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History of GIS

History of GIS

The emergence and emergence of geographic information systems

Necessity is the mother of invention as we all know, and there is no doubt that our need for geographic information systems was the reason for its emergence. With technological progress, modern technologies and great discoveries in our world, these geographical data have become very large and huge. Therefore, the need for a tool, programs and science has emerged that is interested in:

 Collect, save and store this huge geographical data within a geospatial database and then analyzes are done to reach data derived from the original data that was saved and to solve many problems. Then after the conservation and analysis stage, we can produce and design the maps and reports required to describe any situation to help support the decision .

When a person faces any problem in his life, it is natural for him to try to solve it through many ways and methods stemming from experience, trial and error. Hypotheses and theories are developed through whom the results required to solve the problem can be reached through proof and proof.

Regarding the beginning of the emergence of GIS and because of the need for it, we remind you of this story:

In 1854, when cholera spread, a person named John Snow in London used points representing the place of residence of each patient. This step led to a study on the distribution of places for people infected with the disease and indicated the source of the epidemic. Soho County was one of the provinces in which the disease spread extensively and extensively. Even broader that the deaths were very many, and the population's inability to explain this even the responsible authorities were unable to prevent the spread of the epidemic, but Dr. John Snow tried to find an explanation for the reasons for the spread of this epidemic or reduce it, to know the reasons he put forward a hypothesis that says that there is a relationship between pollution Water and the cause of the spread of cholera, its first dependence was to draw a map of the disease to find out the most common places and link the possibility of the disease to water sources.

In addition, the Jon Snow study relied on collecting data on Soho County by asking the residents of the area and identifying landmarks on a map that he created, then distributing patient points on them, collecting pumps and manual water sources, and then dropping all this data on the map. The map showed that the cases are concentrated around a water source Certain cases and fewer cases in other regions, so he succeeded in convincing the competent authorities to temporarily disable the water pumps for testing, and after this step, the cases actually decreased significantly.

Mr. Jon Snow concluded that people who were far from water sources and fell ill because they drank from a certain water source that was temporarily disabled, so Mr. Jon Snow confirmed that the problem was related to a certain water pump and demanded that this pump be stopped and this was the main cause of the cholera epidemic, especially After disabling this pump, the number of deaths decreased and the rate of injuries decreased a lot.

After that, it became important to reach the area of ​​the water pump and dig around it to discover greater facts about the epidemic. The drinking water was contaminated, so Mr. Jon Snow very helped in discovering the cause of the spread of cholera.

The moral of this story

1. Dr. John Snow applied a scientific method by collecting data on its phenomenon and linking this data to a map, then he determined the density of disease cases, including casualties and deaths, and he identified through this the place with the most injuries and deaths, which helped support decision-makers in solving the problem.
2. Therefore, GIS has become used to study diseases (medical geography) and study the elements of the environment (water, air and soil) to solve problems resulting from diseases and epidemics that affect a geographical area to limit and limit them.

• The solution used by John Snow was before the emergence of GIS until the emergence of the godfather of GIS, Dr. Roger Tomlinson in 1962, he designed and developed the first geographic system that was known as the Canadian Information Systems CGIS, through which he tried to integrate geographic knowledge and computer in cooperation with BIM.

Here are the produced maps that helped reduce and eliminate cholera in London, on which Dr. John Snow relied:

Source: Wikipedia, GIS