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The purpose of this paper is to show how Geographical Information Systems can be used to support health planners on a micro-scale. The first part of this paper discusses the issue that affect local health care planning which include monitoring of catchment area and facilities management. The second part defines GIS and its possible uses in the health care field. The relevant GIS functions have also been explained. The third part of this paper discusses the created GIS application, which is made for a local health centre in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia. In this application, three sets of GIS models have been produced. These are catchment area, patient profile and patient distribution and patient flows models. The created GIS models are produced to help local health planners in their health care decision output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to identify the role of geographical information systems (GIS) in supporting retail planners in monitoring and analyzing retail development and growth. At first, a review about retail planning and its relevant issues is made. Second, GIS is defined together with its applications in retail planning. The third part discusses the created GIS application that is designed for two retail centers in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. This application is created to help planners in defining the distribution of retail demand, describing customers profile, analyzing trade areas and modeling retail flows. Two useful models have been produced by this study. One is called market penetration and the other is based on spatial interaction technique. The former is created to examine retail center catchment area, while the latter is used to model the interaction between demand areas and retail centers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]