Verbyla D.L. Practical GIS Analysis

Taylor &Francis. 2002. - 305 p.
Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis is basically spatial problem-solving. It can be quite challenging at first, especially if you get bogged down in syntax and details. The hardest part is to conceptually understand the problem, and the GIS tools available to solve your problem. This book will help you understand conceptually how various GIS tools work. So for now, forget about workspaces, libraries, spatial database engines, dangling nodes, fuzzy tolerances, requests and instances. The syntax and details do vary by GIS...yet conceptually the analysis tools used by GISs are pretty much the same. Start by building a foundation of understanding about GIS tools at a conceptual level. Test your understanding by trying the exercises at the end of each chapter. This book is written so you can learn important concepts away from your GIS...at the laundromat, airport, on a bus, or sitting under a tree in a park. My main GIS experience is with ESRI’s ARC/INFO and ArcView. Therefore, some of the terms used in the text are from these products. However, you do not have to be a user of these products to learn conceptual GIS analysis from this book. I have been teaching GIS at universities and workshops since 1989. Since then, my students have endured earlier drafts of this book and have taught me many GIS pitfalls and GIS applications that I would have never imagined. I thank these students for helping me. I also thank the faculty and staff at the University of Alaska, where I started this book, and also the folks at the Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group (NTSG) Lab at the University of Montana, where I finished this book while on sabbatical there. I am grateful for their support, friendship, and kindness.