Hierarchy of knowledge in GIS

An intelligent geographic information system (GIS) has to handle various types and huge volumes of geoscience-related knowledge as well as enormous amounts of data and information. More recent attention concentrates on collection, representation, management, and usage of knowledge. This article presents a three-tier hierarchy for geoscience knowledge in a GIS. The first tier is for knowledge of data. It includes knowledge of feature objects definition, data structure, data model, and relations among data as well as rules, restrictions, and regulations about data. The second tier is for knowledge of processing. It describes analysis models, data processing procedures, workflows, and conditions. The third tier contains knowledge of a GIS for the public sector. This tier provides knowledge to people on how to access this GIS and what the GIS can do. The three-tier hierarchy of knowledge in a GIS provides an understandable and practical category frame to handle geoscience knowledge. One of the advantages of this hierarchy is that it separates system resource consumption into different stages so it can avoid exhausting the system at peak times when the GIS handles a complex, large task.