Desarrollo moral

“Hey Timu, you’re the nosey one. What’s GIS?” “I don’t know Nanny E, maybe we should check it out.” “Good idea e hoa. Away you go. Come back and tell us all about it. Write it down so we can read it for a bed time story.” “Gee thanks Nanny E. Come on Rangi, you can help.”…..

GIS

“Okay you two – let’s see what you got.”

Descriptions of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) vary. It can be described as a computer mapping tool that shows the co-relationship between different attributes. Harmsworth describes GIS as being “highly suited for generating ‘visual’ spatial information which helps people understand relationships between information, concepts, and ideas.”155

Relationships or ‘what is’ scenarios like;

where are the taonga species like Kiwi or Kereru located? where are the mahinga kai?

where were the original land holdings? what is the soil like at that place? what is the extent of our tribal boundary?

what change has occurred over time for the size of our fishing grounds? how much rainfall does that place get?

how big is that plantation?

ESRI (Environment Sciences Research Institute), the creators of ArcInfo, have a more ‘technical’ description - “A geographic information system is a system for management, analysis, and display of geographic knowledge, which is represented using a series of information sets such as maps and globes, geographic data sets, processing and work flow models, data models, and metadata”.156

Palminteri et al. describe GIS as a system that, “combines computer software with hardware to access, view, manipulate, and display a wide range of geographically-oriented information, such as land uses, soil types, vegetation types, rainfall, elevation contours, human infrastructure or species distributions – anything that can be mapped.”157

155 _{Harmsworth, G. R. (1997). Maori values for land use planning. New Zealand Association of Resource}

Management (NZARM) broadsheet, February 1997. pp 37-52

156

http://www.esri.com/getting_started/index.html

157 _{Palminteri, S., Powell, G., Ford, R.G. & Casey, J. (1999). Applications of a user-friendly GIS to wetlands}

conservation at the site level. Presented at “People and Wetlands: The Vital Link”, 7th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), Costa Rica, May, 1999

The capacity to address spatial aspects of information distinguishes GIS technologies from other data analysis software such as spreadsheets and databases. The manipulation of information (predictive modelling) allows the analysis of answers to the ‘what ifs’. The ‘what if’s’ like;

What affect will an earthquake have on our community? What land use options do we have?

Where could animal resettlement occur?

Which areas are priority for ecological restoration?

What part of our community has the greatest health risk and where are they? What are the accumulated water abstraction issues from vineyard expansion? How can we utilise ground and air transport operations better?

What will be the effect of a new motorway?

How effective will our civil defence emergency response measures be? Where are the potential sources of contamination? or even -

What is the optimum siting for a holiday bach?

“Okay, so it’s basically a database with pictures that we can play with. It sounds pretty intense since we can do a lot more than produce pretty maps. How does it work Rangi?”. “Well, I thought you’d ask that so I found some pictures and added it into the report to show you the different things.”

How does it work?

GIS uses two spatial forms. One is raster where grids (cells) are assigned certain values. The other is vector where points, lines and polygons are used.

Grid example Polygon example

Figure 2: Grid and Polygon example

Maps created with GIS are usually called coverages or layers or themes, and are generated using data. All these coverages or themes can be combined in various ways to allow the comparison of different kinds of data.

The data has information (attributes) about a place that is collated into a table. The geographic position of that place is also referenced. By having the geographic position (co-ordinates) for that

are significant can be mapped by creating a table with attribute information - co-ordinate locations, names, type, history, etc. This map or coverage can then be projected using a GIS to visually and spatially display these locations.

FI D FI D FI D

FI D Sh a pe *Sh a pe *Sh a pe *Sh a pe * A10 0 0A10 0 0A10 0 0A10 0 0 S_ Ea st in gS_ Ea st in gS_ Ea st in gS_ Ea st in g S_ N t h in gS_ N t h in gS_ N t h in gS_ N t h in g

0 Point 1 2132538 5354806 1 Point 2 2143172 5353622 2 Point 3 2139211 5355797 3 Point 4 2154453 5389344 4 Point 5 2150329 5393074 5 Point 6 2150820 5393939

Figure 3: Sample point co-ordinates

Figure 4: Sample point layer

One of the functions that differentiates GIS from other information systems is the ability to overlay different coverages where a composite view of different layers can be displayed. For example, if the points layer had lines and polygons overlaid onto it, it would look like this.

Further layers can be added to slowly build up a composite picture of space and place. For instance, by adding another polygon layer into the composite map a more detailed ‘picture’ emerges.

Figure 6: Sample points, lines and polygons

“Did you enjoy that Rangi? What kind of show and tell is this? and what can you show me that makes sense for our mahi? I think it can do more than show us where we live?” “Right oh, I was just getting to that. But before I do, how about if I just finish this off by showing you what the picture looks like once you add just one more layer like roads.”

Bluff, New Zealand. Composite layers