Security First

With the world facing immense challenges, how do we create a safer and more equitable world? 

Geospatial intelligence offers valuable insights to help organizations and governments protect communities. By using technology to obtain location-based data, these groups can make spatially informed decisions about how best to help people who are most at risk. Learning the technical skills needed to use GIS (geographic information system) to visualize and interpret this data has never been more essential for working to find resolutions for the numerous challenges humanity faces today.  

Security First: Geospatial Workflows for a Safe and Equitable World guides readers through 20 specific geospatial workflows and examples to show how GIS can be used to address significant world issues. Whether using spatial data to address food security, human rights violations, environmental justice, or other challenges, Security First is the book you need to work in the human security and geospatial intelligence field. Readers with no prior GIS experience or with an intermediate technical understanding can gain the required technical skills to work in this field through detailed exercises using ArcGIS software and downloadable data.

This is the first crowdsourced workbook in the growing field of human security and geospatial intelligence. Contributors and editors include human security and geospatial intelligence professors, students, and professionals.

Written for practitioners working in geospatial intelligence and for students and teachers in geospatial intelligence academic programs, Security First helps guide strategic decision-making and get readers on their way incorporating GIS into their work for improved analysis and results. 

Get the technical and critical-thinking skills you need to work in the growing field of human security and geospatial intelligence. 

Darren Ruddell is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Southern California’s Spatial Sciences Institute in Los Angeles, California. His teaching and research efforts use geospatial technologies to investigate and advance issues of human security and geospatial intelligence. 

Diana Ter-Ghazaryan is an Associate Professor of Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California’s Spatial Sciences Institute in Los Angeles, California. In her research and teaching experience, she has applied geospatial analysis to diverse pursuits, including international relations and human security.