ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an introduction to key Geographic Information System (GIS) methods that can be used to address social science research questions that have a spatial nature. It gives more specific and detailed examples of how GIS-based spatial analysis can be conducted to address simple but powerful queries relating to social science issues and problems. The chapter discusses ways in which GIS and spatial analysis techniques can be employed to provide information and intelligence in relation to the importance and role of geography in the actions and performance of private and public sector organisations. In particular, it shows how GIS and spatial analysis can be used to perform simple but important queries and generate relevant information and intelligence that can be used to address the above issues, using publicly available data. The chapter moves on to explicitly spatial queries which make more use of the geo-analytical capability of GIS and tools such as buffer analysis, point-in-polygon and spatial overlay.
