Geospatial intelligence

GEOINT describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.

There is an emerging recognition that "this legal definition paints with a broad brushstroke an idea of the width and depth of GEOINT"[7] and "GEOINT must evolve even further to integrate forms of intelligence and information beyond the traditional sources of geospatial information and imagery, and must move from an emphasis on data and analysis to an emphasis on knowledge.

This resulted in the integration of multiple sources of information, intelligence and trade crafts into NIMA, which subsequently became NGA.

Generally, geospatial intelligence can be more readily defined as, data, information, and knowledge gathered about entities that can be referenced to a particular location on, above, or below the Earth's surface.

Thus, rather than being a peer to the other "INT", geospatial intelligence might better be viewed as the unifying structure of the Earth's natural and constructed features (including elevations and depths)—whether as individual layers in a GIS or as composited into a map or chart, imagery representations of the Earth, AND, the presentation of the existence of data, information, and knowledge derived from analysis of IMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, HUMINT, and other intelligence sources and disciplines.

In this form it is considered to be generally used by agencies requiring definitions of their outputs for descriptive and capability development purposes (or, more cynically, as a marketing strategy).

Geospatial intelligence analysis has been light-heartedly defined as "seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought" or as "anticipating a target's mental map.

"[11] However, these perspectives affirm that creating geospatial knowledge is an effortful cognitive process the analyst undertakes; it is an intellectual endeavor that arrives at a conclusion through reasoning.