ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews GIS applications concerning only the “natural” environment and Impact Assessment in particular, as they have been reported in the published literature.6 One of the striking features of the literature is the relatively small proportion of accounts of GIS use that reaches the public domain in books or research journals, with the vast majority appearing as papers given at conferences – often sponsored at least partially by GIS vendors – with no follow-up publications afterwards, or as short articles in magazines heavily dependent on GIS advertising (GisWorld, GeoWorld, GisEurope, Mapping Awareness, GeoEurope are typical examples). In such accounts, often the interest does not lie in theoretical or technical issues raised by the particular application, but in the very fact that it happened, in the fact that GIS technology was used. This is typical of the current stage in GIS development, where much of the interest is in the diffusion of this technology – who is adopting it and how fast – just as with other technologies before. The proliferation of such outlets for the monitoring of GIS diffusion also provides very useful market research for the industry itself.
