Mapping Finds Its Way to the Mainstream
A Portland, Ore., group intent on preserving the fragile ecology of the verdant rain forest that hugs the Northwest coastline has turned to an obscure branch of computer science to help it with the task.
Taking information from dozens of government agencies and environmental groups in the United States and Canada, Ecotrust has created computerized maps on its Web site (https://www.inforain.org) that graphically depict shrinking wetlands over time, the pressure of development and the condition of the wildlife.
A small rural group fighting a development project or interested in restoring a salmon stream can click on any one of 1,200 watersheds in the region to get a status report on endangered salmon species in the area, says Mike Merten, who helped develop the maps for Ecotrust.
Merten is one of a small tribe of 5,000 or so computer experts who build geographic information systems, libraries of information that use maps instead of the alphabet or subject categories to organize and store information. The systems allow information to be viewed and analyzed in an intuitive, visual way.
GIS has been around for decades. Oil companies use software from Redlands-based Environmental Systems Research Institute, the leader in the field, to turn seismic data into maps that show promising oil fields. Blockbuster Video uses the technology to find ideal locations for its new video stores.
But until recently computer mapping has been an expensive tool for large corporate and government organizations. The basic software typically starts at $1,200 and the basic computer data required for analysis cost thousands more. Most software requires a GIS expert such as Merten to translate the information into color-coded maps.
All that is beginning to change, however, spurred by simpler, cheaper software and data, as well as the rapid growth of the Internet.
Microsoft Adds GIS to Toolbox
Recognizing the mass-market potential of GIS, for example, Microsoft will release in June a new product called MapPoint 2000 which, for just $109, includes a detailed map of the entire country along with census data about household size, income, ethnicity and even age. It’s designed so users can easily find any address in the country, plop a map into a Microsoft Word document or transfer data to a map from a spreadsheet.
The goal is to make computer mapping as common and as widely used a tool as the spreadsheet and the desktop database, says John Betz, a Microsoft group product planner.
A restaurant owner could, for example, take a list of customers he keeps on a spreadsheet and simply drag and drop it onto MapPoint. The owner could then add demographic data and information about real estate in the area to help select the location best suited for his clientele.
“There is a potentially huge group of small-business users this will address,” says David Sonnen, an analyst with IDC, a Framingham, Mass.-based market research company.
Microsoft is significantly undercutting its competitors by including detailed street information on the entire country, for which GIS professionals previously paid database providers $350 per county.
“Therein lies the power of Microsoft,” says Bernie Szukalski, product manager at competitor ESRI. “They sell in such high volume that they can negotiate costs that are good for the consumer.”
Still, Szukalski and other competitors say Microsoft’s entry into the market with a cheap, simple product is a good thing because it will introduce many more people to the power of computer mapping.
“We welcome Microsoft in the market,” says John Cavalier, chief executive at MapInfo, a Troy, N.Y.-based GIS software company. “They will expand the market for us.”
Once users are accustomed to viewing data on a map, Cavalier says, they are more likely to upgrade to sophisticated GIS software that can, for example, handle larger amounts of data for hundreds of users.
Cavalier says the fastest-growing market for GIS software is among large electric utilities and telecommunications companies that want a single, constantly updated map of all their telephone poles, underground wires and other infrastructure on a Web site where engineers, planners and even repair people can quickly get the latest information with just a browser.
Wireless companies, for example, have developed detailed maps that include trees, buildings and land elevations. When customers complain about poor cellular phone service from a certain location, that spot can be pinpointed on the map. A quick look by a trained eye makes it clear where the next cell tower should go or how existing towers should be tuned to improve service.
As the available data become more sophisticated, including such information as the propensity of the people in a particular ZIP Code to buy high-fashion goods, for example, marketing companies have begun to use computer mapping to fine-tune their advertising campaigns.
“You start to understand patterns of consumer behavior such that you can predict demand,” says MapInfo’s Cavalier.
Domino’s Pizza, for example, has GIS software that includes detailed demographic information about the people who live in each geographic area and their spending habits. Managers of local franchises can use the corporate mapping system to determine which customers are most likely to react to a promotion during an upcoming baseball game, for example, and direct promotions to those neighborhoods.
Push to Make Information Public
While corporations have been quick to exploit the power of GIS, much of the most interesting geographic information is in government hands. Since President Clinton launched the 1995 National Spatial Data Infrastructure Initiative to standardize geographic-based data, there has been a growing push to make more of that information available to the public.
In a speech at the Brookings Institution last fall, Vice President Al Gore launched an initiative to use GIS to “put more control, more information, more decision-making power into the hands of families, communities and regions.” Gore predicted that communities with more information about the buildings, farmland and population growth in their regions might do a better job of planning.
Partly in response to these initiatives, as well as to cut costs while being more responsive to the public, a growing number of local and federal government agencies and universities are developing computer mapping systems that make public information easily accessible over the Net.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently put up a site (https://www.epa.gov/enviro/enviromapper.html) that allows residents of virtually any area in the country to find the location of Superfund sites and to find out about toxic and air pollution problems.
Ontario, Calif., uses its city Web site (https://www.ci.ontario.ca.us/) to offer information about polling locations, flood zones and even the path of water, sewage and electric lines. San Diego (https://www.sangis.org) has an elaborate Web site that allows residents to look at earthquake faults, geologic hazards, schools and other public facilities and even climate zones.
The National Ocean Service has a Web site (https://mapfinder.nos. noaa.gov) with coastal survey maps, nautical charts, environmental sensitivity index maps and other information.
“It used to be that the only way to get this data was to go to some city office,” says ESRI’s Szukalski. “Now you can get a lot of it on the Web.”
The Spatial Data and Visualization Center at the University of Wyoming has created one of the most sophisticated mapping systems for making public information available on the Web (https://wims. sdvc.uwyo.edu). The site offers a computerized map of Wyoming that can be overlaid with 514 different sets of data. Layers include U.S. Geological Survey maps, the location of oil and gas wells, and even radon levels at various locations in Yellowstone National Park from a survey conducted by high school students.
If you want to study how elk habitats might be related to geothermal springs, explains Henry Heasler, research professor at the University of Wyoming and one of the founders of the Visualization Center, you would put those two “layers” on the map and see how they overlap.
Schools can use the site as a teaching tool, prospectors use it to find out who owns particular mineral rights and what the prospects are for minerals in different areas. GIS professionals can actually use the site to download huge amounts of public data into their own computer mapping systems for more detailed analysis.
“This gets GIS out of the realm of the GIS professional and available to the public,” Heasler says. “There are a lot of resource issues that need public input.”
Gaps in the System
One problem with converting information into visual form is that it can hide the quality of the data used to create the image. Merten notes, for example, that Ecotrust’s data for salmon resources in the Northwest still contains lots of gaps. Merten has designed a form that allows people to send in new data about salmon habitats along with information about its source and reliability.
The lack of standards is another barrier to broader use of the systems. GIS professionals who bring data from different sources onto a single map have to contend with the many ways in which data is represented. Different data, for example, use different ways of projecting geographic information from a curved glob onto a flat map. Often data is stored in different computers in a range of formats.
The Bureau of Land Management has given up on a 15-year, $400-million project that was supposed to computerize its system for managing 265 million acres of federal land and a billion documents, some as old as 200 years.
Still, those problems are gradually being resolved through new standards. And new technology promises to make GIS even more accurate.
Consider the global positioning system available on many cars and trucks, which uses satellites to establish a precise point on Earth. Large agribusinesses use these devices, combined with computer mapping, to automatically determine exactly how much pesticide or fertilizer should be sprayed in any particular area depending on the crop and on soil conditions. The sprayer can be programmed to avoid using chemicals in areas bordering streams, for example.
ESRI is working with Rand McNally and other partners to develop systems that not only advise trucking firms on what routes to use, but employ GPS to keep track of the trucks on the road. If there are delays or the truck is ahead of schedule, the system automatically adjusts routes, reassigning repair or delivery trucks to make sure the job is done in the most efficient way.
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Times staff writer Leslie Helm can be reached via e-mail at leslie.helm@latimes.com.
