How Geospatial Technology Has Impacted My Life
How Geospatial Technology Has Impacted My Life and Community
By: Kimberly St. Cin
9/12/2014
Geospatial Technology has incorporated itself into almost every aspect of our daily lives. Whether one is looking for directions to the new restaurant in town, planning a long trip, or rescuing people after an emergency or natural disaster. Geospatial technology is what you would use. Geospatial Technology has impacted my everyday life greatly. I use GPS almost on a daily basis. During a recent trip to the beach, I used it to map my trip, locate the hotel, and then later to find a nearby family oriented dining establishment and then to read the reviews. While at the beach, I also took several photos and uploaded them onto …show more content…
Facebook. When posting to social media, not only is the whole world able to see your photos but, also your exact location. This is just one example of how GIS is hard at work.
Our Communities depend on geospatial technologies such as GIS (Global Information
Systems) when faced with emergencies or natural disasters.
GIS provides maps of local communities and areas of special interest to emergency management. The help that comes to assist relies greatly on GIS. This technology has been adapted for all phases of emergency management – planning, mitigation preparedness, and recovery. While planning, the hazards, risks and possible consequences are identified. Only after the potential damaging event is evaluated, can mitigation and preparedness activities start. In an emergency, time is the deadliest enemy. Hours and seconds make the difference between saving lives and losing lives. GIS provides the tools to make a critical difference. For example, GIS was an integral part of the response phase when Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005.
The Red Cross used GIS to assist the agency in providing communities and displaced people with food, clothing, shelter and other essentials. Emergency response depends on accurate data from a number of sources that can be translated into useable information. That’s exactly what GIS does for
us.
In the future, geospatial technologies could be used in a number of ways. It is possible that we may have 3D and 4D geospatial information. Smartphones will have even more uses and capabilities than they do today. It is likely, that they will have the technology necessary to film in 360 degrees 3d video with incredible resolution. Future vehicles may be equipped with devices that track and report our speed and driving patterns to our insurance companies and the authorities if needed. In the future geospatial technology use will be at an all-time high. It will give us the ability to keep up with an ever changing world.
As you can see, geospatial technologies have a great impact on our lives, from obtaining travel directions to responding to natural disasters and other types of emergencies.
Without such technologies, we would be once again, reduced to paper trails and data based operations. Paper maps and plans provided very little means of interactivity that we have today with our many geospatial technological resources. Our lives would be more complicated and it would take longer to get things accomplished. We should be thankful that we live in a time where we have so much imperative information at out fingertips. As the world continues to grow and change there will be an even higher demand to develop further geospatial technologies. The technology today is only the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.
By: Kimberly St. Cin
9/12/2014
Geospatial Technology has incorporated itself into almost every aspect of our daily lives. Whether one is looking for directions to the new restaurant in town, planning a long trip, or rescuing people after an emergency or natural disaster. Geospatial technology is what you would use. Geospatial Technology has impacted my everyday life greatly. I use GPS almost on a daily basis. During a recent trip to the beach, I used it to map my trip, locate the hotel, and then later to find a nearby family oriented dining establishment and then to read the reviews. While at the beach, I also took several photos and uploaded them onto …show more content…
Facebook. When posting to social media, not only is the whole world able to see your photos but, also your exact location. This is just one example of how GIS is hard at work.
Our Communities depend on geospatial technologies such as GIS (Global Information
Systems) when faced with emergencies or natural disasters.
GIS provides maps of local communities and areas of special interest to emergency management. The help that comes to assist relies greatly on GIS. This technology has been adapted for all phases of emergency management – planning, mitigation preparedness, and recovery. While planning, the hazards, risks and possible consequences are identified. Only after the potential damaging event is evaluated, can mitigation and preparedness activities start. In an emergency, time is the deadliest enemy. Hours and seconds make the difference between saving lives and losing lives. GIS provides the tools to make a critical difference. For example, GIS was an integral part of the response phase when Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005.
The Red Cross used GIS to assist the agency in providing communities and displaced people with food, clothing, shelter and other essentials. Emergency response depends on accurate data from a number of sources that can be translated into useable information. That’s exactly what GIS does for
us.
In the future, geospatial technologies could be used in a number of ways. It is possible that we may have 3D and 4D geospatial information. Smartphones will have even more uses and capabilities than they do today. It is likely, that they will have the technology necessary to film in 360 degrees 3d video with incredible resolution. Future vehicles may be equipped with devices that track and report our speed and driving patterns to our insurance companies and the authorities if needed. In the future geospatial technology use will be at an all-time high. It will give us the ability to keep up with an ever changing world.
As you can see, geospatial technologies have a great impact on our lives, from obtaining travel directions to responding to natural disasters and other types of emergencies.
Without such technologies, we would be once again, reduced to paper trails and data based operations. Paper maps and plans provided very little means of interactivity that we have today with our many geospatial technological resources. Our lives would be more complicated and it would take longer to get things accomplished. We should be thankful that we live in a time where we have so much imperative information at out fingertips. As the world continues to grow and change there will be an even higher demand to develop further geospatial technologies. The technology today is only the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.