ABSTRACT
Most introductory textbooks on GIS include a set of standard topics essential to the early development of GIS. Since GIScience and technology have experienced tremendous advancements during the past several decades, those textbooks are insufficient or even obsolete to discuss thoroughly topics pertinent to the current computing environments in which most GISs operate. In addition, these texts fall short of addressing both the theoretical and real world challenges that GIS developers and users have to deal with these days. One of the intentions of this written volume is to fill this void to provide more advanced and in-depth discussions on relevant topics and issues. One of these topics is to evaluate how GIS are being used in various academic disciplines and sectors in the society. The specific objective is to demonstrate how GIS are used in various types of applications to deal with real world problems.
