A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system that captures, stores, retrieves, analyzes and displays geographic data. For example, GIS can be used to visually display environmental information on a map so that residents can look up and find information specific to their property, such as soils, slopes, vegetation types, water courses, etc. To learn more about GIS, click HERE.
You can use the data available from the St. Croix Environmental Information Repository to produce maps of environmental conditions on your property or in your community, or to generate school reports or research papers. Click HERE or use the button on the right to access the Repository's GIS data for St. Croix and to view a demonstration GIS Project using Repository data.
Special computer software is necessary to produce your own GIS maps from the data available in the Repository. Click HERE to download the FREE ArcExplorer® software from ESRI.
What Can a GIS Do?
Analyze data coming from different sources by linking tabular information (Figure 1) to location (map, Figure 2).
Show patterns, relationships and trends that spreadsheets alone don’t illustrate.
Answer the questions of location such as where, why and how (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
Figure 1
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