GIS for natural resources (mineral, energy, and water)

Abstract

Natural resources embrace a broad array of categories, including agricultural, conservational, forestry, oceanic, water, energy, and mineral resources. This chapter only focuses on the latter three. Traditional methods for natural resource management include, but are not limited to, geophysical exploration, field geological mapping, geochemical analysis, and aero-photo interpretations. Natural resource related research is by nature a spatial problem. Integration of field survey data and other pertinent information can be a time-consuming task by traditional ways. With the help of GIS, most of the tasks can be conducted in ways that are nearly impossible in traditional methods. Three case studies of GIS application in natural resource analyses will be presented in this book chapter to demonstrate the GIS applications in compiling, integrating, analyzing and visualizing natural resource data.