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The earth with all its individual components forms a dynamic system that is influenced by two types of changes: natural changes and human induced changes. This subsection provides two specific examples of geographic information systems being used in Earth system science studies.

GIS for monitoring natural changes

The digital tectonic activity map, generated by researchers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is an example for integrating global data sets with regional imagery and field data using a geographic information system. This synoptic view of global tectonism was achieved by using global seismicity, volcanism and plate motion data sets that were visually enhanced by combining them with topographic and bathymetric data. Further information was added at the macroscopic scale by integrating satellite imagery as well as other field studies.  

This example shows a geographic information system that was developed at the Institute of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC), the Netherlands, to demonstrate the use of a GIS for a project aiming to remove land mines in southern Africa. It shows a large number of layers containing very detailed topographic information overlaid on Landsat TM color composite. The topographic information is combined with essential information about the mine fields including links to individual field records and drawings. In this case, information at various scales was required for tackling the problem at hand.