An integrated geographic information system (GIS) of the Pampean lakes

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consists of data, software and hardware to generate, store, manage, analyze, and visualize georeferenced information. The use of GIS has increased in recent decades for three reasons: 1) public, free and high-quality georeferenced information is available, 2) free and powerful GIS software has been developed, and 3) georeferenced information was incorporated into our daily life. Nowadays, GIS is an indispensable part of many fields and studies thanks to its ability to integrate and analyze large volumes of data with little effort and computational requirements. The development of GIS has led to a democratization of the information created and visualized through them, a process we aim to contribute to. In this chapter, we describe the first integrated GIS of the Pampean lakes (https://rdu.unc.edu.ar/items/74d1dc4d-09b4-4051-9600-183da94c97d0). It was elaborated from information provided by 13 chapters of this book. The GIS includes lakes, wetlands, valley boundaries, paleochannels, streams, dunes, flooded areas, fault systems, salinas, mounts, vegetation and aeolian units, archaeological sites, and weather stations. Additionally, we present a series of uses.