More than 20 years ago, I was involved with a book project here at Esri^®. We produced and published a software workbook called Understanding GIS: The ARC/INFO Method. We were just a group of people at this little geographic information system (GIS) software company in Redlands, California, who saw that the users of our ARC/INFO software needed better guidance on how to use these tools for real analysis projects. Our original goal had been to write a book called Getting Started with ARC/INFO. More than 500 pages later, we realized that we had described a methodology for doing GIS projects in their entirety and needed to change the title.

The key idea was to set up a problem in the book, provide the data, and then let the students work through the whole process. Little did we know that our book would become a worldwide best seller and inspire a generation of technically savvy geographers.

Fast-forward to 2018. GIS has evolved to keep pace with a changing technology landscape. There have been huge innovations in geospatial data models and user interfaces; GIS now lives and breathes on the web. Much has changed. Yet the need for our users to understand how to organize and think about how to effectively conduct a GIS project persists. This book, Understanding GIS: An ArcGIS^® Pro Project Workbook, now in its fourth edition since 2011, carries on the spirit and method of the original GIS approaches that inspired it. I’m especially happy that this new edition—featuring the highlights of the latest version of our next-generation ArcGIS^® Pro software—was enthusiastically adopted, and executed with precision, by our friends at the University of Redlands, the college geographically closest to Esri headquarters. I’m pleased to say that the new edition supports the traditional mission while also integrating the new GIS paradigm. It is our hope that it will inspire yet another generation of GIS professionals and practitioners.

Clint Brown

Director of Software Products

Esri

Redlands, California

April 2018

Preface

What’s new in the fourth edition?

This fourth edition of Understanding GIS: An ArcGIS^® Pro Project Workbook has been completely revised and tested to be compatible with ArcGIS^® Pro 2.2. New graphics have been created using the Windows 10 operating system. Some steps have changed to reflect changes in how the software works. Lesson 9 has been completely rewritten to reflect the latest advances in the rapidly evolving ArcGIS^SM Online environment. The demographic data has been updated with 2015 census data. Parcel data has been updated to 2016. The final results of the analysis are updated to an entirely new set of park sites. Many small mistakes that came to our attention have been corrected. And because of the ever-changing nature of the software, some screenshots in the workbook may differ from what you see on your screen.

Background

In 1990, Esri published a software workbook called Understanding GIS: The ARC/INFO Method. This book was the first to offer a practical, project-oriented introduction to a commercial GIS software product, and it became popular as both a self-study tutorial for working professionals and a lab manual in college classrooms.

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