strength of GIS is making drawings "smart." By that we mean that GIS maps can hold tremendous amounts of behind-the-scenes information. The challenge is asking the right questions and making those questions appropriate to the information.

The strength of GIS is its ability to combine geographic information from widely different sources in order to answer crucial questions that may not have otherwise been apparent. We could, for example, combine land, wildlife and hydrologic information from both private and public sources. If our client company wants to lower its annual rental payments, we could ask questions such as, "Show us all the claims that are expiring in the next six months that lie within the  Snake River drainage basin and within a crucial elk wintering area that also lie within two miles of a wilderness area."  Similarly, we could ask questions such as, "Show us all the monitoring wells with a particular level of contamination that lie within a half mile of some land or property feature."