whilst i am giving my wrists a break from playing at samurai on the wii (and whilst we refuel with pepsi), i'll give you a quick low down. GIS or Geographical Information Systems to those of who want to sound posh, are fantastic little programs that use OS digital maps as a base for all kinds of useful applications, as thunder said. the basics are that each system has a series of layers which are overlayed to create a complete picture. you can use GIS to map individual records, outline areas of importance, show flooding (as already mentioned) etc. in some of the more complicated ones you can upload layers which show aerial photo's, sssi's, locally designated sites, limestone paving orders, sac's, spa's, bap habitats, bap species records etc. you can also get LIDAR data from EA to upload. but thats all beside the point. basic layers are a coastal outline, the maptiles (each OS map has a unique code,eg sd44), a 10km grid and a cosmetic layer. the one i use most regularly is called mapinfo and it is super user friendly does lots of stuff and is really easy to get the hang off (i managed it, and i'm not the brightest spark out there
). best way to get some experience is to find a conservation organisation that needs a GIS volunteer, and believe me there will be lots of those, because its generally disliked quite a lot, as one of those tedious little things that has to be done. i on the other hand am an oddball and find the whole mapping process quite cathartic. but don't panic, i promise its not nearly as complex as it sounds! any hoo, my apologies about the rambling, hope this helps, sarah.