International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems

Volume 16 • Issue 4 • October-December 2020

Geographic Information System

and Big Spatial Data:
A Review and Challenges
Raja Sher Afgun Usmani, Taylor’s University, Malaysia
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2027-1425

Ibrahim Abaker Targio Hashem, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Thulasyammal Ramiah Pillai, Taylor’s University, Malaysia
Anum Saeed, Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering, Pakistan
Akibu Mahmoud Abdullahi, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Geographic information system (GIS) is designed to generate maps, manage spatial datasets, perform
sophisticated “what if” spatial analyses, visualize multiple spatial datasets simultaneously, and solve
location-based queries. The impact of big data is in every industry, including the GIS. The location-
based big data also known as big spatial data has significant implications as it forces the industry to
contemplate how to acquire and leverage spatial information. In this study, a comprehensive taxonomy
is created to provide a better understanding of the uses of GIS and big spatial data. The taxonomy is
made up of big data technologies, GIS data sources, tools, analytics, and applications. The authors
look into the importance of big spatial data and its implications, review the data sources, and GIS
analytics, applications, and GIS tools. Furthermore, in order to guide researchers interested in GIS,
the challenges that require substantial research efforts are taken into account. Lastly, open issues in
GIS that require further observation are summarized.

Keywords
Analytics, Big Data, Big Spatial Data, Geographic Information Systems, GIS, GIS Tools, Prediction

INTRODUCTION

Geographic Information System (GIS) (Geography 2019) is to be a tool for preparing maps or
generating presentation graphics. However, it is much more than that. GIS is an information system
which aids the tool to gather data by collection, integration, management, analyzation, modeling
and display for a reference to get accurate cartographic representation of an object in space (Chang
2016). Figure 1 provides an overview of GIS being applied around the world across many disciplines,
professions and organizations. GIS has different characteristics that can separate it from other

DOI: 10.4018/IJEIS.2020100106

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


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Figure 1. GIS Applications: Around the world

information systems. Primarily, GIS is designed for generating maps. These map-displays can
be prepared using only a spreadsheet. It includes methods to digitize existing paper maps, collect
coordinates of maps through surveying techniques or global positioning systems (GPS) and maps
are generated using aerial photograph or satellite imagery maps.
Apart from generating maps, GIS is used to manage spatial datasets, i.e. GIS are spatial database
management tools (Perumal et al. 2015). The data management process starts with outlining a
link amongst the map and attribute data. The process of linking the attribute data with the spatial
coordinates of the map is known as Geocoding. Geographic database is generated by creating the
field in the attribute database for the longitude (location X-value) and latitude (location Y-value) of
each address, this interdependently combines the map and attribute dataset.
The GIS provides an integrated environment to deal with the spatial criteria based queries, such as:
“How many hotels are there within 2 km?” or “What is the air pollution index of Highbury, London,
United Kingdom?”. Additionally, GIS has the edge as it can answer the spatially referenced questions
and concepts, such as “contained within” and “next to”, that are usually not possible to answer with
anecdotal information or database management systems. For instance, a user can perform attribute
data-based queries by objects pointing, polygon definitions, or records selection from a particular
distance of a dropped pin, whereas others do not. The GIS provides an integrated environment to
deal with the spatial criteria based query. Spatially referenced questions such as “How many hotels
are within 2 km?” or “what is the air pollution index of Highbury, London, United Kingdom”.
Additionally, GIS has the edge as it can answer the spatially referenced questions and concepts such
as “contained within”, “next to” that are usually not possible to answer with anecdotal information
or database management systems. For instance, a user can perform attribute data based queries
by objects pointing, by polygon definitions, or by records selection from a particular distance of a
dropped pin whereas others do not.
Another capability of GIS is the visualization of spatial data. Using GIS, multiple datasets can be
displayed on a map simultaneously because datasets are treated as different individual layers in GIS.
These layers are explained as a table or a user-view. Layers can be stacked to show the relationship
between them. A typical example of this can be a combination of a layer with school territories
with the layer of enrollment information of schools in those territories. These datasets are stored as

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independent layers. However, to show the relationship between school territories and school enrollment
to the user, these layers can be concurrently displayed on the same map. Visualization is one of the
most critical aspects of GIS as it allows users to envision the data and help them identify the links
or associations. Another capability of GIS is the visualization of spatial data. Using GIS, multiple
datasets can be displayed on a map simultaneously because datasets are treated as different individual
layers in GIS. These layers are explained as a table or a user view. Layers can be stacked to show the
relationship between them. A typical example of this can be a combination of a layer with school
territories with the layer of enrollment information of schools in those territories. These datasets are
stored as independent layers; however, to show the relationship between schools’ territories and school
enrollment to the user these layers can be concurrently displayed on the same map. Visualization is
one of the most critical aspects of GIS as it allows users to envision the data and help them identify
links or associations.
GIS also provides the capability to do spatial analysis. Spatial analysis is used to perform
sophisticated ‘what if’ analyses, like Decision Support System (DSS). It does ‘what if’ analyses using
the spatial information. It gives the ability to query scenarios like, “How many people will see an
advertisement in a day?” or “How many people will pass through a location in a month?”. GIS also
provides data manipulation functionality and statistical tools that are useful for data transformation
and model implementation during these analyses.
GIS also provides the capability to do spatial analysis. Spatial analysis is used to performing
sophisticated ‘what if’ analyses like Decision Support System (DSS). It does ‘what if’ analyses
using the spatial information. It gives the power to query scenarios like, how many people will
see an advertisement in a day, or how many people will pass through a location in a month. GIS
provides data manipulation functionality and statistical tools useful for data transformation and model
implementation during these analyses. GIS is an extraordinary technology that has shaped societies
in incredible ways. The roots of GIS can be followed back to Roger Tomlinson, who invented this
technology for the Canada Land Inventory in 1962 (Tomlinson 1962). Hence, GIS predates big data
by about half a century. The impact of big data is in every industry, including GIS. The location-based
big data in the GIS industry, also known as big spatial data, has significant implications as it forces
the industry to contemplate ways to acquire and leverage spatial information. The union of big data
with GIS means that the potential applications of the two become limitless. The use of GIS with big
data is expanding rapidly in every business sector; whereas historically, the geospatial data was used
mainly by government agencies. Big data and GIS go hand in hand, whether GIS is used for generating
maps, managing spatial datasets, solving spatial referenced queries or visualization of spatial data.
Nevertheless, the impact of big data on the future of GIS is tremendous. The relationship is a two-
way street because GIS technology is one of the driving forces in the discovery of big data as well.
The goal of this study is to offer a comprehensive review of GIS and the use of big spatial
data. Possibly, the most relevant related work appears in Li et al. (2016). However, our study differs
from the previous papers by providing a comprehensive and in-depth investigation in the rise of big
spatial data and the use of GIS in research. In this paper, we provide the definition, characteristics,
and classification of GIS. Furthermore, research challenges are discussed with focus on complexity,
multiple dimensions, time consumption, expense, storage size, integration, and ground reality.
Several open issues that require substantial research efforts are likewise summarized. Other related
work includes big spatial data processing (Zhao et al. 2016), spatiotemporal data mining in the era of
big spatial data (Vatsavai et al. 2012) and methods for analyzing large spatial data (Heaton et al. 2017).
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the classification of GIS and
big data with subsections describing big data, data sources, analytics, tools and applications of GIS.
Several issues and research challenges in the domain of GIS are reviewed in Section 3. Section 4
provides a summary of current open research issues, Section 5 provides the discussion on the topics
covered in this paper and Section 6 presents the conclusions.

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Figure 2. Classification of geographic information systems

CLASSIFICATION OF GIS

Geographic Information Systems are classified into different categories to understand their
characteristics better. Figure 2. shows numerous categories of GIS. The classification is important
because of the variety in implementations of GIS. The classification is based on five aspects: big
data, data sources, analytics, tools, and applications. Each of these categories has its subcategories,
each of which contains the uses of GIS to solve different problems in various domains.

Big Data Technologies

O’Reilly Media coined the term big data in 2005. O’Reilly Media also created the term Web 2.0
one year previously. Big data referred to large datasets that cannot be managed and processed using
traditional business intelligence tools. Yahoo also created Hadoop on top of Google’s MapReduce
in year 2005. The goal of Hadoop was to index the world wide web. Nowadays, the impact of big
data is in every industry, including GIS. The datasets with massive amount of data in GIS are called
big spatial data. Big data is defined using volume, velocity and variety. GIS is also facing the same
problem as other industries with an increase in variety, size and frequency of updates. These problems
are exceeding the capacity of traditional GIS architecture, methodologies and spatial computing
techniques. Spatial and Spatio-temporal data is not directly supported by the state-of-the-art tools and
concepts used in big data like Hadoop, map-reduce, HBase, Hive and Spark. Hence, most of the big
spatial data is processed as non-spatial data or by using some wrapper, which has a high processing cost.
The limitations in existing big data tools and concepts inspired researchers to come up with
extensions and architectures to handle big spatial data efficiently. These include Hadoop-GIS,
SpatialHadoop, GeoSpark and integration of NoSQL with spatial data. ESRI, the world leader in
the GIS software, also released a suite of GIS tools on Hadoop (ESRI 2019d) that work with their
flagship ArcGIS product. GIS tools for Hadoop suffer from limitations like dealing with spatial data
as non-spatial data and using Hive, a layer on top of Hadoop among others (Eldawy and Mokbel
2015). In the coming sections, we will look into the work done by researchers on these extensions
and architectures that enable processing of big spatial data.

Hadoop-GIS
Hadoop-GIS is an open-source, high-performance and scalable spatial data warehousing system
developed in 2013 (Aji et al. 2013b). Hadoop-GIS is designed to run large spatial queries on Hadoop,
however it can be used for non-spatial as well. HadoopGIS uses a customizable spatial query engine

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Figure 3. Architecture of Hadoop-GIS

called Real Time Spatial Query Engine (RESQUE) to execute spatial queries in parallel. The efficient
spatial joins are motivated by use-cases related to medical pathology imaging (Whitman et al. 2014,
Wang et al. 2015). Hive is incorporated with Hadoop-GIS to boost declarative spatial inquiries (Aji
et al. 2013a). The architecture of Hadoop-GIS is given in Figure 3.
Hadoop-GIS is ideal for large projects for spatial data processing, Deng and Bai (2016) used it for
more than 1 billion floating car data in Beijing over 17 days and Gao et al. (2017) used Hadoop-GIS
to create a high-performance geoprocessing workflow and scalable platform based on the Hadoop
ecosystem to harvest crowd-sourced gazetteer entries. Hadoop-GIS also has limitations, for instance,
it relies on Hadoop as a black box, inheriting the limitations and performance bottlenecks of Hadoop
to process spatial data (Eldawy and Mokbel 2015), and Hadoop-GIS requires the deployment of a
customized Hive open-source implementation which adds extra overhead on top of Hadoop (Whitman
et al. 2014).

SpatialHadoop
SpatialHadoop is designed to handle big spatial data on Apache Hadoop. SpatialHadoop is an open-
source MapReduce extension that injects awareness of spatial data in language, storage, MapReduce
and operation layers of Hadoop (Eldawy and Mokbel 2015). It is also capable of running non-spatial
Hadoop programs without any overhead, and it performs order(s) of magnitude better for spatial data
than Hadoop (Eldawy and Mokbel 2013). It is best suitable for large applications and researchers
are also working to improve SpatialHadoop (Garc´ıa-Garc´ıa et al. 2018). The architecture of
SpatialHadoop is given in Figure 4.
SpatialHadoop is suitable for scalable application using big spatial data. MNTG is a web-based
traffic generator for the whole world (Mokbel et al. 2013). MNTG gives its user the facility to select
a map area, a generation model and its parameters. MNTG then extracts the real road network data
from a dataset of around 100GB using SpatialHadoop, and generates the traffic data for the user.
Another interesting example of SpatialHadoop usage is TAREEG, a web service which provides the
user with the capability to extract spatial datasets from OpenStreetMap. TAREEG can extract data
in several formats, including Google KML and ESRI shapefile. The total size of datasets available in
TAREEG is about 400GB (Alarabi et al. 2014). SpatialHadoop is also the back-end for the SHAHEED
tool, which provides a web interface to explore and analyse the publicly available remote sensing data
by NASA in 500TB archive. The users can navigate through the map in SHAHEED, and the system
displays the satellite data available for the selected area (Eldawy et al. 2015).

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Figure 4. Architecture of SpatialHadoop

GeoSpark
Apache Spark is an open-source engine for big data processing within Hadoop and runs workloads
100 times faster than MapReduce-the standard Hadoop engine. Apache Spark can program entire
clusters with implicit fault tolerance and data parallelism. GeoSpark is built on top of Apache Spark to
cater to the challenges of System Scalability and interactive performance with big spatial data (Yu et
al. 2015). GeoSpark is also used to solve challenges like co-location pattern mining (Yu et al. 2019).
GeoSpark is designed to process big spatial data using in-memory cluster computing framework.
GeoSpark consists of (1) Apache Spark layer that provides basic Spark functionalities, (2) Spatial
Resilient Distributed Dataset (SRDD) layer that provides support to geometrical and spatial objects
and (3) Spatial Query Processing layer that efficiently executes spatial query processing algorithms.
The overview of GeoSpark layers is shown in Figure 5. The run time performance of GeoSpark is
two orders of magnitude faster than existing Hadoop-based systems and up to an order of magnitude
faster than Spark-based systems (Yu et al. 2019).
GeoSpark also comes with some limitations, (1) it does not include integrated support for
clustering methods, (2) it does not cater to specific application requirements via customizable modules,
and (3) it did not consider critical concerns like data load balancing in particular application scenarios
(Aljawarneh et al. 2017).

NoSQL
NoSQL databases provide an alternative data storage and retrieval to the relational databases. NoSQL
is built for large-scale database clustering in web and cloud applications, as the performance and
scalability outweigh the need for rigid data consistency in these applications. Distinctly, NoSQL
databases are not required to follow the established relational schema and specialize in storing

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Figure 5. Overview of GeoSpark layers

unstructured data. Hence, they are particularly useful for large sets of distributed data. The trade-off
for not using relational schema is the level of consistency.
The rise in big data has coincided with the increase in popularity of NoSQL databases. The
challenges of working with big data are mirrored in big spatial data as well. The big spatial data also
suffers from less or no support for spatial data in big data technologies. The relational databases
are not considered an ideal platform for spatial data because it is expensive and hard to maintain,
especially when working with large systems (Xiao and Liu 2011). Hence, the researchers have
worked with various NoSQL databases to provide support for big spatial data. There are efficiency
problems associated with GIS data in relational databases. Notable NoSQL systems that provide
support for big spatial data include CouchDB, MongoDB, Neo4j, and BigTable (Pourabbas 2014).
Zhang et al. (2014) worked with MongoDB and Python to store and access big spatial data in NoSQL
system. Yang et al. (2012) pointed at the challenges of data storage and processing big spatial data
in a web service and proposed a cache-based GIS web service using Memcache and MongoDB. Wu
et al. (2017) created a coherent healthcare system by exploiting the benefits of combining MySQL,
MongoDB and GIS databases. The authors argued that this system would help applications to comply
with EHR (Electronic Health Record) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act of 1996) requirements without compromising the performance and scalability.

Data Sources
When working with GIS, it is imperative to have a data source that will help achieve the research
objectives. Sometimes by luck, a data source with all the parameters needed for the research is available.
Otherwise, some third-party data source is required for the research. There are many types of GIS
data sources available, and with the rise in big data for almost all industries, GIS data sources are
also facing the challenges of the increase in variety, size and frequency of updates. We have divided
them into four different groups, i.e. 2.2.1 ESRI, 2.2.2 OpenStreetMap, 2.2.3 National GIS Sources
and 2.2.4 Commercial GIS data sources. These four groups provide data for applications of all scale
in GIS industry. In the following sections, we explain these data sources and research areas that are
used. Summary of these data sources is provided in Table 1.

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ESRI
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) (ESRI 2019b) was founded as a land-use consulting
firm in 1969. It has evolved to be the world leader in the GIS software market. ESRI provides geo-
database management applications, WebGIS, and GIS software. In 2014 ESRI had 43% share of the
GIS software market (Wikipedia 2019a). In 2014 ESRI also announced its Open Data initiative, which
is an effort to promote open geospatial data. As of 2019, ESRI has 233,926 open datasets from 2,636
organizations worldwide available for download in various formats like spreadsheets and shapefile
(ESRI 2019c). Researchers can use the datasets provided by ESRI as well as convert their manually
collected data into ESRI provided tools and use as GIS datasets. Hence, ESRI is not only leading in
the software industry, but it is also one of the top data source used in GIS-based research. ESRI also
released a suite of GIS tools on Hadoop (ESRI 2019d) to cater to the challenges of big spatial data.
The ESRI GIS tools on Hadoop work with their flagship ArcGIS product.
ESRI is used to solve different research problems. One of these problems is water shortfalls
leading to insecure living conditions. These insecure living conditions are caused due to varying
rainfall conditions, unforeseen, and floods. However, the use of rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems
has made it possible to identify best-suited sites for dams. Adham et al. (2018) created a model
powered by ESRI’s ModeBuilder in ArcGIS 10.2. The authors created a suitability map of the western
desert of Iraq, which is highly useful to planners and hydrologists for easy recognition of areas with
rainwater harvesting potential.
ESRI based applications are also on the forefront of energy-based problems. The GIS-based
approach proposed by Groppi et al. (2018) has been applied to two different municipalities: a rural
area and a town centre. The method was proven to be applicable in both contexts. The respective
model can help local authorities in strategizing energy management implementations. Proposed
GIS model has effectively assisted the estimation of electricity and non-renewable thermal needs
of a building. The model also considers the possible installations of solar thermal and photovoltaic
systems. Also in energy-based problems, there is a crying need for energy consumption modelling
in the built urban areas for creating a carbon-free environment. Unfortunately, there have been very
few standardized approaches made for achieving efficient low-carbon energy planning. Moghadam
et al. (2018) proposed to develop a statistical model to calculate the energy expenditure of domestic
households. The proposed method is based on a Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and GIS, which
generates location-based information for every unit.
Land management and analysis is another area benefiting from ESRI based applications. For
effective land management, suitability evaluation can be entirely conclusive as sustaining land
productivity becomes vital as social demands increase. It allows identifying the main limiting factors
for agricultural production and assists to develop crop management that increases land productivity.
Mazahreh et al. (2018) proposed a framework to develop a GIS-based methodology for land-use
suitability evaluation in order to help land managers to identify areas with physical limitations
for various alternatives of land usage. ESRI based applications are also used to support decisions
needed for conserving heritage sites and promoting tourism at the same time. One of these studies
was conducted for the ancient city of Pompeipolis, Turkey. The Pompeipolis has underground and
aboveground sites that are considered as archaeological and natural heritage. To preserve the vitality
of these sites, promotional ventures should be organized. Mehmet Cetin (Cetin 2015a) researched to
observe the capacity of the caretakers of Pompeipolis within Kastamonu, to use modern preservation
techniques. The study was intended to set up the continuity of progressive tourism. In light of past
studies and frameworks, it demonstrates the difficulties and possibilities that may be faced while
conserving the real essence of the site. The proposed study will help to protect, balance, sustain, and
conduct landscape design and to develop active tourism in the area.

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OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap (OSM) (OSM 2019) is a volunteered geographic information project to create a free
map of the world. The primary output of the project is the data generated through collaboration. The
restrictions on publically available maps have inspired the creation and success of OpenStreetMap.
Inspired by Wikipedia, it was created in 2004 by Steve Coast in the United Kingdom (Wikipedia
2019b). It started with the propriety map of United Kingdom. From then on, it has grown to 2 million
users contributing data through surveys, aerial photography, GPS devices, and other sources. This
data collected by users is then available through the Open Database License. OpenStreetMap is used
for traditional applications, like Foursquare as well as scientific studies. OpenStreetMap is one of the
biggest providers of big spatial data; it is used in projects like TAREEG, a web service which provides
the user with the capability to extract spatial datasets from OpenStreetMap (Alarabi et al. 2014).
Interest in the use of OSM is growing among researchers, especially in the field of health. Spatial
availability studies are hampered by difficulties in obtaining data, Bright et al. (2018) evaluated the
usefulness of OSM data in spatial availability of alcohol and found out that OSM data is adequate
for replicating findings of alcohol licensing data from other studies. The authors argued that this
data could be used by researchers and analysts to understand the patterns of availability of alcohol.
OSM is used for different research areas, one of these areas is heat management. One of these
studies focused on building heat demand. Building heat demand is responsible for a significant
share of the total global final energy consumption. Buffat et al. (2017a) proposed a technique based
on extensive GIS using OSM to model building heat requirement of significant areas with high-
temperature resolution. In comparison to the available methods, this technique uses digital elevation
models for the derivation of all buildings, and uses topographical and climate changes to model
location-dependent effects such as shadowing. The authors modelled the climate effects of complex
terrain using climate data for temperature and solar radiation. In line with the previous study, Bu¨hler et
al. (2017) argued that industry and utility are leading sectors to produce excess heat. Proper utilization
of these heat sources can lead to a reduction in consumption of energy and carbon dioxide emissions.
The authors highlighted the distribution of excess heat produced from the industry and utility sector
to specific locations in Denmark. The mapping proposes a systematic approach to identify cases and
utilize excess heat, taking in account district heating, process heat, and power generation. The study
showed that a quick contrast and evaluation of the viability of various matches could be done when
combined with the economic model.
The power of OSM is also utilized for the analysis of challenges like climate change. In order to
fight against climate change in China, low-carbon urban development is the most important among
global-warming concerns. The automotive sector is a significant contributor to urban carbon dioxide
emissions. The Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) designs present a novel approach to planners to
open doors for carbon reduction from the transportation sector. TOD plans are merely qualitatively
talked upon in China, hence lacking the quantitative verification and practical indicators to support
the actual urban plan. With such condition, Dou et al. (2016) performed a verifiable and measurable
study based on Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) using OSM on the usages of TOD strategy
in Shanghai. Results of the study showed that TOD could be used to improve the transportation
network, hence leading to a decrease in carbon emissions in China.

National GIS Data Sources

Almost every nation in the world is working on gathering and providing spatial data for GIS. These
data sources can be used for analyzing specific problems of that nation as well as contribute to the
global data sources. National organizations provide geographic data sources intended to be used by
government, industry, and academia. The use of GIS with big data is expanding rapidly in every
business sector. Whereas historically, the geospatial data was used mainly by government agencies.
Hence, national GIS data sources are the primary provider for big spatial data.

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The LANDSAT program is the longest-running initiative to acquire images of Earth’s satellites
(NASA 2019). LANDSAT program was launched in 1972 and the most recent LANDSAT satellite
named LANDSAT 8 was launched in 2013. LANDSAT receives millions of images per year. These
images are stored at receiving stations around the world and are unique resources for research on global
change, agriculture, cartography, geology, forestry, regional planning, monitoring, and educational
applications. These images can be viewed through the EarthExplorer website. Some examples of the
use of these LANDSAT and other national data sources are given below.
LANDSAT data is used to solve significant problems such as finding an optimum location of
boreholes to obtain groundwater. Hand pumps are often used to obtain groundwater in poor regions
of Sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, low-yield boreholes are the best suitable option. However, boreholes
have a high failure rate as they are often located without appropriate hydrogeological knowledge
due to budget constraints. Weathered formations are usually used for drilling in regions underlain
by granite. Mart´ın-Loeches et al. (2018) presented a granite citing of Angola by comparing two
mapping methods for borehole siting. Field mapping, aerial photographs, and a geophysical survey
used to design a hydrogeomorphological map. The second map (RS/GIS) is noticeably simpler and
cheaper with the consideration of six maps of equal importance, listed as: drainage density, slope,
vegetation vigor, lineaments, rock outcrops, and clay in the soil.
Earthquakes are one of the scariest natural phenomena, and LANDSAT can be used to identify
the damage in the earthquake-affected area. A method based on surface reflectance (SR) and
LANDSAT-8 operational land imager is proposed by Fan et al. (2019) to identify the area damaged
by the earthquake. The post-earthquake and preearthquake SR images are used to show the effects
of the earthquake. The proposed method resulted in 0.80 coefficient of magnitude when appliedto
the 2015 earthquake in Nepal.
A study was conducted by Ghosh (2017) to comprehend the actual recession over Gangotri
glacier through multispectral and multitemporal LANDSAT images 2015, also with the toposheet
of the Gangotri glacier of 1962. It is essential to gain knowledge of the volumetric reduction of
the glacierarea, and to identify and manage hazards in Himalayan environments where glaciers are
presently retreating due to global warming.
Another important use of LANDSAT data is to evaluate urban growth and landuse structure
over a while. A study was conducted by Luca Salvati and Margherita Carlucci (Salvati and Carlucci
2014) on the development of an Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) that evaluates differences
over time in the segmentation of selected uses of land in two Mediterranean urban regions (Rome
and Athens) with varying morphology and economic functions. The methodology uses global and
local Moran’s indices of spatial autocorrelation to describe the land-use structure studied in the two
cities in the mid-1970s and late-2000s. Fringe landscapes were found to be a key target in the study
for urban containment policies in cities going through suburbanization.
Institute Research Energy Solaire Et Energies Nouvelles (IRESEN) is a research institute in
Morocco. Merrouni et al. (2018) combined GIS and analytic hierarchy process to assess suitable sites
to host large-scale Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants in the eastern region of Morocco using
IRESEN’s server map portal. The powerblock cycle of CSP plant needed cooling systems, therefore,
the authors evaluated two cooling systems for this research, i.e. wet and dry. A geospatial database
using data contributed by different government institutions was created along with a high-quality
solar map to assess the potential of Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI).
Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) provides an online
geoportal which can be used to extract spatial coverages of the inhabited areas. The study of pollution
sources is necessary for coastal zone management. A study was conducted using DANE’s geoportal
to distinguish and formulate the pollution sources in Cartagena Bay, Columbia (Tosic et al. 2018).
This task is complicated when various sources of pollution are involved and by limited available data,
resulting in inconclusive estimations and differing public perceptions. These problems automatically
hinder the management progress. The lack of data available on water quality and discharges pushed

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Tosic et al. (2018) to propose an integrated technique to assess the pollution loads from all nearby
sources. The authors argued that pollution loads are going to increase in the future. The proposed
method can be used in other places with similar problems.
Austria and Hungary started to suspect the possibility of an Italian offensive in 1914. They began
building field offensive by forming the Tyrol Defense Line (TDL). The maps by Italian Military
Geographical Institute (IGM) and Italian Touring Club were used in a study to evaluate the GIS analysis
of TDL (Vergara et al. 2018). TDL is a hilly area, hence terrain slope can be a potential problem to
trafficability. Terrain slope represented an advantage on the eastern front for Austria-Hungary as the
steep slope delayed the trafficability of Italian troops. Vergara et al. (2018) focused on the evaluation
of the plight of trafficability caused by the slope on TDL.

Commercial GIS Data Sources

Apart from free GIS data sources like OpenStreetMap and ESRI Open Data, there are commercial GIS
data sources are also available that are used for research. ESRI is the front runner for commercial GIS
data sources, but they also provide open-source data for public use. Other than ESRI, top commercial
GIS data sources used for research are:

(1) Google Maps/Earth/API

(2) Baidu Maps
(3) GeoHey
(4) Strava Metro

Google is the leading provider of internet-related services and products. It provides GIS data
sources like Google Maps, Google Earth and Google API. These Google products are used in different
research areas. One of these areas is sustaining the urban environment as due to rapid urbanization,
effective and efficient air quality observing programs have been highly demanded to sustain the urban
environment. Finding the optimum location for monitoring stations is a critical factor for establishing
effective air quality monitoring. Mohammad M. Alsahlia and Meshari Al-Harbi (Alsahli and AlHarbi
2018) presented a suitability analysis model that highlights the five important criteria which are
listed as: population, wind direction, spatial proximity to roads, industries, and high-traffic areas to
allocate high-functioning air quality monitoring stations. The proposed model was built using Google
Earth platform, and the authors argued that the proposed model could be used as a useful tool for
improving networks of existing air quality monitoring stations as well as finding optimum routes for
future monitoring stations.
Another example of the use of Google GIS products is the project conducted by Joshua et al.
(2017), under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health, Republic of Indonesia. The authors created a
web-based GIS dashboard which can be used for monitoring the family health statistics in a particular
area. These statistics are provided by Puskesmas (Community Health Centers). The web-based portal
can display the number of the healthy population and new-born mothers as well as the percentage
of the pre-healthy population. The portal was built using Google Maps/API, and it can also provide
information for monitoring sick members in a residential district and the action taken by officers.
Baidu Maps is predominantly used in China. Baidu Maps offers street maps, satellite imagery,
indoor and street view. Baidu Maps is also used for research, mainly in China, as it is only available
in the Chinese language. It is used by Wang et al. (2017) in a recent study. The authors presented a
new change detection method to detect various types of rural settlement changes by combining remote
sensing and GIS analyses. Remote-sensing helps to identify the distribution of rural settlements and
the occurring changes, since rapid urbanization has drastically changed rural landscapes globally.
This approach was tested in the Beijing metropolitan area from 1984 to 2010 using LANDSAT TM
imagery from States Geological Survey (USGS) and Baidu Maps.

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GeoHey is a platform to track geo-location data; it uses a cloud-based platform to allow users to
track geo-location data for geographic position identification and provides them with data analysis.
This analysis can be used in different industries. Liu et al. (2017) used the GeoHey platform, the street
data from the Open Street Map (OSM) and the Point of Interest (POI) data to conduct the study in
which different types of spatiotemporal data were collected and used to estimate the spatiotemporal
variation of particulate matter with diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5 - the utmost
damaging human health air pollutant) in Beijing in 2014. The seasonal and daily variations were
calculated and contrasted by the population-weighted exposure level (PWEL). The authors concluded
that air pollution exposure is considerably different in all four seasons and exposure to air pollution
level is higher in two seasons, i.e. winter and spring.
Strava Metro is a social network for athletes; millions of people upload their rides and runs to
Strava every week via their smartphone or GPS device. Strava Metro is used to solve the insufficient
amount of spatially fine-grained travel data. The lack of data obstructs the keen analysis of air
pollution risk. Sun et al. (2017) explored the capacity of crowdsourced geographic information for
the evaluation of active travel and health. The authors used Strava Metro data and GIS technologies
to evaluate air pollution exposure in Glasgow, UK. The system particularly assimilates the duration
of the trip to analyze average inhaled dose of pollutant during single cycling or pedestrian trip.

Analytics
With the rise in data collection in the 21st century, researchers are working on ways to solve problems
by analyzing the data. Analytics is one of the most powerful features of GIS and big data. Analytics
can be used in GIS to perform ‘what if’ analysis using the spatial information. The spatial analysis
gives the power to query location-based scenarios like, “How many bicyclists will benefit from a bike
station in a specific location?”. We have classified the spatial analytics into four different subsections:

(1) Impact Analysis

(2) Route Calculation
(3) Infrastructure Analysis
(4) Prediction

Summary of GIS analytics is provided in Table 2.

Impact Analysis
Spatial impact analysis can be used to identify the impact of an incident like a drought, or an effect
of a phenomenon like water pollution and air pollution exposure among others. Spatial impact
analysis can be used for the analysis of complex source areas. Teggi et al. (2018) proposed CAREA,
a relatively latest GIS-based Gaussian model that can be used for impact analysis of complex source
areas. CAREA is a program typed in Python language and is an interpreted form of an atmospheric
dispersion modelling system (AERMOD). Users are allowed to define an enormous number of
scattered receptors and complex sources with holes and vertices. Very complex test cases are presented
in this paper to show how the system is incredibly fast and efficient in a GIS-based environment. The
comparison between CAREA and AERMOD shows that CAREA is considerably faster.
Spatial impact analysis of water pollution caused by uncontrolled releases of domestic and
industrial wastewater in the Lake Ichkeul, Main Wadis was done in a study by Yazidi et al. (2017). The
concentration of nutrients, heavy elements and thermal springs flowing into the lake are measured to
evaluate these chemical elements. Results concluded that the highest concentrations are in the eastern
and south-eastern region of the lake. The excessive release of domestic and industrial wastewater is
due to pollution in the mouths of wadis and the increasing heavy metal concentration.

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Table 1. Summary of data sources

Data Source License Data Format(s) Advantages Disadvantages/Limitations Founded

Type / Cost

ESRI Commercial Many formats are available World Leader in - Expensive Commercial 1969
& Open like File geodatabase, GIS technology License
Source spreadsheet, KML, shapefile, 233,926 open - Limited in Open Source
Hierarchical Data Format datasets from
2,636
Organizations

Open Street Map Open Source High spatial resolution Highly detailed - Crowd-sourcing means August 9, 2004
vector data (waterways, free GIS data accuracy varies based on the
roads, buildings, railroads, No restrictions creator
land use) crowd-sourcing on use - Documentation is not complete
Uses most and it’s not always
currently used clear
standard in - Incompatibility with other
cartography tools
(EPSG: 4326)
Highly
Customizable

National GIS data Open Remote sensing data Free** - Banding, Coherent Noise, July 23, 1972
sources Source* (LANDSAT, global land User-friendly Coherent Noise Storm, Data (LANDSAT)
cover...) interface for Loss, Detector Failure etc.
Server Map (IRESEN) searching - Need to comply with
Online geoportal of remote sensing Government rules
Colombia (Shapefile) data, Good - Limited Data Format(s)
RASTER AND search filters
NUMERICAL in map (time,
CARTOGRAPHIC DATA sensors, region
(IGM) of interests) -
(LANDSAT)
Verified data by
Organisations /
Governments
Aligned with
Government
Projects

Commercial Commercial ROADMAP, Accurate data - Still don’t have up-to-the February 8,
GIS data & Free*** SATELLITE,TERRAIN, Extensive minute updates 2005(Google
sources CURRENTTRAFFIC Documentation - Only available in Chinese Maps)
(GoogleMaps)/KML Helpdesks (Baidu Maps) June 11, 2001
(Google Earth) Optimised search - Sample Bias (Google Earth)
ROADMAP,CURRENT using Chinese 2005 (Baidu
TRAFFIC (Baidu Maps) culture (Baidu Maps)
ROADMAP, Maps) August 1,
SATELLITE,TERRAIN 2014
(GeoHey) (GeoHey)
Athletic Activities Data with 2009 (Strava
Location (Strava Metro) Metro)

* Some National GIS data sources can have different licensing information depending on rules of the specific government.
** Some National GIS data sources have nominal fee.
*** Limited Functionality in Free versions

A study was conducted by Song et al. (2017) to find the impact pollutants on marine ecosystem
in the Laizhou Bay, China. An assessment index system is presented including water quality,
depositional environment, and ecosystem. The system was built to differentiate the health factors of
the marine ecosystem in Laizhou Bay, China using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It was
evaluated that the south-western inshore region is an unhealthy area. It was affected mainly by severe
environmental problems, such as water eutrophication and heavy metal pollution. The system has
been able to highlight the possible ecological risks. The authors concluded that the discharged land-
based pollutants might be the leading factors that are causing ecological environment deterioration
in Laizhou Bay, China.

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Another compelling research area for impact analysis is built environment analysis and land
susceptibility analysis (Zhao and Chen, 2020; Chen and Li, 2020). Nicu and As˘andulesei (2018)
conducted land susceptibility analysis to check if Neolithic sites are in danger. The study highlighted the
comparison of the predictive strength of different diagnostic areas to determine landslide susceptibility
using frequency ratio (FR), statistical index (SI), and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) models.
The system was tested in the north eastern part of Romania. Among the three methodologies, SI
produced better results. Scarps (point), landslide areas (polygon), and middle of the landslide (point)
were checked and tested in regard to their performance. The authors concluded that 70% of the
Neolithic sites are in danger of being destroyed in the future as they are located in areas with high and
very high susceptibility to landslides. Moreover, Sadler et al. (2018) engaged in research to find out
the impact of built environment healthy behaviors and whether the built environment can promote or
inhibit healthy behaviors. The authors presented a way to assess spatially varying community needs
and assets in a GIS-based system, also referred to as a healthfulness index. This is done in order to
bridge the gap and create awareness of the deployment of public health interventions in the Flint
(USA) Center for Health Equity Solutions (FCHES). In order to do so, they involved community and
academic partners in their expert opinions on Flint’s built environment, which can inhibit healthy
behaviors through a multiple-criteria decision analysis framework.
The dynamic changes in air quality can be a severe problem in emerging nations. The spatial
impact analysis was done in a study by Jiang et al. (2015b). The authors highlighted the monitoring of
dynamic air quality changes in big cities by evaluating the spatiotemporal trends in geo-targeted social
media messages using comprehensive big data filtering methods. Correlation analysis was used to
compare the connections between discussion trends and the temporal changes in the Air Quality Index
(AQI) during 2012. Individual messages were used to monitor the AQI in 2013 based on this system.

Route Calculation
Route calculation is often referred to as a process to find the shortest path between two places, but in
fact, routing is a process to find the best path between two locations, derived by different parameters.
GIS can be used for route calculation, i.e. for finding a route with less traffic during rush hour or an
oil pipeline route based on geographical parameters.
Oil pipeline routing is one of the leading research areas of route calculation. Balogun et al. (2012)
developed an efficient, systematic, and reliable GIS-based process for oil pipeline routing in Baram
Field, Malaysia. The objective of this project was to generate an optimum route by minimizing the
harmful effects on the environment and people. The proposed approach used ESRI’s ArcGIS for
analysis and interpretation of data. Furthermore, Macharia (2014) argued that oil pipeline distribution
system is essential to optimize supply, cost and satisfy oil needs. The authors showed the advantages
of combining GIS analysis with various data sources for optimum oil pipeline routing. The authors
collected questionnaires from experts, stakeholders and professionals. They derived the weights using
the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Saaty, 1980) and modelled the routing process using these
weights. Nonis et al. (2007) argued that the manual routing process for pipeline routing projects is
complicated because an enormous amount of location-based data and several environmental factors
need analyzing. GIS can be used to make the routing process more effective and systematic. The
authors developed a Geographic information system using AHP methodology for route planning in
the Indian scenario.
Bicycling is becoming common as it is economical and has several health benefits, but bicycling
needs proper infrastructure. Studies with methodologies to prioritize the cycling infrastructure
investments are few. Route calculation using GIS can help in the planning of a cycle network. Milakis
and Athanasopoulos (2014) proposed a comprehensive methodology for cycle network planning. The
proposed methodology used multi-criteria GIS process to help to select the cycle network section.
Athens, Greece was used as a case study for the proposed methodology, but it can be useful for cities
looking to create cycling infrastructure. Recently Singapore announced to promote cycling through

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National Cycling Plan by increasing cycling infrastructure by 2030. Planning an efficient cycling
network is of paramount importance due to Singapore’s land constraints. The perspective of different
stakeholders needs to be considered for effective planning. Terh and Cao (2018) proposed a GIS-
based multi-criteria decision analysis framework for the planning of cycling paths in Singapore. The
proposed framework can cater to different scenarios concerning stakeholders’ preferences, hence
promoting transparency in cycling paths planning.
Another interesting research topic for route calculation using GIS is the travel behavior of school-
going children. School-travel behavior is usually done using GIS, and it is translatable to policymakers
and practitioners. This information is used to store, manipulate, analyze and visualize spatial data.
GIS measures in this field have limitations like imprecise route estimation of the school and absence,
imprecision of pedestrian and street network data (Wong et al., 2011). Ikeda et al. (2018) compared the
child-drawn and GIS modelled school route in Aukland, New Zealand to examine the environmental
and spatial differences between these routes. The authors concluded that the routes taken by children
are usually different than the shortest route estimated by GIS. Hence, the environment the child is
exposed to cannot be revealed by GIS.

Infrastructure Analysis
Spatial infrastructure analysis is essential for guiding development, implementation, maintenance, and
improvement. Spatial infrastructure analysis can be used to analyze the infrastructure of a building
over time, potential sites for harvesting rainwater, and buildings energy consumption among others.
Spatial infrastructure analysis is essential for guiding development, implementation, maintenance, and
improvement. Spatial infrastructure analysis can be used to analyze the infrastructure of a building
over time, potential sites for harvesting rainwater and buildings energy consumption among others.
Irrigation system assessment requires a considerable amount of data for estimation of related
indicators and parameters. The measurement of these indicators and parameters is not usually done
reliably and regularly. Alexandridis et al. (2014) used spatial infrastructure analysis to analyze the
multiple groundwater parameters for estimation of supply, demand, and availability of water. These
estimations were used to compute the water-accounting indicators. The proposed methodology was
applied to estimate the performance of an irrigation system in the Pinios river basin, Greece. The
resulting maps showed the performance changes with time and space, depending upon hydrological
conditions as well as improvement actions of water managers and farmers’ behaviors.
Spatial infrastructure analysis can also be used for vulnerability assessment. Ningthoujam and
Nanda (2018) used GIS for seismic vulnerability assessment of reinforced concrete buildings. While
developing the visual screening score sheet of the buildings, the authors take into account different
parameters like age of the buildings, the number of storeys, substantial overhang, construction quality,
and maintenance among others. The case study of Ward no. 6 of Uripok constituency, Imphal city,
India was done with the proposed method and presented in GIS platform as color-coded maps.
Garc´ıa-Ayll´on (2017) argued the need to do spatial impact analysis on neighboring areas on
the current environmental impacts and stressed the need for applying spatiotemporal criteria to plan
the protected areas environmentally. The author took into account the study of the Mar Menor, a
Mediterranean coastal lagoon in South-Eastern Spain. The Mar Menor environmental patterns-going
through intense coastal urbanization and eutrophication problems-were analyzed and assessed through
territorial indicators. This aspect was established by using GIS indicators to highlight the authentic
correlation between agricultural land transformation and coastal urbanization.
Spatial impact analysis is also used to find the possible impacts of flooding on coastal cities.
Coulter et al. (2016) argued that it is a fact that the rising possibilities of severe flooding in the coming
decades will be a result of climate change. In this context, how the rising sea levels impact coastal
cities, is the foremost concern. The authors carried out a study that examined the impacts of rising
sea level and flooding in three major municipalities of Miami-Dade County in the State of Florida,
United States. Three different vulnerability assessment maps were designed to visualize how flooding

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will impact land use, infrastructure, and population density. The data on land use, infrastructure, and
2010 U.S. Census tracts was gathered online from the Miami-Dade Government’s GIS website. Also,
the 2009 flood model data was obtained from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The practice enables us to make suggestions to reduce damage and resource allocation.
The Hemodynamic rooms are the primary indicator of the latest infrastructure for health services.
A study was carried out by G´omez et al. (2018) to compare the impact of hemodynamics rooms. The
study was aimed to assess the accessibility to hemodynamics rooms that perform primary balloon
percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) of the potential population, that may suffer
an acute myocardial infarction in Spain. The authors studied two scenarios: 1) Patients that could
only be treated in hospitals where there are hemodynamics rooms in their autonomous community,
2) Patients treated in a hospital outside their independent community. A significantly large amount of
methodologies and research tools are used, based on GIS. The spatial interaction model is highlighted
among the used methods. This particular method has been based on the three-step floating catchment
area (method-3SFCA). The results of the study helped to identify the communities with lacking and
surplus health equipment.

Prediction
Prediction or forecasting is one of the significant uses of spatial analytics. Usually, a prediction is
made based on prior knowledge or experience. Feature engineering or spatial feature engineering is
a vital part of any spatial prediction or forecasting technique (Usmani et al., 2020a,b). Since future
events are inevitably unknown, prediction is never 100% accurate, but it can help plan the future. With
the rise of machine learning prediction algorithms, prediction is changing the world of technology
every day. Combined with the power of GIS and big data, prediction can help in planning the future
with great success.
One of the most important uses of GIS-based prediction is in environmental studies. Bui et al.
(2018) carried out a study for spatial modelling of the forest. The motivation for the study was the
local authorities that need forest fire maps at regional level to allocate resources for prevention of
fire and establishing plans for land use. The authors proposed a method called DFP-MnBpAnn-a
machine learning method which uses Artificial Neural Networks; it uses a hybrid training algorithm
using mini-match backpropagation (MnBp) and Differential Flower Pollination (DFP). The results
showed that the proposed method performs superior to benchmark methods and it can be used for
mapping of large-scale fire danger. Another use of GIS-based prediction in environmental studies
is the prediction of environmental quality. Jiang et al. (2015a) conducted a study to investigate the
idea of whether large scale transportation projects affect environmental quality. The authors used
the character of the existing landscape and characteristics of the road project to develop a prediction
model using GIS technology. The results of the proposed model predicted that a motorway with a
timber barrier decreases the visual quality of the view significantly. The authors concluded that the
proposed model could be used for assessment of the visual impact of motorways efficiently. Flood
risk assessment (Zhang et al., 2020) and prediction is also of vital importance as floods are becoming
frequent and devastating due to climate change. There have been five major floods in Tunisia (2003-
2012); it is argued that flood management requires timely prediction and better knowledge of floods
(Khalfallah and Saidi, 2018). Khalfallah and Saidi studied rainfall distribution using GIS tools and
worked on finding correlations between rainfall distribution, flood and return period (Khalfallah and
Saidi, 2018). By creating simulations of recent floods and estimation of rainfall, future simulations
for 10, 20 and 50 years are created.
The predictions of urban air quality and environmental emissions are also made using GIS-based
prediction techniques. Singh et al. (2013) predicted the urban air quality using meteorological and
air quality databases for five years by performing principal component analysis to identify sources of
air pollution. Tree-based ensemble learning models were used to predict air quality. Fuel combustion
and vehicular emissions were identified as significant air pollution sources. The proposed models

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successfully predicted ambient air quality of urban areas and can be used as useful tools for air
quality management. Also, concentrations of environmental emissions are widely predicted using
dispersion models. Most geothermal fluids produce CO2 in their steam phase. Yousefi-Sahzabi et al.
(2011) developed a model to predict the dispersion of CO2 in the surrounding atmosphere before the
production of the 50MWe geothermal power plant located in Ardebil, Iran. The authors used GIS for
visualization of the numerical copy of study area and outputs of the model.

Tools
Geographic Information Systems are usually referred to as the set of tools to automate tasks that were
previously done manually. These tasks include generating graphics for presentation or preparing maps,
among others. Some of the manual tasks were complex and time-consuming; they made it challenging
to present geographic knowledge effectively and were the primary motivation behind the invention of
GIS. Most commonly used GIS tools, namely ArcGIS, Quantum GIS, TerrSet, GRASS GIS, SAGA
GIS, and ILWIS are listed below along with some of their common applications. Summary of these
GIS tools is provided in Table 3.

ArcGIS
ArcGIS (ESRI 2019a) is developed and licensed by ESRI; it was initially released on 27 December
1999. ArcGIS is usually referred to as a desktop suite of GIS applications, but it now refers to an
entire platform of tools for mapping, spatial analysis, and visualization. The tools, applications, and
data that can be accessed and used from traditional client/server on-premise installations to a fully
mobile web-based / cloudpowered implementation. While integration across these environments is
not 100% seamless, it is ahead of anything else out there in the GIS world. One can work with their
data from ArcGIS desktop, log out and continue to work from their mobile device or entirely on the
cloud to access the same data and efficiently (but securely) sharing it out with others.
The GIS world is not just about ESRI software, but the ArcGIS platform is quite dominant in
the enterprise and government worlds. It is now making inroads into new areas traditionally outside
the core group of GIS users and customers. Tierney et al. (2017) conducted an interesting study
using ArcGIS, the study aimed to increase the understanding of one of the worst droughts recorded
in Australia, by analyzing impacts across the rural New South Wales during 1895-1903. Firstly, the
newspaper articles were used, then the spatial differences utilizing archival and quantitative methods
were taken into account. Also, the county-level data of production of wheat was assembled. Later, the
annual statistical information was acquired from NSW Railway Commissioners, all of which enabled
to assess the spatial drought impact through a second contour map. Combined, these methods gave a
more precise and vibrant picture. Di Salvo et al. (2018) created a tool using ArcGIS for municipal-
scale mapping of the pluvial flood in urban areas. Pluvial flooding occurs when an extremely heavy
downpour of rain saturates drainage systems and the excess water cannot be absorbed. The proposed
tool can be used for preliminary screening of areas potentially subjected to pluvial floods. The proposed
GIS-based methodology calculated the risk, susceptibility and potential impact of pluvial flood, hence
helping in detecting areas with potential risks, emergency management, and mitigation planning.
Finding optimum sites for plants or industry is also done using ArcGIS (Colak et al., 2020).
Sahoo et al. (2018) developed a GIS-based multi-criteria inclusion-exclusion analysis to work out
the geographical divergences in soil type, topography, climate, and crop management practices as
the evaluation of biomass at a geographical perspective poses difficulty to manage supply risks, and
to find optimal plant sites for the production of sustainable biofuels and co-products. The system
uses some facility location-allocation models for suitable locations. Also, estimation of ore grade is
primarily done by using linear and nonlinear geostatistic, but they can also be used in GIS with the
help of ArcGIS. Wambo et al. (2018) worked out an approach residing on geostatistic linear Ordinary
Kriging (OK) and GIS methodology to conduct an inquiry of the spatial distribution of alluvial gold

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Table 2. Summary of analytics

Analytic Type Research Area(s) Problem Solved(s) Tools

Impact Analysis Complex source area(s) Atmospheric dispersion of pollutants Python (Teggi et al.
(Teggi et al. 2018) (Teggi et al. 2018)
Water pollution (Yazidi et al. 2018) ArcGIS (Yazidi et al.
2017, Song et al. 2017) Uncontrolled release of wastewater 2017,
Built environment (Sadler et (Yazidi et al. 2017) Song et al. 2017, Nicu
al. 2018) Danger to neolithic sites (Nicu and and
Land susceptibility (Nicu and As_andulesei 2018) Asandulesei 2018)
Asandulesei 2018) Risks to marine ecosystem (Song et
Air quality (Jiang et al. al. 2017)
2015b) Inhibiting healthy behavior (Sadler et
al. 2018)
Air quality changes (Jiang et al. 2015b)
Route Oil pipeline routing (Balogun Optimum route for oil pipeline ArcGIS (Balogun et al.
Calculation et al. 2012, Macharia 2014, (Balogun et al. 2012, Nonis et al. 2007) 2012, Nonis et al. 2007,
Nonis et al. 2007) Cost optimized oil pipeline (Macharia Terh and Cao 2018)
Bicycle network (Milakis and 2014) SoftGIS (Ikeda et al.
Athanasopoulos 2014, Terh Cycling promotion and infrastructure 2018)
and Cao 2018) (Milakis and
Travel behavior (Wong et al. Athanasopoulos 2014, Terh and Cao
2011, Ikeda et al. 2018) 2018)
Travel behavior of school going
children (Ikeda et al. 2018)
Infrastructure Irrigation system analysis Estimate performance of irrigation ArcGIS (Garcia-Ayllon
Analysis (Alexandridis et al. 2014) system (Alexandridis et al. 2014) 2017, Gomez et al.
Vulnerability assessment Reinforced concrete building 2018)
(Ningthoujam and Nanda assessment (Ningthoujam and Nanda Statistical package R
2018, Coulter et al. 2016) 2018) (Gomez et al. 2018)
Coastal urbanization analysis Plan the protected areas
(Garcia-Ayllon 2017) environmentally (Garcia-Ayllon 2017)
Hospital accessibility analysis Flood vulnerability (Coulter et al.
(Gomez et al. 2018) 2016)
Identify the communities with lack and
surplus health
equipment (Gomez et al. 2018)
Prediction Environmental studies (Bui Prediction and mapping of large-scale Google Street View
et al. 2018, Jiang et al. 2015a, fire danger (Bui et al. 2018) (Jiang
Khalfallah and Saidi 2018) Effect of large scale transportation et al. 2015a)
Urban air quality (Singh et projects on environment (Jiang et al. ArcGIS (Khalfallah and
al. 2013) 2015a) Saidi 2018)
Environmental emissions Dispersion of CO2 (Yousefi-Sahzabi ArcView (Youse_-
(Yousefi-Sahzabi et al. 2011) et al. 2011) Sahzabi
Identify sources of air Flood prediction (Khalfallah and Saidi et al. 2011)
pollution (Singh et al. 2013) 2018)

content in the Ngoura-Colomines. The combined analysis has led to the representation of Colomines,
Tissongo, Madubal and Boutou villages as the most immediate areas to explore primary gold deposits.
Analysis of pollution is also done with the help of ArcGIS. El-Zeiny and El-Kafrawy (2017)
conducted a study that highlighted the second largest lake in the Mediterranean Sea, Burullus, which
is vastly subjected to coastline pollution. To assess the water pollution level in the lake, Landsat Data
and GIS were used. The results confirmed that the lake water is subjected to contamination from
multiple sources-mainly domestic and agricultural drains-and varying research studies on the water
quality ascertained the results. In conclusion, it was found out that Burullus Lake is highly subjected
to human activities that pose a negative impact on water quality.

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Quantum GIS (QGIS)

Quantum GIS (QGIS) (QGIS 2019) is a cross-platform, open-source GIS which runs as a desktop
application. QGIS supports all the facilities of GIS, i.e. spatial data can be efficiently viewed, edited
and analyzed in QGIS. Development of QGIS began in 2002 under Gary Sherman and its first version
was released in 2009. QGIS has a large and active community of users from diverse domains. QGIS
is the first option for open source GIS users.
Researchers have created different QGIS plugins to facilitate other researchers in their research.
One example of such a study is done by Nielsen et al. (2017). The authors created an open-source tool
called Water Ecosystems Tool (WET) as a plugin in QGIS. The WET plugin provides a Graphical
User interface, and it can be used for application and evaluation of aquatic ecosystem models. WET
also provides scenario simulations for model experimentation and the ability to use Soil & Water
Assessment Tool (SWAT) watershed model.
QGIS is also used in air pollution studies. Cariolet et al. (2018) developed a method to help
protect an urban area from outdoor air pollution. The authors pointed out that the primary source of
premature deaths in the next few decades will be outdoor air pollution. For each resilience capacity,
indicators are calculated using QGIS and a grid-based approach. The evaluation is based on the
analysis of urban design defined as the pattern of buildings as well as the structural elements that
define a metropolitan area.
Samela et al. (2018) argued that geomorphic methods could be used in environments where not
enough data is available. The authors argued that identifying the areas with flood risk is a critical
task due to practical difficulties. They proposed a procedure based on Digital Elevation Model
(DEM) which was developed in QGIS. The DEM model showed high reliability and accuracy in the
identification of flood-prone area. A user-friendly tool named Geomorphic Flood Area tool (GFA
tool) was also developed, which provides the ability to demonstrate the cost-effective flood-mapping
based on Geomorphic Flood Index (GFI).

TerrSet (IDRISI)
TerrSet (Labs 2019) was developed at the Department of Geography, Clark University by Professor
Ronald Eastman in 1987. It was named initially after Muhammad alIdrisi, the cartographer and
geographer who lived in Palermo (1110-1166). The TerrSet system now includes the IDRISI Image
Processing and IDRISI GIS Analysis tools along with a variety of applications. TerrSet is a popular
teaching tool in colleges and universities for GIS. It has more than 300 modules available for display
and analysis of spatial data.
Gibson et al. (2018) used IDRISI Land Change Modeller to create future scenarios of land cover
for catchments with commercial and dualistic farming land management systems. The results implied
that the catchments under the dualistic farming system should be prioritized in rehabilitation and land
management initiatives. This prioritization of dualistic farming systems instead of commercial land
management systems is likely to result in woody plants and cultivated land.
Groundwater contamination occurs due to factors like rapid urbanization, fertilizer application,
and wastewater disposal systems. A case study was carried out by Aydi (2018), southern Tunisia using
GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis by generating vulnerability and risk pollution maps with
TerrSet. The final groundwater vulnerability maps were created by a Weighted Linear Combination
(WLC).The results were in accordance with the observed nitrate concentration in boreholes. TerrSet
is also used in an interesting study about the road spills of hazardous substances and the serious threat
they pose to soil and water in catchments. Siqueira et al. (2017) discussed that there is abundant
literature describing the pollutants washing off from storm to the catchment outlet. However, the
biophysical parameters are rarely used to identify catchment vulnerability to contamination due to
road spills. The authors proposed a vulnerability model using TerrSet, that is a distributed algorithm.
They concluded that soil type is the most sensitive parameter to catchment vulnerability.

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Industrial system construction is a long term investment and selecting the site is an essential step
of development. Site selection is a geographical decision, hence, it is a spatial problem. TerrSet was
used in a study by Rikalovic et al. (2014) for geographic decision making as site selection can have
a crucial impact on the success or failure of the system. The authors argued that the synergistic effect
of combining decision support systems (DSS) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) with GIS
could contribute to creating an efficient spatial analysis for industrial site selection.

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS GIS)

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) (GIS 2019a) is a GIS software suite
which is commonly known as GRASS GIS. GRASS GIS is a free and open-source software with the
capability of running on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. GRASS GIS is mostly used for scientific
research due to its sophisticated spatial analysis. GRASS GIS is under development since 1982, and
it was first released in 1984. GRASS GIS supports the management and analysis of spatial data,
production of maps and graphics, temporal and spatial modelling as well as visualization (Neteler
et al. 2012). Rocchini et al. (2017) argued that in macroecology and geography, the complexity over
space is crucial; also the estimation of ecosystem complexity is essential for ecological tasks. These
tasks include forest structure variable retrieval, generation of the multifractal surface as neutral
models, feature extraction by edge detection, and biodiversity estimation. Many geospatial tools can
be used for evaluation of ecosystem complexity, but GRASS GIS is a better choice as it is free and
provides open access to the source code. Furthermore, it provides a modular software design, allowing
researchers to add new functionalities without affecting the existing system.
Researchers have created different GRASS GIS free add-ons to facilitate other researchers in
their research. Grilli et al. (2017) proposed a novel methodology that was implemented as an add-on
in GRASS GIS. The methodology used GIS procedures to optimize the use of forest biomass for
energy purposes. The proposed methodology provides the facility to identify the most appropriate
area for the establishment of a power plant with respect to energy demand and availability of wood.
It also uses environmental and financial flows to conduct the cost-benefit analysis of the site.
Garegnani et al. (2018) proposed the methodology that was implemented as an add-on in GRASS
GIS. The methodology supported the planning of run-off-river plants as small water discharge, and
high gross heads lead to low realization cost of hydro-power plants in mountain areas. This is the
primary reason for small rivers being taken advantage of, without deliberation of their proper use.
Usually, the dependency of the technical, physical, financial and legal variable on space is also not
considered in the planning of new hydro-power plants. The proposed methodology was used in Gesso
and Vermenagna Valleys in the Alps. The data perceived was amassed and deliberated among the
local stakeholders to improve the results of the models.

SAGA GIS
System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (GIS, 2019b), most commonly known as SAGA GIS
is an open-source software which was developed initially by the Department of Physical Geography,
University of G¨ottingen, Germany. It is now supported by a community of developers worldwide
known as SAGA User Group. SAGA User Group is responsible for maintaining and extending the
software. SAGA GIS provides a simple platform for scientists to implement geoscientific methods.
SAGA GIS is used in a variety of research areas. Holgu´ın and Sternberg (2018) used SAGA
GIS in a hydrology modelling study. The authors argued that GIS hydrology modelling could help in
locating sites in semi-arid and arid environments and it can also help in evaluating the relationship of
past and current watercourses. The authors presented the hypothesized model of Ulaan Nuur paleo
hydrological system in Gobi Desert. The proposed model helped in the discovery of Neolithic surface
scatter and four Neolithic period sites in the southern edge of Paleo lake and associated channels.
Valjarevi´c et al. (2018) reasoned that utilizing the geothermal renewable energy for heating public
institutions is highly recommended as it stands with today’s ideology of environmental protection and

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improving the quality of life. The authors pointed out that despite having a large number of mineral
springs located in Serbia, only a negligible percentage is used in balneology and greenhouse heating.
The kind of energy used in Serbia mostly comes from sources like timber, coal, oil, gas, natural gas
among others. The authors proposed a GIS-based method using SAGA GIS, to optimize the use of
thermal-mineral springs. Additional use of thermal-mineral springs for heating in households will
help reduce the import of natural gas and oil, and it will help eradicate poverty in the region.
SAGA GIS was utilized in an interesting study by Benito-Calvo et al. (2015). The authors argued
that in order to shed light on the evolutionary roots of humans, we need to analyze the stone tools in
West Africa by wild chimpanzees. They proposed a systematic study of these artefacts. They created
automatic morphometric GIS classification of stone tools use-wear, and GIS analysis is used to blind
test the visually identified damage patterns. The authors claimed that GIS techniques have heuristic
potential in battered artefact analysis that can be compared directly to early archaeological records.

Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS)

International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) (ILWIS, 2019),
Netherlands obtained a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late 1984 to develop
software for watershed management and land use planning. The first DOS-based version of the
Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) was released at the end of 1988. ILWIS is
being distributed as open-source software since July 1, 2007, and it is only available on Microsoft
Windows. ILWIS is used as a GIS and remote sensing software. It supports digitization, visualization,
and analysis of data.
ILWIS is used in different research areas. Saha et al. (2005) proposed landslidesafe automatic
route planning for highly rugged hilly terrain using Remote-Sensing and GIS techniques implemented
in ILWIS. The motivation for the study was that in many parts of the world, roads are the only way
for transportation due to steep slopes and general ruggedness. These parts are highly vulnerable to
landslides-which are generally overlooked in the route planning process. The proposed approach
was successfully tested for landslide-prone terrain in Uttaranchal State, Himalayas, India. Another
study using ILWIS was carried out for land-use change evaluation by Vogdrup-Schmidt et al. (2017).
The authors proposed a decision support tool for the assessment of land-use changes in multiple
ecosystem services using a spatial multi-criteria decision analysis approach. The aim was to create
an interconnected and robust network of natural areas. The analysis done by the authors illustrated
the impacts and highlighted the pros and cons of different ecosystem services. They concluded that
the MCDA approach would help decision-makers of future land-use changes in an informative and
structured way.
Spatial multi-criteria analysis can be carried out using ILWIS. A study was carried out using
ILWIS on restoration practices of landscapes, especially an approach known as rewilding (Loth and
Newton, 2018). Rewilding is a known restoration approach that is useful even in densely populated
and agriculturally productive landscapes. Loth and Newton (Loth and Newton, 2018) debated that with
the decline in conservative restoration practices, rewilding is becoming prominent, but the relative
suitability of different scenarios is still unknown. The authors addressed this gap in knowledge by
assessing the popularity and suitability of rewilding scenarios using spatial multicriteria analysis.
Global warming is considered as the biggest challenge of the 21st century. One of the adverse
effects of global warming is erratic rainfall patterns, and it is impacting the water resources in
Zimbabwe. Hence the power generation of hydropower stations is decreased. Shumba et al. (2017)
argued that the current techniques to monitor water levels are not efficient, and they do not provide the
lake’s synoptic coverage. The authors presented the relationship between natural and anthropogenic
factors derived from remotely sensed data using ILWIS. The water level monitoring was achieved
from the automated extraction of land use and rainfall data.

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Table 3. Summary of GIS tools

Name License Type Research Area(s) Advantages Disadvantages/Limitations Operating

System

ArcGIS Commercial Analysis of Droughts - Managed by the - High license cost Windows,
(Tierney et al. 2017) largest commercial - Not versatile in the consumption of data Web-based
Mapping of pluvial GIS organization in - Needs time and effort to learn
ood (Di Salvo et al. 2018) the world - Provides
Explore gold deposits all the GIS-based
(Wambo et al. 2018) functionalities
Water pollution (El-Zeiny available with other
and El-Kafrawy 2017) tools and more..
Suitable sites for biomass - Multi-Language
plants (Sahoo et al. 2018) Support
- Data projection “on
the fly”

Quantum GIS Open Source Outdoor air pollution - Consumes all types - Hard to export files Windows, Mac
(Cariolet et al. 2018) of data - QGIS Graphical Modeler tends to crash OS X, Linux,
Aquatic ecosystem - Support for 2,700 BSD, Android
(Nielsen et al. 2017) known coordinate
Flood-prone area reference systems
identification (Samela - Multi-Language
et al. 2018) Support
Variety of plugins
available /
Extendability with
plugins
- Large user base,
online support
and thorough
documentation

TerrSet Commercial Farming land - Facility to create - High license cost Windows
(IDRISI) management system custom connections - No Multi-Language Support
(Gibson et al. 2018) via scripting Explicitly
Groundwater connects remote
vulnerability (Aydi 2018) sensing and GIS
Catchment vulnerability Intuitive learning
(Siqueira et al. 2017) environment (preferred
Industrial site selection for teaching)
(Rikalovic et al. 2014) - Monitoring and
modeling the Earth
system
- Object-based image
classification and land
change modelling
- 2D and 3D
visualization with time
series

GRASS Open Source Estimation of ecosystem Strong user Steep learning curve Windows, Mac
GIS complexity (Rocchini et community, Native format (requires importing data, OS X,
al. 2017) commercial support be aware of possibility of linking external Linux
Forest Biomass site and Extensive help formats)
selection (Grilli et al. documentation Topology (not good idea to
2017) Large scale link external vector formats)
Planning of run-o_-river functionality, large Clunky UI and defining
plants (Garegnani et amount of tools projects on start-up
al. 2018) Both GUI and CMD
(easy
for scripting)
LiDAR and network
analysis
Python API and
libraries

SAGA Open Source Site location in semi-arid Unique toolsets for Missing documentation for some Windows,
GIS and arid environments geoscience not found geoscience tools Linux
(Holguin and Sternberg in most Data editing options are limited
2018) GIS software Lack of cartography options
Optimize the use Powerful for terrain
of thermal-springs data and raster
(Valjarevic et al. 2018) processing Command
Classification of stone line interpreter User-
tools (Benito-Calvo et friendly and robustness
al. 2015)

ILWIS Open Source Landslide-safe automatic Image processing and Steep learning curve Windows
route planning (Saha et remote sensing tools Poorly documented with low support
al. 2005) Visualization of
Land-use change stereo image pairs 3D
(Vogdrup-Schmidt et capabilities
al. 2017)
Restoration of landscapes
(rewilding) (Loth and
Newton 2018)
Water level monitoring
(Shumba et al. 2017)

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Applications
GIS is usually implemented keeping a specific purpose, territory or application in view. It is custom-
designed for an organization; hence, it is typically difficult for a GIS application from a particular
organization to be compatible with another organization, territory or purpose. Every location-based
organization is provided a platform by GIS to use geographical data in the optimum fashion. GIS
can also integrate with other powerful and robust enterprise solutions, like SAP ERP. Coupled with
the power and performance of big data technologies, many disciplines are benefiting from GIS
technology and its uses in the field of business, science, government, and industry are significant in
solving geological problems.
We have grouped the applications of GIS into five categories:

(1) Environment and Natural Resource Management

(2) Facilities Management
(3) Planning and Engineering
(4) Street Network
(5) Decision Systems

Summary of GIS applications is provided in Table 4.

Environment and Natural Resource Management

Environment and Natural Resource Management (ENRM) is the primary category in GIS applications.
Environment and natural resources include minerals, forests, wildlife, water, and energy. These
resources are vital for the survival of humanity. Managing and sustaining these resources have
become the focal point of many research and development projects. GIS has been fundamental in the
assessment of these resources. GIS-based ENRM applications are used to promote sustainable use of
environmental and natural resources around the world. ENRM applications include ecological impact
analysis, disaster management and mitigation, suitability studies for agriculture crops, management
of agriculture lands, forests, wetlands and water resources. These applications process a large amount
of spatial data; robust GIS systems are needed due to the sensitivity of these applications.
Yousefi et al. (2018) conducted a GIS-based ENRM study in which two frameworks, namely
DRASTIC (Aller 1985) and SINTACS (Napolitano and Fabbri 1996) were used to evaluate the
groundwater pollution potential. The groundwater pollution evaluation is done by using seven
hydrogeological factors (groundwater depth, recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography,
unsaturated zone impact, and hydraulic conductivity), which were introduced to DRASTIC and
SINTACS models. A vegetation map of the area was also used to verify the results of these models.
One of the significant areas in GIS-based ENRM applications is suitability studies. Lisitsin
(2015) presented a systematic spatial analysis of mineral deposit point patterns which unleashes vital
spatial properties of mineral systems with significant implications for regional mineral prospective
modelling. It is essential that a study area is clearly defined while considering the permissibility of
the geological units for a particular mineral system. The results of the respective method are tested
using the mineral deposits in Hodgkinson Province in Queensland, and the Western Lachlan Orogen in
Victoria were taken into account. The research carried out by Blanco et al. (2018) is another example
of GIS-based ENRM studies. The authors highlighted a GIS method for mapping plastic waste that is
produced by agriculture on the land. The consumption of plastics in agriculture in Barletta-Andria-
Trani Province – Apulia Region – was scrutinized by implementing the orthophoto analysis and
remote sensing survey. Since plastics used in agriculture are derived from synthetic petrochemical
polymers, they should go through a suitable waste management cycle at the end of their lifetime.
Solar energy has turned out to be one of the significant energy sources and the vital role of
renewable energies due to the depletion of conventional energy sources has been recognized by

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countries. Firozjaei et al. (2018) conducted a GIS-based ENRM study to determine risks in the GIS-
based methodology for finding the optimal areas for installation of solar power plants, an Ordered
Weighted Averaging (OWA) was used for the first time, and a GIS-based analysis is utilized for
investigating the feasible consumption of solar energy in Iran.
Governments and health agencies are focusing on air pollution as air pollution has adverse
effects on human health (Usmani et al., 2020c). Air quality early-warning systems can be of great
use for controlling air pollutant emission. These systems can also be used to create plans to reduce
air pollutant emissions. Among other developing countries, China is facing the severest effects of
air pollution. Xu et al. (2017) argued that building a robust early warning system for air quality is
critical for the benefit of the society. The authors conducted a GIS-based ENRM study to develop a
hybrid early warning system for forecasting and evaluation of air quality.
Another research area which comes under ENRM is sustainable management of groundwater.
Sustainable management of groundwater is one of the most significant problems of the 21st century.
The exploitation of groundwater all over the world has led to its depletion. Singh et al. (2018) used
geospatial approach along with integrated multi-criteria analysis to evaluate groundwater prospect.
The authors assessed the accuracy of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Catastrophe theory for
mapping groundwater potential. They found out that the AHP technique outperforms the Catastrophe
theory by 8%, i.e. 82% for AHP technique and 74% for Catastrophe technique.

Facilities Management
Facilities Management (AM/FM/GIS) model is used primarily for utility management using network
analysis and accurate large-scale maps. Facility Management applications in GIS are also used to plan
maintenance of facilities, locate underground structures, (Alexandridis et al., 2014; Wambo et al.,
2018) and tracking or planning of energy use (Valjarevi´c et al., 2018; Merrouni et al., 2018; Groppi
et al., 2018; Moghadam et al., 2018; Garegnani et al., 2018; Bu¨hler et al., 2017).
The primary research area of GIS-based Facilities Management is renewable energy identification
and implementation. A recent study was conducted by Noorollahi et al. (2017) to cater to the rising
demand and enormous investment cost for Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system. This demand
calls for the requirement of an evaluation tool that aids to make a better decision for technology
development and subsidization by the policymakers. An economy-based map was created by the
proposed method that allows numerical modelling and enhancement of GSHP systems by Genetic
Algorithm (GA), local heating/cooling design, load estimation and spatial data analysis in 234 cities of
Iran. Cristea and Jocea (2016) conducted a study to find out the best solutions for the implementation of
renewable energy in Romania. The authors used GIS tools in this study for modelling and visualization,
i.e., AutoCAD Map, Raster Design, and ArcGIS Desktop 10. The authors claimed that their research
proves that GIS technology can hold its own in terms of software dedicated to wind technology.
Ghorbani et al. (2019) used GIS-based models to estimate the Pumped Hydro-Energy Storage (PHES)
potential in Iran as PHES is the most mature and used storage technology. PHES is likely to stay a
viable solution for high penetration of wind and solar PV energy-based systems. The authors used
the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to discover
suitable sites for including the economic sensitivity into the evaluation process. They concluded
that Iran has favorable topography for PHES. Zhou et al. (2019) used GIS and analytical hierarchy
process to evaluate the overall quality, potential value and difficulty of underground space resources.
The authors argued that the foundation of scientific planning is the evaluation of urban underground
space resources. The assessment was done as a case study in Nantong, China. The authors concluded
that this evaluation could provide support for decision-making to related managers, planners, and
constructors. Castro-Santos et al. (2019) proposed a methodology and development of a planning
tool to identify the suitable areas and install marine renewable energy systems. The authors argued
that there are areas with enormous energy potential, but installing an offshore energy farm is difficult

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due to real limitations. The developer tools were used in a case study along the Portuguese coast,
hence assisting in the identification of several suitable areas for marine renewable energy projects.
Another area where GIS-based Facility Management is applied is Pavement Maintenance
Management System (PMMS). PMMS is a systematic method used for inspection and rating the
condition of the pavement. PMSS is used for industrial maintenance and cost-effective management of
pavement. Almuhanna et al. (2018) used PAVER 6.5.7 software to calculate the Pavement Condition
Index (PCI) for the selected road network in Kerbala City Center. They linked the software with GIS
to visualize the results and show which areas need maintenance and rehabilitation.

Planning and Engineering

The GIS-based planning and engineering applications are primarily used in civil engineering.
These applications use engineering models and medium or large scale maps in order to keep the
supervisors, designers, builders, and operators of construction projects up-to-date about information
on their projects and terrain on which they are built on. These applications help in effective planning,
construction, and maintenance of these projects.
Cohen (2016) conducted a GIS-based Planning and Engineering study. The author proposed a
methodology to determine the corridor routes and ecological cores in Central Israel using GIS-based
methods. The author used progressive analysis by using width, types of connections, the existence
of bottlenecks, and historical and archaeological values. The author suggested that the proposed
methodology can be applied to the entire country for land use planning.
Salvati et al. (2016) presented a GIS-based Planning and Engineering study that elaborates the
Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). ESDA is a collection of techniques to visualize and
describe spatial distribution [125]. The authors used ESDA to investigate variations in the distribution
of built-up areas in three Southern European metropolitan regions (Barcelona, Rome, and Athens).
The given methodology works out the trends in scattered monocentric or polycentric development.
ESDA has been able to provide elementary information policies that promote spatial balance and
sustainable development in small and economically split regions.
Ping Yin (2018) conducted a GIS-based Planning and Engineering study, which highlighted that
the urban-rural inequalities in spatial accessibility to prenatal care have not been well studied. By
using spatial information systems and the two transportation-mode, two-step floating catchment area
method, spatial variation and urban-rural inequalities of spatial accessibility to prenatal care in Georgia
for years 2000 and 2010 were compared and evaluated. Then, the census-tract-based prenatal care
shortage areas were designated, which have a poor spatial reach and increasing population each year.
Steiner et al. (2018) created a GIS-based Planning and Engineering methodology to analyze the
needs of rural communities and identify the schools with the highest priority to receive grant funding.
The analysis uses affected student population and other parameters like annual daily traffic and crash
data that involved pedestrians and bicyclists. The authors concluded that GIS analysis for county-
wide priorities is crucial in offering aid and assistance for rural communities throughout the country.
GIS-based Planning and Engineering study was conducted in Ku¨tahya city, Turkey (Cetin 2015b).
Ku¨tahya is the capital of the province with the same name. Cetin (2015b) observed the divisions
and area of green spaces in Ku¨tahya. The green area distribution on a neighbourhood scale is also
examined. The per capita rates and size is evaluated. The purpose of the conducted study was to
make the possibility for a city to achieve an active green area, healthy environment, and systematic
planning of an urban distribution considering its purpose and aesthetic qualities, which can only be
possible with the formation of a modern urban design concept.
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development
(LEED-ND) is a sustainability assessment rating system for neighbourhoods. Pedro et al. (2018)
presented a GIS-based Planning and Engineering method to scale up LEED-ND sustainability
assessment towards the city scale with the help of GIS modelling. The authors argued that as the
building industry began developing sustainability assessment tools to guide major upcoming renovation

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building projects, scaling up sustainability became a challenge due to the increased number of
parameters and stakeholders involved in the decision making process. This approach was tested for
the current Lisbon case study.

Street Network
With the rise of mobiles with GPS (Global Positioning System), there is a big market for GIS systems
that can process big spatial data. These GIS systems are built for solving problems like avoiding
traffic congestion, run-time location-based guides, and location-based social media. Street Network
applications are made using GIS spatial analysis and different types of maps. Major applications for
GIS-based street network site selection are car navigation, transportation planning, locating houses
and streets, and ambulance services.
Car navigation (routing and scheduling) is one of the significant applications of GIS-based Street
Network. Vehicle routing is a combinatorial and a spatial problem, hence GIS and optimization
systems are needed for effective decision making in any vehicle routing problem (VHP). Krichen
et al. (2014) integrated the optimization and GIS tools in order to solve the VRP with loading and
distance requirements. The proposed algorithm performed efficiently on both computation time
and solution quality. The authors did a case study in Tunisia to illustrate the advantage of using a
spatial decision support system as it stimulates the scenarios more realistically. Tan et al. (2018)
argued that disassembling topsides of multiple offshore platforms is getting common and module lift
planning with transport vessels should be carefully conducted due to high risk and cost. The authors
developed a web system to disassemble topsides for multiple offshore platforms by integrating GIS
and Building Information Modeling (BIM). In the web system, detailed information required for
planning is provided by BIM, and GIS provides the management and analysis for scheduling of
vessel transport. They concluded that the results indicate that the system can improve the efficiency
of lift planning significantly.
Transportation planning is also an interesting problem solved using GIS-based street network.
Carpool or ride-sharing is a system of sharing car journeys for people going to the same location
and transportation planning is needed in carpooling to avoid any delays. Carpool reduces everyone’s
travel cost by sharing travel cost, i.e. fuel, tolls and driving stress. The primary issue in carpooling is
what should be the pickup/meeting point for passengers. Czioska et al. (2017) conducted an online
survey and proposed a GIS-based street network assessment scheme for the meeting point, keeping
in view the facilities available nearby like seating, parking places, shelter, and light.
Another compelling example of GIS-based street network is planning for Complex road network.
Ust-Luga Multi-Modal Complex (ULMMC) is a project to develop the portside area of Soikinsky
Peninsula, Russia. Kotikov (2017) did the GIS-Modeling of the road network and traffic organization
of the 3000-acre complex. The author discussed the structural, functional and spatial features of
ULMMC and used ArcGIS to establish the geodatabase and cartographic basis of the complex.
The GIS-based street network is also used to assess traffic noise pollution. Traffic noise pollution
is now one of the primary reasons for noise pollution in an urban environment. Cai et al. (2015)
developed traffic noise maps for Guangzhou using Global Positioning System (GPS) and GIS. Traffic
volume was estimated by using speed density relation from GPS data collected from floating cars.
Roads and building attributes are exported from GIS. The optimization of the algorithm was done
by performing a quick index of estimated objects and filtering the noise sources automatically. Two
noise maps were created by using traffic noise level in Guangzhou.

Decision Systems
Spatial analysis is used to perform sophisticated ‘what if’ analyses. The researchers have created spatial
analysis tools to cater to different industry problems. An example of these tools is a spatial decision
system. A spatial decision system is a system that supports business or organizational decision-making

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activities using spatial data. Spatial decision system serves all levels of an organization in making
decisions about the future and rapidly changing problems.
Energy consumption in the world is increasing as infrastructure and industries grow. Building
owners are looking for ways to retrofit their properties, but building retrofitting is a complex task.
There are many viable options available which can be overwhelming for building owners, and GIS-
based decision systems can be of great help in this regard. Buffat et al. (2017b) proposed a web-based
decision support system that uses a GIS-based building stock model to show the effects of retrofitting.
By using the GIS-based proposed system, the user can compare different retrofit scenarios without
having to know the local climate or building dimensions. Hence, the user can quickly be informed
in terms of energy savings and carbon emissions.
Asthma is a long-lasting respiratory disease; approximately three million people are suffering
from asthma around the world (Khasha et al. 2018). Asthma attacks are afflicted by environmental
factors such as meteorological factors and air pollutants. With the rise in air pollution around the world,
asthma patients are at significant risk. Khasha et al. (2018) developed a GIS-based decision system
using ESRI to inform patients about potentially dangerous areas for them. They created a mobile
GIS-based predictive tool which contains maps of asthma attacks based on local and environmental
factors. This tool is accessible to patients in any place and time, hence enabling asthma patients to
adopt an innovative and self-management approach.
Traffic problems-as well as global warming-are forcing countries to develop smart cities which
include sustainable transportation systems. Bike share system is one of the more sustainable transport
systems as it provides no environmental risks and is beneficial to human health. The main problem
faced by bike-share systems is the optimal bike share station locations. With the help of ESRI tools,
Kabak et al. (2018) used GIS-based Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach with the
analytic hierarchy process for evaluation of existing and potential bike-share systems in Karsiyaka,
Izmir.
There is an increasing demand for marine-based proteins. Satisfying this demand can contribute
to food security, but it can be a source of problems like conflicts with fisheries or tourism. Gimpel
et al. (2018) argued that there is a dire need of decision support systems for planning scenarios of
aquaculture in multi-use context. The authors proposed a GIS-based decision system called AquaSpace.
AquaSpace uses mapping and integrated assessment of economic, industrial, and environmental
indicators, hence helping the key stakeholders, i.e. licensing authorities or planners to make informed
decisions using graphics and detailed reports.
Precise planning and evaluation is vital for the development of wind farm projects. Generally,
for a siting wind farm, a location with quality wind speed is selected. However, during the planning
stage, other criterion factors-such as social, economic, and environmental-are also kept in mind.
However, in Nigeria, a suitable wind farm site can be located by implementing a GIS-based decision
system based on interval type2 fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (Ayodele et al. 2018). Fuzzy sets
are used in the system to represent an expert’s linguistic judgment to cater issues such as vagueness,
inconsistency, and uncertainty in order to achieve the goal of a better decision-making process for
selecting a highly suitable wind farm site. To evaluate the appropriate locations for a wind farm, the
system uses two sets of criteria which are either economic, social, or environmental.

CHALLENGES

The challenges in GIS have been categorized into five categories i.e. 3.1 The third and the fourth
dimensions, 3.2 Complex data structures, 3.3 Time consuming & expensive data collection, 3.4 Large
storage, 3.5 Integration with traditional maps, and 3.6 Validity of datasets.

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The Third and the Fourth Dimensions

A traditional GIS consists of multiple dimensions. The primary two dimensions are the same as what
makes a coordinate system, which renders geographic features like a 2D map. The presentation layer
is the third dimension, which allows a 3D representation of features. The fourth dimension represents
the change in mapped features over time.
For a long time, GIS systems were primarily used for planning, they cover a large area, but they
were updated rarely. It does not mean that there were no GIS systems updated regularly. An excellent
example of big spatial data that updates frequently would be the one using LANDSAT imagery, which
is usually taken every 16 days over the past 40 years (Hall et al. 2015). The most analysis was done
for more extended periods and visualized in the third dimension. With the rise in time-aware GIS
data, like time-series data of air pollution or time-aware map story of power outages caused by natural
disasters, a new challenge arose for GIS, i.e. how this time-aware data can be managed and visualized
to better understand the complex temporal relationships in this big spatial data (Yu et al. 2018).

Complex Data Structures

Data associated with usually a GIS is in a minimum of three dimensions. The spatial data is complex,
which requires a good deal of definition and restructuring. For this processing, special skills are
needed to grasp the understanding of the data associated with the GIS, and when the prospect of
processing and updating big spatial data is included, this complexity becomes one of the most critical
challenges in GIS.

Time Consuming and Expensive Data Collection

As discussed before, spatial data is complex with multiple dimensions. The process of collecting,
storing, and analyzing spatial information using a GIS is lengthy and tiresome, and therefore time-
consuming. It can take a prolonged amount of time to get comprehensive information regarding a
particular set of data due to the vastness of the data available. Hence, the process of data collection, in
the long run, is usually expensive as all data will require storage and analysis but not all will be useful.

Large Storage
At any given time, A GIS stores a considerable amount of data due to the complexity and multiple
dimensions involved. A large amount of data may lead to problems in the analysis due to the risk of
generalization and the complexity of data. It also creates obstacles during the interpretation of data.
Large data sizes and data types lead to GIS systems using ample storage space, increasing the storage
cost and required human resources to handle the big spatial data.

Integration With Traditional Maps

GIS systems have multiple dimensions and complex structures with various levels of information
associated with the visualization layer. Due to these complexities, it is challenging to integrate with
traditional maps and make sense of the system. This indicates that the GIS systems only use data that
has been collected using the software.

Validity of Datasets - Ground Reality

One of the benefits of GIS systems is that the use of multiple datasets is possible. Possibilities of new
errors are introduced whenever a new data source is connected, as data collection is one of the primary
causes of errors in GIS systems. Hence, the need for understanding the quality of data is critical.
The biggest challenge faced by GIS systems is the ground reality of data. The ground reality of
data can be affected by human errors in the collection. The environmental characteristics include
variations in temperature, gravity, magnetic declination over time, and instrument measurement
errors. There needs to be a certainty in the validity of datasets in order for accurate analysis in GIS.

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Table 4. Summary of applications

Application Type Research Area(s) Problems Solved Data Source(s)

Environment and Natural Resource Suitable study for agricultural cropping, Groundwater pollution & ESRI (Mazahreh et al. 2018,
Management management Management (Yousefi et al. 2018, Adham et al. 2018)
of forests, & lands, water resources (Mazahreh Singh et al. 2018) LANDSAT (Bui et al. 2018,
et al. Regional mineral prospective Martin- Loeches et al. 2018, Fan
2018, Bui et al. 2018, Rocchini et al. 2017, modeling (Lisitsin 2015) et al. 2019)
Adham Waste management (Blanco et Apulia LUS map (Blanco et
et al. 2018, Martin-Loeches et al. 2018) al. 2018) al. 2018)
Environmental impact analysis (Yazidi et Optimal areas for solar power SUNA, Iran (Firozjaei et al. 2018)
al. 2017, plants (Firozjaei et al. 2018)
Song et al. 2017, Nicu and Asandulesei 2018, Air pollution early warning
Sadler system (Xu et al. 2017)
et al. 2018)
Disaster Management and mitigation (Fan et
al. 2019,
Balogun et al. 2012)
Waste facility site location (Blanco et al. 2018)

Facilities Management Locating underground pipes & cables Management & maintenance USGS (Alexandridis et al. 2014,
(Alexandridis of pavement (Almuhanna et Wambo et al. 2018)
et al. 2014, Wambo et al. 2018) al. 2018) SRTM satellite images (Wambo
Planning facilities maintenance (Almuhanna Ground source heat pump system et al. 2018)
et al. management (Noorollahi et OpenStreetMap (Valjarevic et al.
2018, Ningthoujam and Nanda 2018) al. 2017) 2018, Buhler et al. 2017)
Energy use, tracking,& planning (Valjarevic Renewable energy (Cristea and Solar-Med Atlas project, IRESEN
et al. Jocea 2016) (Merrouni et al. 2018)
2018, Merrouni et al. 2018, Groppi et al. 2018, Evaluation of Underground space ESRI (Groppi et al. 2018,
Moghadam et al. 2018, Garegnani et al. 2018, resources (Zhou et al. 2019) Moghadam et al. 2018)
Buhler Identify & install marine Piedmont Region Geographic
et al. 2017) renewable energy systems database (Garegnani et al. 2018)
(Castro-Santos et al. 2019)

Planning and Engineering Urban planning (Groppi et al. 2018, Dou et Land use planning (Cohen 2016) ESRI (Groppi et al. 2018)
al. 2016, Sustainable development (Salvati LandScan, OpenStreetMap (Dou
Salvati et al. 2016) et al. 2016) et al. 2016)
Regional planning (Cohen 2016, Yin 2018, Accessibility to prenatal care Catalonia Land Cover Map
Steiner (Yin 2018) (Salvati et al. 2016)
et al. 2018) Identify rural schools in need of LANDSAT (Cohen 2016)
Route location of highways (Kotikov 2017, grants (Steiner et al. 2018) Health Resources and Services
Jiang et al. Urban planning (Cetin 2015b) Administration
2015a) Sustainability assessment (Pedro (HRSA) (Yin 2018)
Development of public facilities (Bian et et al. 2018)
al. 2019)

Street Network Car navigation (routing and scheduling) Carpool/ride-share (Czioska et Geographical Data of Attica
(Krichen al. 2017) and Thessaloniki (Milakis and
et al. 2014, Tan et al. 2018, Milakis and Road network & traffic Athanasopoulos 2014)
Athanasopoulos organization (Kotikov 2017) OneMap (Terh and Cao 018)
2014, Terh and Cao 2018) Transport planning (Tan et al. ESRI (Adham et al. 2018, Terh
Locating houses and streets (Kotikov 2017) 2018) and Cao 2018, Kabak et al. 2018)
Site selection (Adham et al. 2018, Merrouni Traffic noise pollution (Cai et Solar-Med Atlas project, IRESEN
et al. 2018, al. 2015) (Merrouni et al. 2018)
Sahoo et al. 2018, Rikalovic et al. 2014, Vehicle routing (Krichen et World View (Holguin and
Holguin and al. 2014) Sternberg 2018)
Sternberg 2018, Ayodele et al. 2018) LandScan, OpenStreetMap (Dou
Ambulance services (Wong et al. 2019, et al. 2016)
Swalehe and Indian Remote Sensing satellite
Aktas 2016) (Saha et al. 2005)
Transportation Planning (Dou et al. 2016,
Jiang et al.
2015b, Saha et al. 2005, Tan et al. 2018,
Czioska et al.
2017, Kabak et al. 2018)

Decision Systems Energy Management (Moghadam et al. 2018, Building retrofitting (Buffat et ESRI (Moghadam et al. 2018,
Bu_at al. 2017b) Aydi 2018, Mazahreh et al. 2018,
et al. 2017a, Buhler et al. 2017, Merrouni et Evaluation of existing and Gimpel et al. 2018,
al. 2018, potential bike share system Khasha et al. 2018)
Firozjaei et al. 2018, Castro-Santos et al. (Kabak et al. 2018) OpenStreetMap (Bu_at et al.
2019, Pedro Evaluation of Wind Farms 2017a, Buhler et al. 2017)
et al. 2018) (Ayodele et al. 2018) SUNA, Iran (Firozjaei et al. 2018)
Vulnerability Analysis (Ningthoujam and Miami-Dade County Self-Service
Nanda 2018, GIS website (Coulter et al. 2016)
Coulter et al. 2016, Aydi 2018, Saha et al. USGS (Alexandridis et al. 2014)
2005)
Land use analysis (Mazahreh et al. 2018,
Dou et al.
2016, Salvati et al. 2016)
Supply-Demand systems (Gimpel et al. 2018,
Alexandridis
et al. 2014, Grilli et al. 2017, Wong et al. 2019)
Self Management systems (Khasha et al. 2018)

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OPEN ISSUES

GIS technology has come leaps and bounds in recent years, but it still needs improvement in some
areas, especially issues arising from the rise in big data and smart cities. Following are the major
open issues in GIS technology.

Privacy and Security

As we have seen, spatial information is now available for almost everything, i.e. information of a
building/house, street network, social media linked with spatial information, high-resolution images
from satellites, and so on. The obvious problem with this is that every piece of land is now open
to analysis and privacy of people is becoming more and more non-existent. Digital Orthophoto
Quadrangle (DOQ) can be used to see objects as small as automobiles. Neighbourhoods and
surroundings can be analyzed anonymously. A disturbing aspect of DOQs is the fact that they can
render map distances and can be easily converted directly into roadmaps. Usually, the GIS information
used is public information, and agencies like to share the incurring cost (Ahmed 2015). Spatial data
can be beneficial to many professions, but it is also a security threat. People can be tracked without
their consent or even without them realizing it. Personal information can be accessed via the internet
by anyone, which is a potentially dangerous issue and it should be regulated as most people will object
severely to having maps of their homes and personal information being made available on the internet.
Spatial data is growing in size and complexity; substantial concerns regarding security and
privacy are also increasing. GIS is increasingly used in providing solutions for security agencies
(Kolpan and Warren 2017, Beland and Brent 2018, Caplan et al. 2011). These studies help security
agencies to analyze and forecast crime, but the datasets used in these studies can also be used by
criminals to plan criminal activities. Also, security agencies now use GIS systems to monitor and
analyze security personnel performance. The security of this GIS becomes critical, as criminals can
easily use this data to avoid security personnel as well. In conclusion, the safety of available spatial
data is of utmost importance and needs better focus from concerning agencies.

Ethics and Standardization

The exponential growth in the use of location-aware technologies, such as smartphones, raises serious
questions regarding locational privacy and the ethical use of geographic data (Scull et al. 2016). As
discussed in the security and privacy section above, every piece of land is now open to analysis using
the spatial information available. People in the area can be tracked without their consent. The guidelines
on how to use this data in research (Verrax 2016) and what are the precautions that should be taken
when dealing with spatial information is of paramount importance (van den Bemt et al. 2018). Urban
and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), a geospatial organization has provided a
GIS code of ethics, but they need standardization and implementation (Urban and Association 2003).
These guidelines should be regulated to avoid privacy concerns in GIS technology.
In 2016, the European Union (EU) introduced a law to protect the data and privacy of all individual
citizens of EU and European Economic Area (EEA). This law is known as the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR). The primary goal of GDPR is to give its citizens the control to their own data.
GIS technologies are used in various projects like smart cities that collect and use an overwhelming
amount of personal data (EU 2016). As more and more spatial data of the citizens is collected, the
concerns about the security of spatial data protection measures become more noticeable; especially
prominent in cases of data breaches in private companies like Yahoo (Trautman and Ormerod 2016).
These privacy flaws are highlighted by the EU’s GDPR as it helps in securing the huge amount of
data collected and stored by smart city technologies. GDPR will undoubtedly affect the development
of GIS-based applications, but it shouldn’t be seen as a hurdle in its development as it will help in
building trust with the citizens as they will reduce the fear of possible abuse and they will have control
over their information and privacy in smart city models (Vojkovic 2018).

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A major hindrance in data sharing and standardization of spatial data is nonstandard licenses.
These licenses are difficult to understand by humans as well as computers (Van Loenen et al. 2012). The
need to standardize spatial data licenses has been recognized by geo community (Union 2014, Groot
et al. 2007, van Loenen et al. 2007, Council 2004, Janssen and Crompvoets 2012). Standardization
for spatial data can draw inspiration from initiatives like Australia (Fitzgerald 2010), the Netherlands
(Van Loenen and Welle Donker 2010), European (INSPIRE) (Crompvoets et al. 2018), Italy (Garretti
et al. 2009), United States (Council 2004) and at a global level (Onsrud et al. 2010). These initiatives
are addressing data sharing and standardization at the local level, and there is a need for global
initiatives for data sharing and standardization which can be based on recent models, i.e. Group on
Earth Observations (Observations 2019) and European Commission (Union 2013).

Cost
With the rise in open source GIS tools and data sources, the cost of GIS is becoming a smaller issue
every year, but open-source tools and data sources still have a long way to go before GIS is considered
a cheap system. Also, there are interconnections between different components that create a GIS, and
free GIS systems are not up to the mark yet. The hardware and software cost as well as the need to
have adequately trained personnel is also contributing to the high cost of GIS.

Generalization
Creating a Generalized GIS is one of the open problems in GIS technology as GIS is usually
implemented to cater to specific areas with specific datasets. Valuable, meaningful, relevant
information that can be used for analysis may be lost during the process of generalization, and it will
reflect on the visualizations that are presented to the user in the GIS.

DISCUSSION

This paper presents the taxonomy of data sources, applications, analytics, tools, challenges and open
issues of GIS. In this paper, we discuss the role of big data in GIS industry as there is a rise of big
spatial data in almost every industry due to cost-effective and universal positioning technologies,
crowd-sourced spatial data and high-resolution imaging technologies. This big spatial data needs
support for high-performance spatial queries. These spatial queries are used to solve problems in
location-based computeintensive applications working with big spatial data. There are two significant
difficulties for handling and querying big spatial data to support spatial queries: the rapid increase in
the size of spatial data, and the high computational complexity of spatial queries. The limitations in
existing big data tools and concepts inspired researchers to come up with extensions and architectures
to handle big spatial data efficiently. These include Hadoop-GIS, SpatialHadoop, GeoSpark and
integration of NoSQL with spatial data. ESRI, the world leader in the GIS software, also released
a suite of GIS tools on Hadoop (ESRI 2019d) that work with their flagship ArcGIS product. GIS
tools for Hadoop suffer from limitations like dealing spatial data as non-spatial data and using Hive,
a layer on top of Hadoop among others (Eldawy and Mokbel 2015). Hadoop-GIS is an open-source,
high-performance, and scalable spatial data warehousing system which is ideal for large projects
for spatial data processing. Hadoop-GIS relies on Hadoop as a black box, hence inheriting Hadoops
limitations and it uses customized open-source Hive which adds extra overhead. To tackle these
limitations, SpatialHadoop was proposed as a MapReduce extension. SpatialHadoop can run spatial
and non-spatial programs without any overhead, and it performs order(s) of magnitude better for
spatial data than Hadoop (Eldawy and Mokbel 2013). Researchers also used the power of Apache
Spark and created GeoSpark on top of Apache Spark to cater to challenges of System Scalability
and interactive performance with big spatial data. GeoSpark is designed to process big spatial data
using in-memory cluster computing framework. The relational databases are not considered an ideal
platform for spatial data because they are expensive and hard to maintain, especially when working

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with large systems (Xiao and Liu 2011) and there are efficiency problems associated with GIS data
in relational databases. Hence, the researchers have worked with various NoSQL databases to provide
support for big spatial data. Notable NoSQL systems that provide support for big spatial data include
CouchDB, MongoDB, Neo4j, and BigTable.
With the rise in cloud platforms and the influx of big data in every field, data sources are now
more crucial than ever to how a GIS performs (Wang et al. 2015, 2019). Hence, different types of data
sources and problems solved using these data sources are discussed. Summary of GIS data sources
is provided in Table 1. Among these data sources, ESRI (ESRI 2019b) is the world-leading GIS
company (43% of GIS software market (Wikipedia 2019a)), and ESRI’s Open Data initiative (ESRI
2019c) has 233,926 open datasets from 2,636 organizations worldwide available for download and
analysis. OpenStreetMap (OSM 2019) is an open-source spatial data source where anyone can add,
remove or change data. Since anyone can contribute, the quality of the data set can be questionable.
OpenStreetMap is increasingly being used in research as well as data analytics (Arsanjani et al. 2015)
as it provides high detailed maps with customization. Researchers have also worked to improve the
quality of OpenStreetMap data (Lond¨ogard and Lindblad 2018).
Two other big categories for GIS data sources are National GIS data sources and Commercial
GIS data sources. Government agencies usually maintain national data sources. These national data
sources are verified and are used for the nation’s projects and contribute to global scope as well. Most
commonly known National data source is LANDSAT. LANDSAT receives millions of images from
Earth’s satellites every year (NASA 2019). LANDSAT data is used in various GIS-based projects
for varying domains. Apart from GIS data sources like OpenStreetMap and ESRI Open Data, there
are commercial data sources available for researchers. The top commercial data sources are Google
Maps/Earth/API, Baidu Maps, GeoHey and Strava Metro. Big corporations are maintaining these
commercial data sources. They provide accurate data with extensive documentation with the option
of helpdesks for their clients as well. Figure 6 shows the general flow of GIS systems, with types of
data sources on the left, GIS tools in the center and visualizations produced on the right.
Spatial Analytics is one of the most powerful features of GIS. Table 2 provides a summary of
spatial analytics. In this paper, we look at the use of spatial analytics for impact analysis. Impact
analysis can be of an incident or a phenomenon. The second area for spatial analytics is route
calculation. Route calculation is a process used to find the best path between two places, and it can
become complicated if multiple geographical parameters are introduced. Route calculation using
GIS is used for oil pipeline routing, optimum bicycle path and mapping travel behaviour. Another
research area for spatial analytics is infrastructure analysis. Infrastructure analysis is used to analyse
irrigation systems, vulnerability assessment, land transformation and health services infrastructure
analysis. The last example of analytics is prediction or forecasting. Most GIS-based prediction is used
in the environmental domain, i.e. forest fire maps, the effect of large scale transportation projects on
the environment, flood prediction, and air quality.
GIS is referred to as a set of tools that can generate graphics and prepare maps for analysis. We
looked at the most common tools used in the GIS world, and Table 3 provides a summary of GIS
tools. First and the most commonly used tool is ArcGIS (ESRI 2019a), provided by ESRI. ArcGIS
provides an entire platform of tools for mapping, spatial analysis and visualizations across multiple
platforms. ArcGIS provides all the GIS functionalities supplied by any other GIS tool, but the license
cost is high with a steep learning curve. ArcGIS is available on the Windows operating system and
cloud platform (web-based). After ArcGIS, QGIS is the rising tool in the GIS community (QGIS
2019). QGIS is the first option for open source GIS users with a large and active community. QGIS
has multi-language support, as well as a variety of plugin available. The shortcomings of QGIS include
unstable Graphical Modeler, and it is hard to export files from QGIS. QGIS is available for Windows,
Mac OS X, Linux, BSD and Android operating systems. The third GIS tool we reviewed is TerrSet

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Figure 6. General flow of GIS

(Labs 2019), initially named after Muhammad al-Idrisi (1110-1166). TerrSet is the most popular GIS
tool in teaching community as it provides an intuitive learning environment. TerrSet has a high license
cost and no multi-language support and is only available for Windows operating system. Fourth GIS
tool we reviewed is GRASS GIS (GIS 2019a); it is a free tool mostly used for scientific research due
to its sophisticated spatial analysis. GRASS GIS has an active user community, supports extensive
help documentation and provides Python API and libraries. GRASS GIS is available for Linux,
Windows and OS X operating systems. It has a steep learning curve, old fashioned user interface,
and uses native format. Fifth GIS tool we reviewed is SAGA GIS (GIS 2019b), it is open-source and
it provides a simple platform for scientists with unique toolsets for geoscience which are not found
in most GIS software. SAGA GIS is user-friendly and robust, but it has missing documentation for
some tools. SAGA GIS is available for Linux and Windows operating systems. The last GIS tool
we reviewed is ILWIS (ILWIS 2019); it is an open-source GIS and remote sensing software. ILWIS
provides image processing and remote sensing tools with 3D capabilities. ILWIS has a steep learning
curve with poor documentation, low support, and is only available for Windows operating system.
GIS is usually implemented for a specific type of application. Hence it is typically difficult for
a GIS application of a particular kind to be compatible with other types of applications. Table 4
provides a summary of GIS applications. The primary category in GIS applications is Environment
and Natural Resource Management (ENRM). GIS-based ENRM applications are used for assessment
and management of vital resources like energy, minerals, forests, wildlife and water. The second
category of GIS applications is facilities management. GIS-based facility management is used to
plan maintenance of facilities, locate underground structures and for tracking or planning of energy
use. The third category of GIS applications is planning and engineering. These applications help in
effective planning, construction and maintenance of projects by providing up-to-date information to
stakeholders about projects and their terrain. The fourth category of GIS applications is Street Network,
which provides the most popular GIS applications nowadays, i.e. applications that can use the Global
Positioning System (GPS) data provided by mobile phones. These applications solve problems like
traffic congestion, run-time location-based guides, and location-based social media. The last category
for GIS applications is Decision Systems, a system that supports business or organizational decision-
making activities using spatial data.

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CONCLUSION

Geographic information system (GIS) is used in various fields of research as well as industry. The
impact of big data is in every industry, including GIS. There is a lack of investigation in applications
of big spatial data and GIS in broad purview. In this study, we looked into the limitations of existing
big data technologies and concepts with regards to big spatial data. We also established the definition
of GIS and big spatial data. A comprehensive taxonomy is created to classify uses of GIS in research
and provide a better understanding of its characteristics. In the taxonomy, we critically reviewed
big data technologies for GIS and spatial data. We looked at common GIS data sources, discussed
primary GIS tools, analyzed the use of GIS in analytics and looked further into the types of GIS-based
applications. We also provided summary tables for GIS data sources, tools, analytics and applications.
Furthermore, research challenges are discussed with focus on multiple dimensions, complexity,
time-consumption, expense, storage size, integration, validation, and ground reality. Important open
issues, i.e. privacy, security, ethics, cost, and generalization, are also summarized for future studies.

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Raja Sher Afgun Usmani received the B.S. degree in computer science from International Islamic University,
Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2011 and the M.S. degree in computer science from International Islamic University,
Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2017. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in computer science at Taylor’s University,
Malaysia. From 2010 to 2015, he worked with various software development companies as a software developer in
Islamabad, Pakistan. From 2015 to 2018, he was a Senior Lab Engineer with the International Islamic University,
Islamabad, Pakistan. His research interest includes the Geographical Information Systems, Spatial Data, Big Data,
Data Mining and Data Science.

Ibrahim Abaker Targio Hashem has received his Master degree in Computer Science from the University of Wales,
Newport and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Computer Science from University of Malaya. Dr. Hashem
obtained professional certificates from CISCO (CCNP, CCNA, and CCNA Security) and APMG Group (PRINCE2
Foundation, ITIL v3 Foundation, and OBASHI Foundation). He is presently working as a lecturer at the Department
of Computing and IT, Taylor’s University, Selangor, Malaysia. He has published a number of research articles in
refereed international journals and magazines. His numerous research articles are very famous and among the
most downloaded in top journals. His area of interest includes Big Data, Cloud Computing, Distributed Computing,
and Machine Learning. He is an active member of Mobile Cloud Computing center, Malaysia.

Thulasyammal Ramiah Pillai is a committed lecturer with over 25 years of experience at higher academic institutions
and have taught students from various social and cultural backgrounds. Her research interests include Time series
analysis, Probability and Statistics, Statistical Modelling and Signal Processing. Her current research project is
“Modelling and visualization of air pollution and its impact on health”.

Anum Saeed received the B.S. degree in Software engineering from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi,
Pakistan, in 2010 and the M.S. degree in Software engineering from Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering,
Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2017. From 2015 to 2017, she was a Research Assistant at COMSATS University,
Islamabad. Her research interest includes the Geographical Information Systems, Spatial Data, Big Data, Data
Mining, Data Science and Software Engineering.

Akibu Mahmoud Abdullahi received the B.A. degree in Arabic Language from Bayero University Kano, Nigeria, in
2011. B.S. degree in Information Technology (It) from Almadinah International University, Selangor, Malaysia, in
2016 and the M.S. degree in Instructional Multimedia from University Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia, in
2017. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in computer science at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. From 2016
to 2018, he was as IT Help Desk Technician with Labtech International Limited, Malaysia. His research interest
includes the Learning Analytics, Big Data, Educational Data Mining and Data Science.

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