GIS for Marine Sciences Students

Geographic information system (GIS) technology tools enable you to better understand and represent the systems at work in the seas and oceans. From the coastal shoreline to the bathymetric bottom, marine GIS has been adapted and implemented to help you achieve your goals in coastal zone management, research, ocean industries, and navigation.

GIS softwares provides tools for data storage and access, analysis, and modeling ocean features. GIS technology enables you to integrate coastline, depth, channel, obstruction, and landmark information, resulting in improvements in navigational efficiencies, commerce, and safety and ....

DESCRIPTION

This course covers fundamental concepts underlying computerized geographic information systems (GISs) at an intermediate level focused on marine scince excersizes. It combines an overview of the general principles of GIS with a theoretical treatment of the nature and analytical use of spatial information. The course has a laboratory works that exposes students to the ArcGIS 10 software packages. Ia also focuses on the fundamental nature and analytical use of spatial information in various forms (i.e., geographic information science or GIScience). Good skills with the Internet and the World Wide Web will definitely help you in this course. Guideline resources are available on the class web site for your benefit. I cover a lot of material in class using PowerPoint presentation.

Learning Outcomes

• Synthesize and integrate concepts of GIS theory and methodology, including data models, data structures, topology, and spatial analysis.
• Understand and articulate what geographic information science is and some of its topics and challenges.
• Describe the functional basis of a GIS
• Consider and evaluate the benefits and shortcomings of using GIS for a variety of marine resource applications.
• Demonstrate basic GIS software skills in the ArcGIS10.
• Be able to perform spatial analysis in ArcGIS 10.

Textbooks

Geographic Information Systems and Science by Longley, Goodchild, Maguire, and Rhind, 3rd Edition
"GIS technology is proliferating throughout the world in myriad applications. While many technical books and writings describe these uses, Geographic Information Systems and Science explores many of the "real-world" applications of this rapidly evolving field. In so doing, the book illuminates some of the growing commonalities between the concerns of business, government, and science; how issues of management, ethics, risk, and technology intersect; and how GIS provides a gateway to problem solving. Designed for readers who are already familiar with GIS, this richly illustrated, full-color book is aimed at intermediate-level undergraduate students, postgraduate students, and busy professionals who need clear and succinct information about this fast-developing technology." Wiley or ESRI Press, 2010/2011, 560 pp., $79.20 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-470-72144-5. Description from ESRI GISstore. Image used by permission.

Geospatial Tools for Marine Science, Conservation, and Management in the Pacific Northwest
edited by D.J. Wright and A.J. Scholz, Foreword by Sylvia Earle
Many students taking this course have expressed an interest in marine and coastal applications of GIS. If you are in this category you may enjoy this supplemental text, especially as we approach the lectures on 3-D and 4-D GIS. Place Matters explores how marine GIS is contributing to the understanding, management, and conservation of the shores and ocean of the Pacific Northwest, which is becoming a hotbed of marine GIS development and applications as scientists expand the use of this cutting-edge technology to a variety of ocean science, policy, and management issues. With its unique focus on the use of GIS to solve marine conservation problems, Place Matters offers an important new resource for all who study and work to protect the world's oceans. Oregon State University Press, 2005, 272 pp., $29.95 (list), ISBN: 0-87071-057-5.