Spatial data management using PostGIS

Introduction

In a postindustrial society, data is undeniably perhaps the most important asset that an organization possesses to conduct operations on a daily basis. Data is the foundation of many outcomes for tasks conducted in organizations, that ultimately often revolve around decision-making. The gravity of data isn't only confined to large organizations conducting business, data is also an important asset for the scholar, the home business entrepreneur, research organizations, et cetera. In a postindustrial society which places an emphasis on gathering and analyzing data, there has been over the years a multitude of innovations specializing in the discipline of data management.

In this tutorial data management will be introduced for a specific data known as spatial data. Spatial data unlike regular data or other forms of data, has the intent of representing the geographic location of features & boundaries using coordinates and topology.<ref>Webopedia - http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/spatial_data.html</ref?Further more, spatial data requires its own stream of technology for management, which distinguishes spatial data even more from other forms of data.

The intent of this tutorial will be to demonstrate the basic aspects of the discipline of data management specific to spatial data within a spatial database, and continue with demonstrating what can be achieved using a spatial database in terms of advance functionality. In addition to the primary intent, the entire tutorial will be conducted utilizing FOSS4G software and open source software, which FOSS4G is Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. The benefit of giving a tutorial completely in open source software is that anyone could participate because the software is free of charge. Here is a list of open source software that will be utilized in this tutorial;

• Ubuntu
• PostgreSQL
• PostGIS
• Quantum GIS
• Open Jump

This tutorial's target audience is for individuals with little to no knowledge of database management software, but have some experience in Geomatics.

References

Schuurman, N., Bell, N. J., L'Heureux, R., & Hameed, S. M. (2009), "Modelling optimal location for pre-hospital helicopter emergency medical services" BMC Emergency Medicine, 9, 6. [1]