Page 8 - GIS for Science, Volume 3 Preview

GIS FOR SCIENCE: A FRAMEWORK AND A PROCESS
By Jack Dangermond, founder and president, Esri and Dawn J. Wright, chief scientist, Esri
Science—that wonderful endeavor in which someone investigates a question or a problem using reliable, verifiable methods and shares the result—has always been about increasing our understanding of the world. Early on, we applied geographic information systems (GIS) to science—to biology, ecology, economics, or any of the other social sciences. It wasn’t until about 1993, when Michael Goodchild coined the term GIScience, that the world began to realize that GIS is a science in its own right. Today, we call this The Science of WhereTM. GIS incorporates sciences such as geology, geography, health and human science, data science, computer science, statistics, geovisual analytics, decision science, and much more. It integrates these disciplines into a kind of metascience, providing a framework for applying science to almost everything, merging the rigor of the scientific method with the technologies of GIS. The study of where things happen, it turns out, has great relevance.
“Part of this human effort is a global mobilization to identify and map the species that are at risk and not already safeguarded.”
We live in a world that faces more and more challenges. Even as a global pandemic continues to ravage human lives, the natural world remains under siege, with a global rate of species extinction that, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than at any time during the past 10 million years, and accelerating. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, most African countries have reported reduced monitoring of the illegal wildlife trade. The protection of endangered species, conservation education, and anti-poaching operations also have faltered. Conversely, so few people understand how deterioration in the natural world can serve to light the fire of a new pandemic. Biodiversity—the variety of life on Earth from microscopic genes to entire ecosystems—is currently not a focus of the global response to factors threatening the lives and livelihoods of all creatures and organisms. As the venerable naturalist Edward O. Wilson has warned: “The only hope for the species still living is a human effort commensurate with the magnitude of the problem.”
Part of this human effort is a global mobilization to identify and map the species that are at risk and not already safeguarded. This effort involves action maps, as The Nature Conservancy calls them, to show us where things are, and what we should protect, build, and invest in. These action maps can help us decide what to do in the face of trade-offs between wild grasslands and mineral exploration, or between transportation infrastructure and wildlife, and so on. Such action maps are now well within our grasp as we continue to undergo a massive digital transformation. This transformation enables a science that increasingly helps us measure and analyze things and predict what will happen next. Just as important, science helps us design, evaluate, and ultimately weave all these pieces together in a protective fabric across the planet.
GIS provides a language to help us understand and manage inside, between, and among the organizations working toward a sustainable future. GIS also provides a framework in which we can compile and organize maps, data, and applications. This evolving technology helps us visualize and analyze relationships and patterns among datasets, perform predictive analytics, design and plan with the data, and ultimately transform our thinking into action. GIS empowers people to easily use geospatial information. As Richard Saul Wurman has said, “Understanding precedes action.” Esri is driven by the idea that GIS as a technology is the best way to address the immense challenges of today and the future.
This third volume of GIS for Science is full of new examples showing how GIS advances rigorous scientific research. The science-based organizations featured in these pages use ArcGIS as a comprehensive geospatial platform to support spatial analysis and visualization, open data distribution, and communication. In many cases, we use this research to preserve and restore iconic pieces of nature—revered and sacred places worthy of being set aside for future generations. These places belong to nature, but they also belong to science.
A central organizing principle of our work as scientists is the discipline of the scientific process. But science is also driven by the organic human instinct to dream, discover, understand, create, and help each other in times of great need. The Science of Where is a concept that brings these impulses together as we seek to support and transform the world through maps and analytics, connecting everyone, everywhere, every day through science.