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Alexander Scarcelli |
Purdue University |
With the risk of disappointing the Game of Thrones viewership reading this article, John Snow was an English physician in the mid-19th century who famously mapped the cholera outbreak in London and identified the exact location of the contaminated water source behind the epidemic. He did this using a local map, where he plotted the number of cholera cases reported across the city, eventually discovering the cause of the outbreak. This idea of having datapoints (say number of cases of a disease, temperature, etc.) tied to a specific location has proven itself to be really valuable and has evolved into a powerful tool in the form of Geospatial analytics for solving complex problems. It goes far beyond simple maps and navigation, enabling industries to make data-driven decisions by visualizing, analyzing, and interpreting spatial relationships. Today, geospatial analytics is driving innovation in fields such as urban planning, healthcare, and logistics, allowing organizations to optimize resources, predict trends, and make real-time decisions.
While one may not realize it, but we’re surrounded by geospatial data almost every day. Right from using Google Maps to help you find your way on road trips, looking up coffee shops near you, or checking the weather in your area, to navigating traffic congestions, we expose ourselves to geospatial gizmos in some or the other way. Many businesses, mainly the delivery and transportation giants in the likes of Amazon and Uber, utilize geospatial data quite frequently to select the best delivery routes. At the same time, the largest energy and oil companies in the world rely on geological mapping of resources that uses geospatial technology.
Geospatial: Data and Tech
Geospatial technology is a broad term generally referring to the wide range of modern mapping tools utilized in studying the different geographical and geological aspects of the earth. While there is no overarching definition of what geospatial technology is, it can be broken down into three major categories, these being geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and the commonly known global positioning systems (GPS)1. While all fall under the same category of geospatial tech, certain defining characteristics separate each category from the other. GIS refers to the various tools used to store, visualize, and interpret geographic data. These are mainly computer-based tools used for mapping and analyzing geographic data2. RS deals with detection and monitoring of any physical features of an area. This is done by utilizing special cameras or signals, typically attached to satellites, aircraft, or ships.The GPS is a US-owned system that utilizes satellites to provide navigation, positioning, and timing services to civilians and military personnel. GPS is available for use by anyone worldwide, however.
While not a new technology by any means, geospatial technology and data collection techniques have come a long way. As far back as the 19th century, early versions of the camera were sent up in balloons to photograph landscapes from above for map-making purposes. While the field slowly advanced, the invention of the airplane, followed by the development of the computer and satellite in the 20th century greatly accelerated the capabilities of such technology. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, satellites allowed for images of the earth’s surface and of human activity to be taken, while computers stored such images and data, eventually advancing into the development of mapping software and advanced data storage systems3. Later in the 20th century, scientific advancement and geopolitical pressure continued the advancement of such technologies through advanced espionage attempts, more powerful satellites, and more advanced cameras and sensors. Today, companies are finally realizing the innovation opportunities that come with harnessing the power of geospatial data. The advancement of drones and other vehicles for geospatial mapping, the increased emphasis being placed on the collection, storage, and utilization of data, and the current computational capabilities of modern computing systems have created massive opportunities for a number of businesses in a variety of industries.
Geospatial Data for Today’s Industries
Advancements in sensors and information technology have enabled a multitude of industries from agriculture to healthcare to find new ways to leverage the power of spatial information for their business needs.
Energy and Resources: Energy and resource companies can utilize data collected from remote sensing to help map, collect, and analyze any information surrounding their operations, whether this be locating a specific resource, ensuring accurate site selection, or monitoring a pipeline. Additionally, companies in this industry have been able to leverage the power of predictive analytics, utilizing the predictive power of geospatial data to adjust their production for a possible shock event. For example, smart grid operators can determine when to increase production for severe weather.
Agriculture: Modern farmers can leverage a massive wealth of data that helps them to maximize their crop yield. In fact, the agriculture and farming industry generates more locational data than most other industries. This data comes from a variety of sources, such as weather stations, ground sensors, soil samples, and drone imagery, to name a few.With the wide range of spatial information available, farmers can monitor the health of their fields, track soil moisture, map field drainage, and much more.
Health Care: Hospitals and healthcare professionals utilize geospatial data in a variety of ways, including optimizing medicine and ambulance routes, minimizing waiting times by tracking the capacity and movement of patients across hospital rooms, mapping the outbreak of disease across various regions, and identifying certain at-risk areas or populations. Additionally, collecting geospatial data on certain demographic regions and their associated health risks allows for targeted public health campaigns (Geraghty, 2023).
Defense and Intelligence: Access to new geospatial data and technologies has completely reshaped the defense and intelligence industries4. Drones and advanced satellites allow for the military or intelligence agencies to run an extremely detailed strategic analysis on a certain area or region, helping to identify strategic positions, weak points, or places of interest. GIS aids in almost all aspects of military operations, such as creating heat maps of high-density population centers for land operations, relaying real-time weather data to pilots for air operations, and revealing the direction of currents and winds for sea operations5.
Insurance and Finance: Geospatial data is being leveraged in a variety of unique ways in the insurance and finance industry. Current technology allows insurance companies to compare customers against their locational hazard data and other locational data such as historical weather and natural disasters, crime, building codes, and proximity to emergency services.For financial services, such as banks, they can track the location of a customer’s purchases to highlight any potentially fraudulent activity.
Retail and Marketing: The increasing popularity of cameras in stores allows for the mapping and analysis of in-store consumer behavior. Stores can track where customers went first, where they spent the most time, and what demographic is attracted to what section.This allows for more personal marketing and product placement to maximize sales and the customer’s in-store experience. Additionally, geographical data has allowed companies to uniquely appeal to certain demographics or regions, allowing for more personal and targeted marketing that boosts their sales.
Tech and Media: Geographical mapping and customer heat maps have allowed cell companies to effectively plan out where to strategically place their 5G cell towers to maximize service availability. Additionally, advanced mapping technologies have allowed media and virtual reality companies to create almost exact replicas of both historic and modern buildings and locations (Escandón Álvarez, 2023).
The Future Potential of Geospatial Data: As our interactions with technology continue to mature, new and exciting problems to solve are likely to emerge giving rise to more opportunities and welcoming fresh geospatial use cases. With that being said, geospatial industry has undoubtedly benefited from large network effects lately – more so with rise of AI and cloud computing. Self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles are recent additions on the list to utilize real-time geospatial datapoints to analyze their surroundings and map their locations.
On the other hand, geospatial AI is a term gaining popularity in a variety of ways. According to MGISS, geospatial AI can be “employed in urban planning to optimize infrastructure development, in environmental monitoring to track changes in ecosystems, and in disaster response to assess the impact of natural calamities and coordinate relief efforts effectively.”
Companies are riding the wave of analytics on a large scale. Geospatial analytics is one such parallel to massively benefit from this. The availability and easy accessibility of geospatial data has enabled companies to provide more value to customers – be it through same day delivery from Amazon or helping farmers increase their crop yield. Geospatial analytics is surely something to keep a tab on in the forthcoming future.
References:
Escandón Álvarez, C., 2023. Cell tower localization using crowdsourced measurments.
Geraghty, E., 2023. Harnessing Geospatial Data for Informed Health-Care Planning. URL: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/harnessing-geospatial-data-for-informed-health-care-planning/.
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Ronak Tiwari for taking time to reviewing and editing this article.