ABSTRACT
This book follows proper GIS management procedures, where the task is to identify the research question to develop a conceptual model, which in turn determines the kind of data we are looking for to answer the research question. This chapter begins with a discussion of different types of data sources. Once we have the data, we can identify the appropriate GIS methods discussed in Chapter 5. In addition to just knowing where to look for data, we need to understand how they may be transformed and how to link variables across different datasets. The concepts discussed in the previous chapters determine how we should organize our data forming a database schema. Even in these data-rich days of the 21st century, data quality is a major problem that needs to be addressed. In addition, every GIS for Housing project needs to deal with considerations of geographic scale and the variable nature of regional boundaries. We end this chapter with an outlook onto unconventional data sources.
