Geotechnologies
Geotechnological Development versus “Chaos”
I was fascinated when I started to read about the evolution and development of some technologies that are very popular nowadays. I´m convinced that the statement “After the turbulence comes the calm” really makes sense and can be applied when analyzing Technological Evolution versus Chaos.
Some of the best technologies used today, and maybe all of them were invented in the middle of a chaos (war, pandemic, economic crisis… etc). Here are some examples of disasters that drove the development of Geotechnologies.
- GIS in public health
In the 19th century, London and all Europe faced an outbreak of cholera that killed thousands of people in few weeks. This outbreak is best known for the physician John Snow’s study of the outbreak and his discovery that cholera is spread by contaminated water. To enhance his theory, john snow did a spatial analysis that culminated in the production of a map showing the distribution of water tanks, water supply system and the sewer network. Hence it was concluded that people drank water from contaminated sources.
This study highlighted the applications of GIS in public health and fostered its development.
2. Drone Evolution
The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) commonly known as Drones that nowadays has been used for various purposes such as entertainment, scientific researches, measurements, mapping etc., were invented to serve as a war weapon. The very first mission of an UAV System was a balloon used as a bomb carrier to shoot down enemy forces and also to make aerial photographic record of the enemy´s troops, quantify them and know there positions.
It was in the first world war where was laughed the first UAV controlled by radio and from then on several other studies followed with the intuition to improve its performance. Drones now lead the geospatial industry and have been used for engineering and many other civilian purposes.
3. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)
Millions of people use GPS from GNSS services everyday as they can easily be used through smartphones for many daily activities. This technology was also invented for war purposes. According to its scope, it was used to identify the positions of the enemy forces to start the bombing during the world war. I venture to say that 99.9% of what has been done in the geospatial world is based on a System that allows us to have precise position of a point in anywhere in the world — GPS.
In engineering, measurement techniques using the GNSS system have gained a lot of importance since these systems provide greater precision and automate the execution processes. This technology have been largely used in Marine, Agriculture, Transportation, Defense, Aerial Photogrammetry, etc.