How Do Different Types of Organizations Use GIS?

GIS are important for many different types of organizations.

Some rely on GIS to study how spatial data and trends change over time. Others are more focused on analyzing past scenarios in order to plan for the future.

When used effectively, GIS can reveal valuable insights that escape those who are studying geographic data with spreadsheets or other 2D resources. Today, companies and agencies across a variety of industries are using GIS to better understand our world and enhance decision-making.

Here, we take a look at several GIS use cases in the following spaces:

• Public Health
• Environmental Preservation
• Urban Planning
• Brick-and-Mortar Business Development
• Fiber Optic Development

GIS for Public Health

GIS have dramatically improved public health studies and analyses. Now, agencies can evaluate how diseases spread across geographies and identify potential causes using digital maps and data layers.

In recent years, the U.S. has witnessed a surge in opioid-related overdoses and accidents. Using GIS, local public health authorities can visualize where overdoses occur in a region and launch strategies that target specific high-risk neighborhoods.

By understanding on how opioids spread in communities, agencies can allocate resources more efficiently and improve coordination between public health organizations. The same principles apply for disease states and public health issues of all kinds, including flu outbreaks and homelessness.

GIS for Environmental Protection

GIS platforms allow environmental scientists to see how our world is physically changing over time. They can create dynamic digital maps that incorporate data layers for many different environmental variables, from annual rainfall to natural resource use.

For example, glaciologists can track how glaciers grow and retreat in certain areas by creating month-by-month visualizations that show glacial boundaries on top of consistent terrain basemaps. In the field of forest science, organizations can easily study forest expansion and deforestation in the same way using relevant basemaps and forestry data layers. Identifying correlations related to pollution is also much easier with GIS. Analysts can add data layers that characterize gas prevalence to imagery basemaps that show roads and cities.

When it comes to environmental preservation, the analytical possibilities are endless with GIS.

GIS for Urban Planning

As humans continue to move into urban areas, organizations need to analyze urban development and demographic trends in order to plan for future growth well.

Cities are growing more complex and transportation is evolving incredibly fast. Urban planners can use GIS to optimize building installations, forecast the environmental impact of urban expansion, and analyze the spatial distribution of critical resource centers. They can ensure that urban centers grow responsibly without straining public systems.

Thanks to GIS, urban planners have the tools they need to make sound decisions around growth and development, which is only going to grow in importance.

GIS for Brick-and-Mortar Businesses

For any brick-and-mortar business, digital mapping is vital for growth planning.

When it comes to launching new retail locations, development teams need to know where they have existing storefronts, where competitors are located, and where potential customers shop. With GIS, retailers can study new markets thoroughly to see if an attractive opportunity exists.

Restaurants, fast food chains, and car washes also need GIS to study spatial data that describe local populations and traffic patterns. GIS platforms make it much easier to test geographies for certain conditions that need to be true in order for new brick-and-mortar businesses to be successful.

GIS for Fiber Optic Development

For obvious reasons, we had to share why we also love GIS 

With GIS, fiber developers are empowered to manage and grow their networks with confidence. They can create fiber data layers that include all relevant network elements and add them on top of basemaps for any region of the world.

GIS make troubleshooting network issues easy as engineers can localize exactly where problems occur and how they are spatially related to other geographic structures. Fiber development teams can study where new buildings are going up and see whether they have existing capacity to serve new clients. Maps also help network managers visualize where they lack redundancy in cable routes.

GIS and fiber network management go hand-in-hand. To learn more about the many ways you can use GIS to optimize your network, try a demo of our platform today.

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