1. GIS design

Whether it's a question of building a facility, developing or managing an area, producing knowledge, managing a public service, or responding to an accident, each of these projects requires decisions involving many people and the deployment of significant resources. In such cases, it can be cost-effective to set up an information system that is organized, maintained and managed on an ongoing basis, ready for a number of needs, or for an unforeseen one.

In this context, the envisaged (or conceivable) use of geographic information can be grouped into broad categories:

• accumulation of scattered knowledge, production of knowledge: for a given problem, it is often difficult to acquire or produce rapid, accurate knowledge of the terrain. Information is often spread across several organizations (networks, geology, etc.),...