Societal Consequences
While there are clearly many direct benefits, the use of the
geographic approach goes far beyond specific applications. It is
already having profound effects on how we think about and understand
the world, how we analyze and make decisions, our methods for
evaluating choices, the way we educate our young people, how we
communicate with others, our management style, and how we behave toward
our environment.
The Road Ahead
Yet, with all that has been accomplished, this approach has only
been possible for the last few decades, so the process of applying
geographic knowledge to the full range of human problem solving is just
beginning.
Perhaps the most challenging application will be understanding and
managing global change. Our world is changing rapidly. Continuing
population growth, urbanization, consumption of natural resources,
climate change, and disappearing biodiversity all make for a
challenging future.
What is clearly necessary is to take a new approach, one that
considers not just economic and political factors but also the
ecological infrastructure that underpins our life support systems.
We need to change how we live in our environment: reduce energy
usage, cut CO2 emissions, protect/restore natural areas, reduce our
consumption, and stop polluting.
As valuable as our individual activities are, it is clear that the
world also needs a systematic and comprehensive framework—an approach
for understanding and managing human activities in the context of the
environment. This approach needs to consider all the necessary factors
for creating and maintaining a sustainable world.
Geographic science supported by GIS technology provides just such a
powerful approach. It provides a new context for thinking and behaving
and for designing and creating solutions for our future—the geographic
approach.
Evolving Technologies and Trends
Today, with the introduction of GIS Web services in open Internet
environments, it is becoming easier for anyone to access and work with
geospatial information. As these technologies evolve, they will
facilitate broader and richer applications of geographic information
and the geographic approach. The following are important market trends
in the GIS industry:
Enabling technologies that support GIS continue to get better.
Computing is getting faster and cheaper (Moore's Law), network
bandwidth is increasing, mobile technologies (particularly with GPS)
are becoming pervasive, Web services are being accepted as the
next-generation computing platform, and there is growing adoption of
interoperability standards (within IT in general as well as in the GIS
community).
There is a growing interest in using GIS as an enterprise
technology platform for strategic mission applications within larger
organizations. More organizations are acquiring enterprise licenses of
our technology. Examples of high-growth industries include commercial
enterprises, transportation, logistics, public safety, natural
resources, utilities, defense, homeland security, and local government.
More executives are also asking to be included in GIS discussions. They
want their organizations to be spatially literate, mapped, planned, and
managed.
More GIS is being made available on the Web. Popular Web sites,
such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth, have introduced more
people to the world of mapping and visualization, but the public is
interested in seeing more. Our users continue to create Web sites and,
in the future, will be interested in mashing up their services against
these global visualization
environments.
GIS systems are getting bigger. They are holding and managing more
information; supporting more applications; and, as a result, leveraging
data investments and providing more benefits within organizations.
The volume of geospatial data that's coming from many sources is
growing exponentially. Geographic measurement is being driven by both
new technologies (e.g., more satellite and airborne digital cameras,
more lidar, GPS, and other digital surveying devices) and more
deployment of these technologies. All of this measurement is creating
more precise and comprehensive data for GIS professionals to work with.
GIS data is being increasingly packaged into ready-to-use products.
ESRI has recently released a complete data appliance for globes and
maps that can be set up behind the firewall for use within
organizations.
There is more awareness of GIS. More people understand not only the
power but also the value of integrating GIS data into the workflows of
their organizations. Part of this is being caused by consumer-mapping
Web sites, as well as the good work of our users.
GIS software continues to evolve and expand. The most important
trend here is the expanding applications of server GIS. This technology
shift (business logic on the server) is providing a platform for
extending the desktop environment and providing a much faster and
easier integration within the traditional IT infrastructure. Server GIS
also provides a new approach for implementing collaborative GIS
networks (spatial data infrastructures). For example, in a local
government, a GIS system can now consist of a network of distributed
GIS workgroup servers integrated with a central enterprise server that
automatically replicates data and provides traditional warehouse
functions, driving support for cross-cutting applications.
At the research frontier, GIS is being integrated with sensor
networks that precisely measure changes that occur in real time, such
as temperature, soil moisture, water flows, changes in microclimates,
plant growth, and other conditions. These sensor networks are being
connected directly into GIS systems, such as the hydrologic information
system developed by the Consortium of Universities for Advancement of
Hydrologic Science (sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation).
There is a growing and thriving GIS business environment. ESRI and
its partners are a good indication of this. We believe this growth
reflects the expanding interest and success of our users in nearly
every field.
GIS Is Still at Its Beginning
While it's not always obvious, we believe GIS technology is helping
improve many aspects of both our human society and our interaction with
the natural world.
We believe that GIS is still at its beginning. In the future, our
users will build more comprehensive systems that serve not only their
internal organizations but also other agencies and society in general.
This will result in enormous benefits. The new Web services
architectures and collaboration tools will allow users to work together
in new ways and deliver more cross-cutting approaches to problem
solving.
A Concluding Note—GIS Professionals Will Be Required
Despite its great success, the widespread application of the
geographic approach will not happen automatically. It will require
continual dedication to building and maintaining GIS infrastructure
(quality databases, strong Web applications, and all the related
workflows). In addition, we will need to foster open sharing of
information and new forms of cooperation and collaboration. |
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