In a growing more populous with people every single day, economies, whether in smaller nations or large, are struggling to deal with the amount of people who are retiring, sometimes with little savings, and living longer.
The world’s population will grow 50% in the next four decades, from 6.5 billion now to 9 billion. By 2030, in Europe, every 100 workers will have to support 40 people aged 65 or older, compared with just 25 pensioners out of 100 in the workforce in 2008. This was according to research done by Eurostat, the statistics arm of the European Union, last month.
With such a large population growing larger, many companies are utilizing breakthroughs in technology to drive revenue, to provide a greater income for their employees and to benefit the larger economy as a whole. One of the industries that is one the rise is the geospatial industry.
In 2011, the Geospatial industry generated $73 billion in revenue and helped generated $1.6 trillion for the rest of the U.S. economy. There are many facets to the geospatial industry. Here are three.
GPS systems
GPS or the Global Position System is a space-based radio navigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force. It is a global navigation satellite system that provides geolocation–the estimated real-world location of an object on or near Earth.
GPS has clear everyday uses. The use of the Maps app, through either Apple or Google, is important to navigating busy streets and has particular use for delivery drivers or ride-share apps. GPS is also valuable for numerous other apps on the phone.
Analytics
A recent report by Markets and Markets estimates the geospatial analytics market will grow from $27.4 billion in 2015 to a whopping $72 billion in 2020. That’s an astounding 21% compound annual growth rate.
Geospatial analytics sometimes may rely on Big Data, a term used when incredibly large amounts of data are analyzed using algorithms and other data analysis tools.
One application of geospatial analytics comes from Radio Frequency Identification or RFID. 12 million RFID tags, which are used to capture data and track movement of objects in the physical world) were sold in 2011. By 2021, this number is expected to be 209 billion.
Spatial Analysis
Spatial Analysis refers to a number of methods used to study entities using geometrical properties. It has particular use with geospatial mapping and geospatial analysis as spatial analysis often look at trends from a geographical sense, such as charting the course or spread of an illness over a geographical location.
Whether it is in location intelligence, geospatial data analysis, or spacial data analysis, the geospatial industry continues to generate billions in revenue for the U.S. economy. As more and more workers move to Big Data and as the number of technology “tagged” objects in the world grows, the geospatial industry will grow, create more jobs, and add more to U.S. society and the world as a whole.
