About the NCGIA

The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) is a consortium comprised of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Maine, with funding from the National Science Foundation. The Center serves as a focus for activities relating to geographic information systems (GIS), a technology which is utilized in a tremendous variety of applications from oil-spill management to recovery and damage assessment for the fires that ravaged Southern California in the fall of 1993, to detailed mapping and analysis of artifacts from archeological excavations around the world, or local electrical-utility inventory and management.

The NCGIA conducts basic research on geographic analysis using GIS. Although GIS technology helps us solve many problems, it also reveals to us problems which may be even more difficult to answer: problems relating to inadequacies in geographic data, errors and uncertainties, and the lack of effective methods for spatial decision making. NCGIA research gives particular emphasis to removing the impediments which have stood in the way of GIS being adopted for even more widespread use and benefit to society and the environment.

The NCGIA is truly a shared resource fostering collaborative and multidisciplinary research with scientists across the United States and the world. Center researchers are working towards a global vision in our approach to dealing with questions of concern to people or the environment. We are very proud of our achievements as a center of education with widespread curriculum development efforts and training opportunities for both teachers and students across the United States.

Taken together, research facilities, collaborative work, education and outreach efforts, and technology make the NCGIA a very diverse and productive national center, shared by the research community and society.

Go to NCGIA home page.