Geographic Information Systems: An Introduction, 3rd Edition

15.5 Practical Application of GIS Analytical Functions

15.5.1 Statement of the problem

In many towns, land use depends on natural resource data. However, urban area planning often makes poor use of such data. As a rule, extensive surveys are conducted, but further processing, including the superimposition of data and the assigning of priorities to categories of natural resources, is often neglected.

A digital map database could be established for the purpose of area planning, and natural resource data are often available on manuscript maps. The goal should be to produce maps of selected natural data and then superimpose them selectively to produce a map of priorities for wildlife, fishing, conservation, and outdoor activities. An additional goal should be to produce a composite ground resource map for use in town planning and land administration.

15.5.2 Procedure

Raw data

The raw data used to assign priorities to categories of natural resources:

• Digital basic data from 1:50,000 topographic maps: lake and watercourse contours, elevation contours, and roads
• Digital plan extract of township plan
• Digital data for precipitation area classification
• Manuscript maps for wildlife (reindeer, deer, moose, roe deer, black grouse, wood grouse, and ptarmigan), outdoor recreation, and conservation
• Extracts of computerized registers (attribute data)
• Data having IDs in common with the manuscript maps for wildlife, outdoor recreation, and conservation
• Fish registry data, including coordinates of ...