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This research underlines the usefulness of Civil Rights Geographic Information Systems (CR-GIS) for understanding the social struggles and assessing the critical needs of the disempowered population of Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The social struggles have been persistent for decades in the Southern states, particularly in Alabama. Researchers have recognized the political and historical root causes and implications for these social struggles. The geographic region of Alabama’s Black Belt is significant because it became the epicenter of the Civil Rights struggle and still represents the vestiges of the social policy known as “Jim Crow.”

Although GIS has a great potential to explore social and political struggles, currently, it is not profoundly associated with Civil Rights studies. This research employs CR-GIS to illustrate the impact of the disfranchisement caused by biased geopolitics in three selected cases/issues: (1) gerrymandering and voting rights, (2) transportation, and (3) poverty in the State of Alabama. While there has been some progress in overcoming the social struggles in the Black Belt, there is a need for qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand persistent social, economic, and Civil Rights struggles in the region. GIS could be a valuable tool to understand and explore the social struggles in the disempowered communities of the “Black Belt” in Alabama. By incorporating the existing information and conducting ground truth studies, this research will lay the basic foundation for extended research by creating a policy template for empowering the disempowered for better social, economic, and political integration in the “Black Belt region.”

This paper aims to use geographical information systems kriging interpolation technique to examine and map the spatiotemporal variation in rainfall in Guinea Savanna of Nigeria.

Rainfall data, for the periods between 1970 and 2000, are collected from the archives of the Nigerian Meteorological Services, Oshodi Lagos. In this paper, rainfall is considered as the primary and input for crop yield. It is observed that the most important climatic element is rainfall; particularly inter‐annual variation and the spatiotemporal distribution of rainfall. Three spatial interpolation methods are chosen for this research work: inverse distance weighting method and the spline (completely regularized) as the determinist methods; and ordinary kriging as the stochastic methods. In order to analyze the interpolation quality, an evaluation by cross validation has been carried out. Ordinary kriging method was discovered suitable for this paper because it allows the sharpest interpolation rainfall data and is the most representative.

The results of the analysis show that rainfall varies both in time and space. Rainfall variability is very high in most of Northern Guinea Savanna (e.g. Yola, Minna, and Ilorin) with values of coefficient of variation (CV) between 26 and 49 percent while in Southern Guinea Savanna, the CV is very low especially, in Enugu (9 percent), and Shaki (8 percent). These anomalies (such as decline in annual rainfall, change in the peak and retreat of rainfall and false start of rainfall) are detrimental to crop germination and yield, resulting in little or no harvest at the end of the season.

The paper concludes that geospatial techniques are powerful tools that should be explored further for realistic analysis of the effects of seasonal variability in rainfall.

New computer-assisted techniques for visualizing data are evolving in a number of areas in transportation. For example, in engineering, 3D visualization and microsimulation techniques are being applied for the identification and evaluation of geometric and operational solutions for improving visually impaired pedestrian access to roundabouts and channelized turn lanes. For planning, visualization is being used for corridor analysis. Data visualization is being used as a tool for improving decision-making within transit agencies, as well as a tool for understanding truck trip generation on highways. Many of these new techniques take advantage of archived intelligent transportation systems (ITS) data. Examples of other innovative data sources include global positioning systems (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), computer-aided design (CAD), and a variety of visualization tools available for use with travel survey data. As these various techniques and software applications move forward, consideration needs to be given to how the “lessons learned” from these applications can facilitate the use of data visualization techniques for travel survey data analysis and decision-making.

The study aimed to use geographic information system (GIS) based multi-criteria decision making analysis (GIS-MCDA) to select areas suitable for siting landfills in Ashanti region. It also sought to ascertain variables most sensitive to the siting of landfill in the region.

This study utilized GIS-based Multi-criteria decision making analysis –AHP to model and select areas most suitable to siting landfills within the region. Overall, 16 variables including wind speed and hydraulic conductivity (which were previously neglected in landfill siting in Ghana) were identified through comprehensive literature review. These variables were weighted using AHP method and integrated using the weighted linear combination (WLC) in GIS environment to develop five sub-models: the physical environmental, sociocultural, economic/technical, climatic and hydrogeological sub-models. These sub-models were further weighted and then integrated to derive the final suitability model.

Results show that 13% (3,067 km²) of the region was identified as most suitable to siting engineered landfills. The study also identified 11 sites which are considered most suitable for situating landfills. On a sensitivity angle, hydrogeological (R² = 0.5923; p = 0.003) and physical environmental sub-model (R² = 0.254; p = 0.034) significantly predicted the final suitability model developed.

Ghana's Landfill Guidelines seeks to optimize site selection and ancillary services that culminate into achieving sanitary landfills by 2020. Evidence still abounds on the unsuitability of existing and in some cases, new landfill sites presenting environmental and social negative impacts. The comprehensive evaluation of most crucial variables – social and environmental factors that determine an optimal landfill location – will be of immense help to policy planners like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) towards upgraded landfills. The authors hope that, concerned agencies will adopt the model in the study and integrate into their existing landfill suitability modeling techniques to provide a more grounded framework that optimizes landfill site selection within the study area.

This study is the first attempt to consider a regional-level waste collection site selection in Ghana using comprehensive sets of social and environmental factors and will therefore contribute immensely to EPA's goal of achieving upgraded landfills by 2022.

A GIS based environmental decision support system for municipal solid waste management under Indian socio‐economic and regulatory conditions, named as EDSS‐MSWI has been developed. This paper intends to report the methodology and application of the EDSS‐MSWI for municipal landfill site selection taking a case study of Varanasi city (India).

EDSS‐MSWI has been developed using VB.NET and ArcGIS Engine programming tools. A set of 13 criteria are selected for primary landfill site selection. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) has been used to give weights to different criteria. The criteria were aggregated and suitability index (S) is generated using weighted linear combination (WLC) technique in GIS environment. The suitability index (0‐10) values are classified into four categories (Excluded, Less Preferable, Suitable and Best Suitable) to select the landfill site.

The results indicate that there are at least four locations under the “best suitable” category where adequate land seems available for landfilling in Varanasi. It is found that GIS based multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can be a powerful tool for such applications.

The weights of different criteria have been based on the opinion of three experts only. This may involve subjectivity to that extent. Aggregation of more experts’ views may further refine the values of weights.

The developed tool provides a helpful guide to solid waste management planners.

The development of EDSS‐MSWI is the first of its kind in India to consider all aspects of municipal solid waste management in a holistic way and present it in an independent software form.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential geographic locations for ecotourism activities and to select the best one among alternatives.

The proposed model consists of four sequential phases. In the first phase, different geographic criteria are determined based on existing literature, and data are gathered using GIS. On equal criteria weighing, alternative locations are determined using GIS in the second phase. In the third phase, the identified criteria are weighted using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) by various stakeholders of potential ecotourism sites. In the fourth phase, the PROMETHEE method is applied to determine the best alternative based on the weighted criteria.

A framework including four sequential steps is proposed. Using real data from the Black Sea region in Turkey, the authors test the applicability of the evaluation approach and compare the best alternative obtained by the proposed method for nine cities in the region. Consequently, west of Sinop, east of Artvin and south of the Black Sea region are determined as very suitable locations for ecotourism.

The first limitation of the study is considered the number of included criteria. Another limitation is the use of deterministic parameters that do not cope with uncertainty. Further research can be conducted for determining the optimum locations for different types of tourism, e.g. religion tourism, hunting tourism and golf tourism, for effective tourism planning.

The proposed approach can be applied to all area that cover the considered criteria. The approach has been tested in the Black Sea region (nine cities) in Turkey.

Using the proposed approach, decision-makers can determine locations where environmentally responsible travel to natural areas to enjoy and appreciate nature that promotes conservation have a low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socioeconomic involvement of local individuals.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first study which applies a GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making approach for ecotourism site selection.

Notwithstanding the Geographical Information System (GIS) being a fast-emerging green area of a digital revolution, the available studies focus on different subject areas of application in the construction industry, with no study that clarifies its knowledge strands. Hence, this systematic review analyses GIS core area of application, its system integration patterns, challenges and future directions in the construction industry.

A systematic review approach was employed, using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist. A total of 60 articles published between 2011 and 2022 were identified, thoroughly reviewed and analysed using thematic analysis.

The analysis revealed spatial planning and design, construction-task tracking, defect detection and safety monitoring as its four main application-based areas. The findings showed that the adoption of GIS technology is rapidly expanding and being utilised more in building projects to visual-track construction activities. The review discovered an integrated pattern involving data flow from a device and window-form application to GIS, the pathways to data exchange between platforms to platforms, where ArcGIS is the most used software. Furthermore, the study highlighted the lack of interoperability between heterogeneous systems as the crux impediment to adopting GIS in the built environment.

The research provides a deep insight into possible areas where GIS is adopted in the construction industry, identifying areas of extensive and limited application coverage over a decade. Besides, it demystifies possible pathways for future integration opportunities of GIS with other emerging technologies within the construction industry.

This paper aims to study the impact of information and communication technologies in organizations to capture and manage intellectual capital. The paper focuses particularly on the use of Web-based geographical information systems (Web GIS) to increase relational capital.

This paper analyzes in detail the Web sites of 143 general merchandise retailers, which have been grouped according to their dominant operational format. Menus and search tools have been used to find out about the way in which these retailers provide information to the customers about their stores, with special attention to the use of Web GIS.

The results obtained show that most of the companies analyzed use Web GIS to provide information about the location and other characteristics of the stores. The findings in this paper also suggest that the quantity and quality of the information provided by is somewhat related to the company size.

The limitations of this study come from the difficulty of predicting whether small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will generalize the use of Web GIS in the future.

The findings of the paper suggest that large retail firms have adopted Web GIS to provide information to the customers and for other geomarketing purposes. Moreover, SMEs should use Web GIS to improve their relationship with customers.

To the authors’ knowledge, no paper has analyzed in detail the use of Web GIS by companies with the aim of enhancing relational capital.

The purpose of this study is to develop a methodology for sustainable drinking water management by assessing the existing state of the water supply system in the study area (Allahabad, India). An attempt is made to identify various problems and gaps in the existing system and evolve solutions for the present water supply problems in a GIS framework. Finally, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for sustainable drinking water management.

The study was conducted in four stages. The first stage involved collection of data and background information through various primary and secondary sources including reports and publications of various organizations. This was followed by discussions with various officials of Uttar Pradesh (UP) Jal Nigam (Water Corporation), Jal Sansthan (Water Board), State Ground Water Board, Central Ground Water Board and Municipal Corporation of the city. The second stage involved field studies in a few zones of the city. The third stage involved data input and analysis on a GIS platform, and the fourth stage includes the development of a solution of the present problems and proposing a conceptual framework for ensuring sustainable drinking water management for Allahabad City.

ArcInfo 9.1 has been used as a tool for storing all types of relevant data for analysis and decision making. The various thematic maps include water supply zone map, water deficit localities map, land use map, location of tubewells, overhead tanks, zonal pumping station, ward boundaries, population map, water demand and supply map.

Applicability of a partnership between the public and the private sector has to be checked for proper institutional analysis in Allahabad City.

The paper assesses the problems in the existing water supply system in Allahabad and proposes to give a GIS‐based solution strategy for its sustainability. The proposed GIS‐based conceptual framework would improve the current practice of drinking water management and would reduce the present problem of water crisis. The findings of the study would be useful for cities with similar problems in underdeveloped and developing countries.

The purpose of this study is to assess the evolution of restaurant locations in the city of Hamilton over a 12‐year period (1996 to 2008) using GIS techniques. Retail theories such as central place, spatial interaction and principle of minimum differentiation are applied to the restaurant setting.

A database of restaurants was compiled using the NZ yellow pages and contained 981 entries that consisted mainly of location addresses and types of cuisine. This paper focuses on locational patterns only.

A process of geo‐coding and clustering enabled the identification of two clustering periods over 12 years for city restaurants, indicating locational patterns of agglomeration within a short walking distance of the CBD and spill over effects to the north of the city.

The data do not allow statistical analysis of the variables causing the clustering but offer a visual description of the evolution. Explanations are offered on the possible planning regimes, retail provision and population changes that may explain this evolution.

The findings allow identification of land use patterns in Hamilton city and potential areas where new restaurants could be developed. Also, the usefulness of geo‐coded data in identifying clustering effects is highlighted.

Existing location studies relate mostly to site selection criteria in the retailing industry while few have considered the evolution of restaurant locations in a specific geographic area. This paper offers a case study of Hamilton city and highlights the usefulness of GIS techniques in understanding locational patterns.