Summary + Thesis + Supports #draft 3

Thesis Statement:

Despite its high implementation cost, GIS has proven to increase efficiency and sustainability with its ability to provide engineers convenience, clarity and collaboration. It is also highly compatible with other technologies when assessing terrains, which helps in the evaluation of the environment of a project/research site.

Support #1

GIS has reduced the workload of engineers, while improving their convenience and clarity on a project. Its spatial data management capabilities enable efficient storage, organization, and analysis of geographic information, saving time while also enhancing data visualization. "GIS gives the ability to connect heterogeneous information with each other, to compare, research, select the most convenient and visual data visualization, for example, by forming on the basis of them the necessary maps, drawings, tables, charts, diagrams. It is possible to group the data depending on the needs of the nature user, to carry out their comparison and research." Therefore, an accurate site analysis and the creation of visual data makes it easier to understand complex site conditions and automatically storing the data has improved overall convenience and clarity of engineers.

Support #2

Moreover, environmental impact assessment is enhanced through GIS by evaluating land use patterns and ecosystem changes. By offering data-driven, visual, and predictive insights that enables engineers to design sustainable projects while minimizing environmental harm, GIS has been widely applied in research on evaluation of natural resources and environmental management (Grabaum and Meyer 1998, Bayliss et al. 2003). "Some countries have established a standard evaluation system based on remote sensing and GIS, for example, the LEED standard of the United States and the Dutch Eco-Quantum Standard (Choguill 1996, Gilbert 1998, Emmanuel 2005, Xiong and Zeng 2007)." Hence, being able to integrate multi-source spatial data to assess the environmental setting of a project area makes GIS a system that's desired.

Counterargument

Naturally, a software with multiple features and functions can be costly. Corporations will have to assess the cost-benefit of incorporating GIS into the project as there are possibilities of security threats and inaccurate data reading due to its dependency on the quality of data input. According to Zeiler(1999), "GIS is not just a software package, but rather a combination of skilled people, spatial and descriptive data, analytic methods, hardware and software." Thus, GIS is still a software that requires upgrades and may be even more costly in the future.

References

Xu, Y., Sun, J., Zhang, J., Xu, Y., Zhang, M., & Liao, X. (2012). Combining AHP with GIS in synthetic evaluation of environmental suitability for living in China’s 35 major cities. International Journal of Geographical Information Science : IJGIS, 26(9), 1603–1623. https://www-tandfonline-com.singaporetech.remotexs.co/doi/pdf/10.1080/13658816.2011.642800

Andreev, D. V. (2020). The use of GIS technology in modern conditions. IOP Conference Series. Earth and Environmental Science, 421(4), 42001-. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/421/4/042001/pdf

Zeiler, M. (1999). Modeling our world: The ESRI guide to geodatabase design. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. https://books.google.com.sg/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qAe-ScoyTqIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&ots=Mckh9-FFP4&sig=EM2Q3raVAeucLTY3yoUQtFXzH7g&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Montoya, L. (2003). Geo-data acquisition through mobile GIS and digital video: an urban disaster management perspective. Environmental Modelling & Software : With Environment Data News, 18(10), 869–876. https://www-sciencedirect-com.singaporetech.remotexs.co/science/article/pii/S1364815203001051#section-cited-by