Big Data is characterized by the three V's: Volume (it's BIG), Velocity (it's being produced fast), and Variety (it comes in many forms such as text, images, video, spreadsheets, large data formats such as NetCDF, etc. and from many sources such as automated sensor streams, mobile devices, online, etc.). It has been estimated that 80% of all new data is location-based, that is, there is some sort of location information that may be associated with the data. Fortunately GIS (Geographic Information Systems) provides a way of fusing, analyzing, and visualizing these disparate types of information

GIS is more than a pretty map - it's a powerful tool that can be applied to the analysis of many types of problems and help in making better informed decisions. Some examples:

• Data Exploration - a quick look at what's where to suggest hypotheses or further statistical analyses that should be performed. Explore the data in relation to other relevant datasets to look for patterns and possible relationships.
• Cluster Analysis - find hot spots, for example in crime data. Determine if a pattern is randomly distributed, dispersed, or clustered.
• Suitability Analysis - for example, find the best location to locate xyz (e.g. facility, temporary emergency services, etc) based on criteria such as slope, proximity to a highway, census data, etc). For example, in one study1, we developed a process for finding an area for ASW (anti-submarine warfare) training that has similar characteristics as a denied location, including similar acoustic propagation properties, depth, bottom sediments and within a certain distance of the U.S.
• Extract information from overlaying or fusing multiple datasets: Ask location-based questions of the data such as find all occurrences of texts sent within a one-mile radius of an explosion that have the word "bomb" in them. Identify neighborhoods in a city that have elderly or poor populations that are in the 100-year floodplain (decision-makers may need to allocate extra resources for evacuations).

1D. B. Reeder, C.L. Bryan, K.R. Everett, M.L. Batteen, and A. A. Guest, 2011. Quantitative ocean characterization: Acoustically analogous environments. J. Operational Oceanography, Vol. 4, No. 1