Geographic Information System
¥Geographic Information System (GIS)
¥A computer system based on a common coordinate system designed to display, manipulate, and analyze geographic data
Geographic Information Systems (or GIS) were integral to many areas of our study.  GIS is a system of computer hardware and software that can be used to display, manipulate and analyze geographic data.
GIS is commonly used to display data such as land use types, elevation, and soil type.  It can also be used to combine these attributes and to generate models that predict trends in other data.
This is a GIS contour map of the China Lake watershed within the GIS software application.  It shows the lake and the slope of the surrounding land.