文档介绍：GIS Best Practices
GIS in Africa
March 2009
Table of Contents
What Is GIS? 1
Global Dialogues: GIScience and Sustainable Development
in Africa 3
Cape Town's Emphasis on Systems Integration Exemplifi es
"Smart City" Goals 7
Early Warning Planning for Mosquito-Borne Epidemics 13
Planning Education Projects in Rural Ethiopia Using GIS 17
Nigerian Voting System Modernized 21
Helping Elephants Across the African Continent with GIS 25
South African Educators Teach GIS—With or
Without Computers 31
Ghana Project Leverages GIS-Based Title Registration and
Microfi nance to Alleviate Poverty 39
i
What Is GIS?
Making decisions based on geography is basic to human thinking. Where shall we go, what will it be
like, and what shall we do when we get there are applied to the simple event of going to the store or
to the major event of launching a bathysphere into the ocean's depths. By understanding geography
and people's relationship to location, we can make informed decisions about the way we live on our
planet. A geographic information system (GIS) is a technological tool for comprehending geography
and making intelligent decisions.
GIS organizes geographic data so that a person reading a map can select data necessary for a
specifi c project or task. A thematic map has a table of contents that allows the reader to add layers