information most accurately. |
