4.8 Conclusions: information from spatially detailed, integrated databases GIS software provides extensive functionality that allows a user to approach his or her dataset in a way that combines the spatial and attribute components of their data. This functionality leads to added value being extracted from an existing dataset. All datasets have limitations, and the extra functionality provided by GIS software allows us to use the data in ways that their creator would never have envisaged. As a result, it is important to consider the limitations of all layers when manipulating them with the GIS. It is also important to consider the limitations of the techniques used on the data, particularly those that integrate data together. As long as the results of spatial operations are understood within these limitations, GIS software provides new functionality that should allow new understanding to be derived from spatially referenced data. In this chapter we have started to see the usefulness of the combined spatial and attribute data model used by GIS. This allows data to be queried and integrated in ways that no other approach can manage. The key advantage of this is that it allows the complexity of the data to be handled without undesirable simplification of the data. | 
