Implementing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Spreadsheet Models: What, Why, and How

Geographic information systems (GIS), computer-based systems that allow decision makers to incorporate geographically based data into their analyses, are widespread and powerful tools in many business and scientific settings today. In this paper, we discuss ways in which GIS functionality can be implemented within the spreadsheet environment. We show the straightforward and natural analogy between several GIS functions with spreadsheet functions, particularly for raster based data. We present two realistic examples meshing analytical models with GIS methods --- an integration which is greatly enhanced by the "remarkable development platform" provided by spreadsheets. We discuss the many benefits of the spreadsheet enabled seamless integration of geographical data, mathematical analysis, and mapping displays.