Answer to Question #163793 in Geomatics for Netshitanzwani Vhulenda

Question

What are the characteristics of sources of spatial data and why the knowledge of scale of measurement is important in gis

Answer 1

Spatial data refers to location, size and shape of features.  The most common general sources for spatial data are: hard copy maps; aerial photographs; remotely-sensed imagery; point data, samples from surveys; and existing digital data files. Existing hard copy maps, e.g. sometimes referred to as analogue maps, provide the most popular source for any GIS project. Characteristics of sources of spatial data include;  Data that describe the characteristics of spatial features two kinds of data are usually associated with geographic features: spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial data refers to the shape, size and location of the feature. Non- spatial data refers to other attributes associated with the feature such as name, length, area, volume, population, soil type

Each of the four scales (i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio) provides a different type of information. Measurement refers to the assignment of numbers in a meaningful way, and understanding measurement scales is important to interpreting the numbers assigned to people, objects, and events.