This article explores the historical and modern intersections of GIS&T and insurance, emphasizing how location intelligence has always been central to risk evaluation. It examines the current applications of GIS&T in insurance, including improved data collection, visualization, real-time risk monitoring, and dynamic pricing models like parametric insurance. Furthermore, it investigates how GIS&T is transforming insurance portfolio management through geographic concentration analysis, market penetration strategies, and network optimization. Looking ahead, the paper discusses the integration of GIS&T with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins to enhance predictive modeling and climate resilience. As the frequency and severity of natural disasters rise, insurers are leveraging GIS&T not only to assess risk but also to proactively mitigate losses and bolster community resilience.
Atmospheric science studies Earth’s atmosphere and its interactions with the land, oceans, and the Sun. It encompasses both weather and climate research—weather being short-term atmospheric conditions and climate representing long-term patterns. Climate change refers to persistent shifts in these patterns over decades, including temperature variations, precipitation changes, and shifts in extreme weather events. Because weather and climate vary across space and time, they are inherently geospatial. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become critical to atmospheric science, offering tools for data collection, analysis, modeling, visualization, and real-time monitoring. GIS enables scientists to understand atmospheric processes by integrating diverse datasets and visualizing complex phenomena in maps and models. Although early GIS applications in atmospheric science were limited by technical barriers, advances in GIScience—particularly in managing big, dynamic, and multidimensional data—have greatly expanded their capabilities. Maps, long used by meteorologists and climatologists, are fundamental to GIS, allowing researchers to visualize atmospheric variability across space. GIS tools also allow for detailed spatial and statistical analysis, helping scientists explore interactions among atmosphere, land, water, ecosystems, and society. These insights support informed decisions about risks from weather hazards and climate change impacts on infrastructure, ecosystems, and resources.