Gee! We’ve always done it!

—by Ilse Genovese

The “it” is geographic information, and surveyors have always produced such information. So why all this pushback against GIS? Is it because GIS technology—GPS, automated cartography, and now also the wireless—make it possible for a technician to collect and map data that formally only surveyors could? Possibly, but the cold shoulder that GIS still receives in some quarters may lie in the ambiguity of GIS as a tool and as science.

The argument over GIS goes back to the early 1980s. It’s still going on because it is not entirely clear what “doing GIS” means as opposed to “GIScience” and, by extension, what responsibilities do developers within the GIS community bear for the use of GIS.

The GIS developers, like GIS itself, span many disciplines. Since geography plays a unique role in GIS, and since the accuracy of geographic data used in GIS can have profound impact on the socio-economic development of society, the intense debate about GIS by the various geography disciplines is not surprising. However, debates without a conclusion don’t help the debaters. It’s time for the geography disciplines, particularly surveyors, to embrace GIS as a tool that visualizes geographic data, for sure, but also as a platform on which business management in surveying companies is advanced.

First, we need to settle, once and for all, what is meant by “doing GIS” and what is the “science of GIS.” When the term “geographic information systems” was coined by Roger Tomlinson for the Government of Canada in the early 1960s, he defined GIS as a computer application designed to perform certain mapping functions. This definition would have GIS classified as a tool to create a map.

Three decades passed before the geography sciences ventured into the “tool versus science” debate. In 1992, Goodchild wrote a paper which attempted to define geographic information science and in 1994, Sui published a discussion aimed at reconciling the differences between GIS enthusiasts and critics. In 1993, the “Automated Geography” series was published in The Professional Geographer, chronicling reflections on GIS developments since 1983 when Dobson announced that “advances in analytical methods and computer technology had made it possible to automate several aspects of geographical research and problem-solving.”

Goodchild argued that there are many disciplines of geographic information science, and that it made “more sense for the research community to decode the GIS acronym as combining knowledge developed by geodesy, cartography, surveying, photogrammetry, remote sensing, geography, computer science, spatial statistics, and other disciplines of geographic information science.” Ironically, every reference to the GIS acronym in his paper was to “system,” not “science.” It’s when we look at GIS as a method of solving problems that surveyors benefit from the technology most.

Within the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM), the awareness of the difference between GIS as a tool and as a body of knowledge lead to changes in the names of the two academic journals published by ACSM member organizations. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems was renamed Cartography and Geographic Information Science in January 1999 (vol. 26, no.1) and Surveying and Land Information Systems became Surveying and Land Information Science as of the March issue of 2002 (vol. 62, no. 1).

This name change was prompted by more than an attempt at academic legitimacy. It was in direct response to the discussion about the impact of science and technology on our world and, indeed, our everyday lives. A case in point, GIS, the technological (toolbox) face of the theories, models, and algorithms developed from the rigorous collection and analysis of geographic data, has had widespread success in government, business, and education. Why? Because GIS has a unique potential to connect the world by our own science and imagination.

We’ve established that GIS helps to obtain and create knowledge. We have also established there is a set of basic problems, each of which probably existed before GIS was developed, whose solution is now pressing, and, because of modern geospatial technology and standards, eminently possible. We have also established that as a multi-disciplinary technology, GIS requires multidisciplinary input.

And that where I believe lie enormous opportunities for surveyors who have, through their work, created the conditions for the development of GIS. Surveyors collect a multitude of data—on boundaries and natural or man-made features but also but also on heights and mean sea level, and other vertical data. The information developed from these data in the form of a GIS map can be used by other professions—city planners, transportation experts, the crude oil industry, environmentalists, and the police and rescue forces, to name just a few. Out of these multi-disciplinary interactions a business model powered by GIS has arisen.

Many surveyors have adopted this model and are seeing a positive return on their investment. With GIS there is no telling where rigorous horizontal and vertical data will be required, and by whom. There is, however, no mystery about who is best qualified to provide such data. Surveyors—land and geodetic surveyors. So why not get involved—not only on the science side, but on the business side as well. Particularly on the business side, so that the public’s trust in the products and services provided by geospatial technology is upheld.

The “advancement and betterment of human welfare” is the cornerstone of the surveying profession. Failure to recognize the prestigious role surveyors play in the development and application of GIS would not advance this noble cause. Besides, as the co-creators of GIS, surveyors have a moral obligation to help the latest kid on the geospatial block succeed.

Bibliography

Demystifying the Persistent Ambiguity of GIS as a “Tool” versus “Science,” by D.J. Wright, M.F. Goodchild, and J.D. Proctor. The Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87(2): 346-62. 1997.

Communities of Scholars: Places of Leverage in the History of Automated Cartography, by N.R. Chrisman. Cartography and Geographic Information Science 32(4): 425-33. 2005.