Geographic Data Types: Although the two terms, data and information, are often used indiscriminately, they both have a specific meaning. Data can be described as different observations, which are collected and stored. Information is that data, which is useful in answering queries or solving a problem. Digitizing a large number of maps provides a large amount of data after hours of painstaking works, but the data can only render useful information if it is used in analysis.
Spatial and Non-spatial data: Geographic data are organised in a geographic database. This database can be considered as a collection of spatially referenced data that acts as a model of reality. There are two important components of this geographic database: its geographic position and its attributes or properties. In other words, spatial data (where is it?) and attribute data (what is it?)
Attribute Data: The attributes refer to the properties of spatial entities. They are often referred to as non-spatial data since they do not in themselves represent location information.
Spatial data: Geographic position refers to the fact that each feature has a location that must be specified in a unique way. To specify the position in an absolute way a coordinate system is used. For small areas, the simplest coordinate system is the regular square grid. For larger areas, certain approved cartographic projections are commonly used. Internationally there are many different coordinate systems in use. Geographic object can be shown by FOUR type of representation viz., points, lines, areas, and continuous surfaces.
Point Data: Points are the simplest type of spatial data. They are-zero dimensional objects with only a position in space but no length.
Line Data: Lines (also termed segments or arcs) are one-dimensional spatial objects. Besides having a position in space, they also have a length.
Area Data: Areas (also termed polygons) are two-dimensional spatial objects with not only a position in space and a length but also a width (in other words they have an area).
Continuous Surface: Continuous surfaces are three-dimensional spatial objects with not only a position in space, a length and a width, but also a depth or height (in other words they have a volume). These spatial objects have not been discussed further because most GIS do not include real volumetric spatial data.
Linkages and Matching: A GIS typically links different sets. Suppose you want to know the mortality rate to cancer among children under 10 years of age in each country. If you have one file that contains the number of children in this age group, and another that contains the mortality rate from cancer, you must first combine or link the two data files. Once this is done, you can divide one figure by the other to obtain the desired answer.
Exact Matching: Exact matching occurs when you have information in one computer file about many geographic features (e.g., towns) and additional information in another file about the same set of features. The operation to bring them together is easily achieved by using a key common to both files -- in this case, the town name. Thus, the record in each file with the same town name is extracted, and the two are joined and stored in another file.
Hierarchical Matching: Some types of information, however, are collected in more detail and less frequently than other types of information. For example, financial and unemployment data covering a large area are collected quite frequently. On the other hand, population data are collected in small areas but at less frequent intervals. If the smaller areas nest (i.e., fit exactly) within the larger ones, then the way to make the data match of the same area is to use hierarchical matching -- add the data for the small areas together until the grouped areas match the bigger ones and then match them exactly. The hierarchical structure illustrated in the chart shows that this city is composed of several tracts. To obtain meaningful values for the city, the tract values must be added together.
Fuzzy Matching: On many occasions, the boundaries of the smaller areas do not match those of the larger ones. This occurs often while dealing with environmental data. For example, crop boundaries, usually defined by field edges, rarely match the boundaries between the soil types. If you want to determine the most productive soil for a particular crop, you need to overlay the two sets and compute crop productivity for each and every soil type. In principle, this is like laying one map over another and noting the combinations of soil and productivity. A GIS can carry out all these operations because it uses geography, as a common key between the data sets. Information is linked only if it relates to the same geographical area
Why is data linkage so important? Consider a situation where you have two data sets for a given area, such as yearly income by county and average cost of housing for the same area. Each data might be analysed and/or mapped individually. Alternatively, they may be combined. With two data sets, only one valid combination exists. Even if your data sets may be meaningful for a single query you will still be able to answer many more questions than if the data sets were kept separate. By bringing them together, you add value to the database. To do this, you need GIS.
