Coastal Services Center

Geographic information systems (GIS) technology can be intimidating to organizations wishing to incorporate it into their practices, but it needn't be. The GIS Integration and Development (I&D) program provides products and services, such as web-based mapping applications, desktop GIS tools, coastal spatial data sets, and training to help coastal organizations apply GIS to real and pressing coastal issues.

Coastal areas are characterized by the interaction between terrestrial, estuarine, and marine phenomena. GIS technology can aid greatly in the visualization and analysis of processes and interactions in the coastal zone. More than just a software application, GIS is a collection of components that, together, allow for the capture, storage, visualization, analysis, and presentation of digital spatial data. These capabilities provide coastal resource managers with a powerful tool for examining coastal issues and making decisions based on real world information.

The Five Components of GIS

A GIS comprises five integrated components: people, software, data, applications, and hardware. All are necessary and none is sufficient alone.

People | Software | Data | Applications | Hardware

• People: The most important component of any GIS is the people who contain the technical skills necessary to work with the other components. The GIS I&D program provides a variety of GIS training courses for its partners and constituents in the coastal management community. Trainers work to develop and update courses tailored to the needs of coastal resource managers.



• Software: Numerous GIS software packages are available to coastal managers. GIS options fall into three major categories: desktop GIS, Web-based mapping applications, and spatial databases. Within each category, commercial off-the-shelf software and open source options are available. (more...).
  
  Desktop GIS is the most common type of GIS software available. These applications provide users with data capture, storage, visualization, analysis, and output creation functions right on the desktop. While there are numerous software options, the NOAA Coastal Services Center uses customer surveys to help the organization decide how to best present its data and tools in a format that is used by the majority of its constituents. This information has led the organization to develop most of their of their products specifically for ESRI packages.
  
  Web-Based GIS Mapping software packages allow for the distribution of GIS-based maps over the Internet. These applications do not require end users to have GIS software, but, Instead, they give end users the ability to interact with GIS based maps and perform simple spatial analyses using only a Web browser. Examples of GIS I&D projects employing Web-based mapping include the Ocean Planning and Information System, the Historical Hurricane Tracks tool , and the SouthEAst GEOgraphic Fishery-Independent Survey and Historical database.
  
  Spatial Database software allows for the centralized storage of a huge amount of spatial data. These packages aid data management organizations and allows for better data access by multiple users and applications. (more...)



• Data: The link between spatial features and attributes that defines the power of a GIS. Spatial features are stored in a GIS as either points, lines, or polygons (vector data) or as a series of equally sized grid cells (raster data). Each data type uses associated tables to store associated information, or attributes, with each spatial feature. (more...)
  
  The Internet provides an ideal medium for accessing and distributing coastal data. (more...)
  
  When acquiring spatial data from any source, end users should be aware of issues such as cost, format, currentness, and accuracy. Proper documentation in a metadata file is critical. (more...)



• Applications: Applications refer to the work done with a GIS — why users invest time and resources in the technology in the first place. Coastal resource management applications of GIS are almost endless. Will a manager map benthic habitats by identifying and digitizing undersea features from aerial photography? Will a manager identify areas of high hurricane impacts by importing and querying historical hurricane tracks over a period of years near a specified location? Perhaps an end user will monitor changes in land use of an area over time through the automated extraction of land cover from aerial photos. Or determine the location of sensitive habitats through an overlay analysis of data sets depicting favorable habitat conditions.
  
  In each of these applications, GIS saves time and effort by streamlining the process, simplifying analysis of a vast amount of coastal spatial data, and helping create informative maps with visual appeal to tell the story of a coastal issue.



• Hardware: Each of the primary functions of a GIS — spatial data creation, data storage, analysis, visualization, and map production — has unique hardware requirements. (more...)