Performance‐improving techniques in web‐based GIS

WebGIS (also known as web‐based GIS and Internet GIS) denotes a type of Geographic Information System (GIS), whose client is implemented in a Web browser. WebGISs have been developed and used extensively in real‐world applications. However, when such a complex web‐based system involves the dissemination of large volumes of data and/or massive user interactions, its performance can become an issue. In this paper, we first identify several major potential performance problems with WebGIS. Then, we discuss several possible techniques to improve the performance. These techniques include the use of pyramids and hash indices on the server side to handle large images. To resolve server‐side conflicts originating from concurrent massive access and user interactions, we suggest clustering and multithreading techniques. Multithreading is also used to break down the long sequential, layer‐based data access to concurrent data access on the client side. Caching is suggested as a means to enhance concurrent data access for the same datasets on both the server and the client sides. The technique of client‐side dynamic data requests is used to improve data transmission. Compressed binary representation is implemented on both sides to reduce transmission volume. We also compare the performance of a prototype WebGIS with and without these techniques.     

GIS‐based route planning in landslide‐prone areas

Many parts of the world with young mountain chains, such as the Himalayas, are highly susceptible to landslides. Due to general ruggedness and steep slopes, roads provide the only way of transportation and connectivity in such terrains. Generally, landslide hazards are overlooked during route planning. In this study, in a test area in the Himalayas, various thematic layers, viz. landslide distribution, landslide hazard zonation, landuse/landcover, drainage order and lithology are generated and integrated using Remote Sensing–GIS techniques. The integrated data layer in raster form has been called a ‘thematic cost map’ and provides an estimate of the cost of route development and maintenance. The relative cost assignment is based on experts' knowledge. Route planning is based on neighbourhood analysis to find various movement possibilities from a pixel to its immediate neighbours. A number of patterns such as those analogous to movements in chess games have been considered. Two new neighbourhood patterns, named here Knight31 and Knight32, have been conceived in addition to commonly used Rook, Bishop and Knight patterns. The neighbourhood movement cost for moving from one pixel to a connected neighbour has been calculated for a 7×7 pixel window considering distance, gradient cost and thematic cost. Dijkstra's algorithm has been applied to compute the least‐cost route between source and destination points. A few examples are presented to show the utility of this approach for a landslide‐safe automatic route planning for a highly rugged hilly terrain.     

Street‐based topological representations and analyses for predicting traffic flow in GIS

It is well received in the space syntax community that traffic flow is significantly correlated to a morphological property of streets, which are represented by axial lines, forming a so called axial map. The correlation co‐efficient (R ²) approaches 0.8 and even a higher value according to the space syntax literature. In this paper, we study the same issue using the Hong Kong street network and the Hong Kong Annual Average Daily Traffic datasets, and find surprisingly that street‐based topological representations (or street–street topologies) tend to be better representations than the axial map. In other words, vehicle flow is correlated to a morphological property of streets better than that of axial lines. Based on the finding, we suggest the street‐based topological representations as an alternative GIS representation, and the topological analyses as a new analytical means for geographic knowledge discovery.     

A GeoAgent‐based framework for knowledge‐oriented representation: Embracing social rules in GIS

While current Geographic Information Systems (GISs) can represent observational spatial data well, they have limited capabilities in representing some non‐observational social elements and goal‐driven behaviours that can be important factors in a wide range of geographic issues. Such social components may include laws, regulations, polices, plans, culture, and customs, as well as their relations and interactions with the geographic environment at different scales. Getting beyond traditional data‐centred approaches, this research presents a knowledge‐oriented strategy in order to address these issues within a GIS context. We incorporate two major conceptual elements. First, extending from conventional agent notions and their geographic applications, geographic agents (GeoAgents) are considered as a basic representation component to specifically address social rules and goal‐driven behaviours that impact the Earth and environmental systems. Second, in order to incorporate GeoAgents with current space–time representation, a new conceptual representation framework, called ‘fields, objects, time, GeoAgents, and relations’ (FOTAR), is introduced to address the cross‐scale processes of both social and natural interactions. A Java‐based prototype, GeoAgent‐based Knowledge System (GeoAgentKS), is described to implement this framework by integrating agent technologies with multiple data and knowledge representation techniques, such as expert systems, concept maps, mathematical models, and geospatial databases. The application of this prototype in a case study is also presented, investigating scale‐dependent human–environment interactions under different emergency situations for community water systems in Central Pennsylvania, USA. In this case study, a systematic set of methodologies of knowledge acquisition, representation, and confirmation for constructing GeoAgents' knowledge bases by using expert systems were explored to formalize high‐level knowledge and social behaviours in the FOTAR‐based representations. The results show that the proposed conceptual representation framework is achievable at both implementation and application levels, and the prototype tool is demonstrated to be valuable in facilitating knowledge sharing, policymaking, municipal management, and decision‐making, especially for real‐world emergency management.     

XML Web Service‐based development model for Internet GIS applications

Most of the current Internet Geographic Information System (GIS) applications cannot be shared and are not interoperable because of their heterogeneous environments. With the growth of Internet GIS, many difficulties have occurred in integrating GIS components because of their diversity. The main objective of this study is to suggest a new development model for dynamic and interoperable Internet GIS applications. The model is based mainly on the dynamic integration of Internet GIS components by applying Extensible Markup Language (XML), XML Web Service, Geography Markup Language (GML), and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), etc. The relevant technologies of Internet GIS were reviewed thoroughly, and then a new model was designed. During the design of the new model, typical examples of GIS Web Service components were suggested, together with practical structures for applications using these components. Six examples of components and four types of applications were suggested, and they were experimentally implemented for model validation and improvement. The suggested model and components will enable easier and more rapid development of Internet GIS applications through the dynamic integration of distributed GIS components. Users will be able to avoid redundancy and consequently reduce both cost and time during each GIS project.     

GIS‐based multicriteria spatial modeling generic framework

Multicriteria analysis is a set of mathematical tools and methods allowing the comparison of different alternatives according to many criteria, often conflicting, to guide the decision maker towards a judicious choice. Multicriteria methods are used in spatial context to evaluate and compare spatial decision alternatives, often modeled through constraint‐based suitability analysis and represented by point, line, and polygon features or their combination, and evaluated on several space‐related criteria, to select a restricted subset for implementation. Outranking methods, a family of multicriteria methods, may be useful in spatial decision problems, especially when ordinal evaluation criteria are implied. However, it is recognized that these methods, except those devoted to multicriteria classification problems, are subject to computational limitations with respect to the number of alternatives. This paper proposes a framework to facilitate the incorporation and use of outranking methods in geographical information systems (GIS). The framework is composed of two phases. The first phase allows producing a planar subdivision of the study area obtained by combining a set of criteria maps; each represents a particular vision of the decision problem. The result is a set of non‐overlapping spatial units. The second phase allows constructing decision alternatives by combining the spatial units. Point, line and polygon feature‐based decision alternatives are then constructed as an individual, a grouping of linearly adjacent or a grouping of contiguous spatial units. This permits us to reduce considerably the number of alternatives, enabling the use of outranking methods. The framework is illustrated through the development of a prototype and through a step‐by‐step application to a corridor identification problem. This paper includes also a discussion of some conceptual and technical issues related to the framework.     

A chironomid‐based model for inferring late‐summer hypolimnetic oxygen in southeastern Ontario lakes

Hypolimnetic oxygen depletion has been accelerated in many lakes due to cultural eutrophication. However, the extent and magnitude of environmental change is difficult to ascertain due to the lack of historical records. Larval Chironomidae (Diptera) are useful proxy indicators of oxygen, as they show a wide range of tolerances to oxygen conditions and their chitinous head capsules preserve well in lake sediments. Using paleolimnological techniques, chironomid assemblages from the surface sediments of 42 southeastern Ontario lakes were related to environmental conditions. Hypolimnetic oxygen conditions, measured as the average endofsummer hypolimnetic dissolved oxygen (AvgDO_(Summ)), explained the most variation in the chironomid assemblages, whereas dissolved inorganic carbon, the Anoxic Factor, max. depth and total phosphorus concentrations were also correlated with assemblage composition. Based on the relative abundances of 45 chironomid taxa, a robust, partial least squares (PLS) regression transfer function for AvgDO_(Summ) was constructed (r² = 0.74, r² _(jack) = 0.58, n = 40). This new transfer function should allow paleolimnologists to directly track past trends in hypolimnetic oxygen levels.     

OpenCIS—Open Source GIS‐based web community information system

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has many applications and plays a vital role in the majority of the daily operations by government and public administration. However, due to its technical complexity and cost, communities lacking the expertise and resources cannot benefit from this technology. The OpenCIS project, a user‐friendly free Open Source GIS‐based Web Community Information System, seeks to address this issue by bridging the gap between a simple map viewer and full GIS, representing one of the first steps towards the goal of grassroots empowerment through GIS technology.     

GIS‐based multicriteria decision analysis: a survey of the literature

The integration of GIS and multicriteria decision analysis has attracted significant interest over the last 15 years or so. This paper surveys the GIS‐based multicriteria decision analysis (GIS‐MCDA) approaches using a literature review and classification of articles from 1990 to 2004. An electronic search indicated that over 300 articles appeared in refereed journals. The paper provides taxonomy of those articles and identifies trends and developments in GIS‐MCDA.     

Mapping transit‐based access: integrating GIS,routes and schedules

Seabed sediment textural parameters such as mud, sand and gravel content can be useful surrogates for predicting patterns of benthic biodiversity. Multibeam sonar mapping can provide near-complete spatial coverage of high-resolution bathymetry and backscatter data that are useful in predicting sediment parameters. Multibeam acoustic data collected across a ～1000 km² area of the Carnarvon Shelf, Western Australia, were used in a predictive modelling approach to map eight seabed sediment parameters. Four machine learning models were used for the predictive modelling: boosted decision tree, random forest decision tree, support vector machine and generalised regression neural network. The results indicate overall satisfactory statistical performance, especially for %Mud, %Sand, Sorting, Skewness and Mean Grain Size. The study also demonstrates that predictive modelling using the combination of machine learning models has provided the ability to generate prediction uncertainty maps. However, the single models were shown to have overall better prediction performance than the combined models. Another important finding was that choosing an appropriate set of explanatory variables, through a manual feature selection process, was a critical step for optimising model performance. In addition, machine learning models were able to identify important explanatory variables, which are useful in identifying underlying environmental processes and checking predictions against the existing knowledge of the study area. The sediment prediction maps obtained in this study provide reliable coverage of key physical variables that will be incorporated into the analysis of covariance of physical and biological data for this area.     

Semantic Web Services‐based process planning for earth science applications

In a Web service‐based distributed environment, individual services must be chained together dynamically to solve a complex real world problem. The Semantic Web Service has shown promise for automatic chaining of Web services. This paper addresses semi‐automatic geospatial service chaining through Semantic Web Services‐based process planning. Process planning includes three phases: process modeling, process model instantiation and workflow execution. Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning methods are employed in process planning to help a user dynamically create an executable workflow for earth science applications. In particular, the approach was implemented in a common data and service environment enabled by interoperable standards from OGC and W3C. A case study of the chaining process for wildfire prediction illustrates the applicability of this approach.     

GIS‐based modeling of glacial hazards and their interactions using Landsat‐TM and IKONOS imagery

Hazard interactions in glacial and periglacial environments are of crucial importance due to their potential for causing major catastrophes. Nevertheless, glacial and periglacial hazards have usually been modeled separately to date. In this study, we therefore propose a methodological strategy for modeling and assessing glacial and periglacial hazard interactions on a regional scale, including ice avalanches, lake outbursts and periglacial debris flows. Due to climate‐related rapid changes in glacial and periglacial areas, methods which incorporate monitoring capacities are needed. Hence, the methods presented here are based on remote sensing data, which are particularly powerful for monitoring tasks, and GIS modeling. For ice avalanche and lake‐outburst hazard detection and modeling, we applied recently published methods based on Landsat‐TM imagery, terrain modeling and flow routing. For detection of potential debris‐flow initiation zones in steep debris reservoirs, we present a novel method based on image processing of IKONOS data and terrain modeling, followed by flow modeling. Using this method, we achieve the synthesis of the individual process modeling in order to assess the potential interactions. The modeling is applied to a study region in the central Swiss Alps. The results show that systematic modeling based on remote sensing and GIS is suitable for first‐order assessment of glacial and periglacial hazard interactions as well as assessments of possible consequences, including impacts on traffic routes and other infrastructure. Based on this, critical cases can be detected and analyzed by subsequent detailed studies.     

Polygon‐based texture mapping for cyber city 3D building models

The three‐dimensional building model is one of the most important components in a cyber city implementation. Currently, however, most building models do not have sufficient and accurate texture information. The lack of texture not only makes 3D building models less realistic in visualization, it may also fail to provide needed information in intricate applications. This study developed a polygon‐based texture mapping system to produce near photo‐realistic texture mappings for 3D building models. Textures of building exteriors were generated from mosaics of close‐range photographs acquired with commodity digital cameras. The developed system integrated multiple digital photographs to create texture mosaics that were continuous in geometric outlines and smooth in colour shadings, and correctly mapped them onto corresponding building model façades. A test example demonstrated that the resultant building model had more complete and accurate texture features as well as a near‐photo‐realistic appearance.     

A partition‐based serial algorithm for generating viewshed on massive DEMs

As increasingly large‐scale and higher‐resolution terrain data have become available, for example air‐form and space‐borne sensors, the volume of these datasets reveals scalability problems with existing GIS algorithms. To address this problem, a kind of serial algorithm was developed to generate viewshed on large grid‐based digital elevation models (DEMs). We first divided the whole DEM into rectangular blocks in row and column directions (called block partitioning), then processed these blocks with four axes followed by four sectors sequentially. When processing the particular block, we adopted the ‘reference plane’ algorithm to calculate the visibility of the target point on the block, and adjusted the calculation sequence according to the different spatial relationships between the block and the viewpoint since the viewpoint is not always inside the DEM. By adopting the ‘Reference Plane’ algorithm and using a block partitioning method to segment and load the DEM dynamically, it is possible to generate viewshed efficiently in PC‐based environments. Experiments showed that the divided block should be dynamically loaded whole into computer main memory when partitioning, and the suggested approach retains the accuracy of the reference plane algorithm and has near linear compute complexity.     

Terrain complexity and uncertainties in grid‐based digital terrain analysis

The objective of this research is to study the relationship between terrain complexity and terrain analysis results from grid‐based digital elevation models (DEMs). The impact of terrain complexity represented by terrain steepness and orientation on derived parameters such as slope and aspect has been analysed. Experiments have been conducted to quantify the uncertainties created by digital terrain analysis algorithms. The test results show that (a) the RMSE of derived slope and aspect is negatively correlated with slope steepness; (b) the RMSE of derived aspect is more sensitive to terrain complexity than that of derived slope; and (c) the uncertainties in derived slope and aspect tend to be found in flatter areas, and decrease with increasing terrain complexity. The study shows that although primary surface parameters can be well defined mathematically, the implementation of those mathematical models in a GIS environment may generate considerable uncertainties related to terrain complexity. In general, when terrain is rugged with steep slopes, the uncertainty of derived parameters is quite minimal. While in flatter areas, the DEM‐based derivatives, particularly the aspect, may contain a great amount of uncertainty, causing significant limitation in applying the analytical results.     

An extended cellular automaton using case‐based reasoning for simulating urban development in a large complex region

Rule‐based cellular automata (CA) have been increasingly applied to the simulation of geographical phenomena, such as urban evolution and land‐use changes. However, these models have difficulties and uncertainties in soliciting transition rules for a large complex region. This paper presents an extended cellular automaton in which transition rules are represented by using case‐based reasoning (CBR) techniques. The common k‐NN algorithm of CBR has been modified to incorporate the location factor to reflect the spatial variation of transition rules. Multi‐temporal remote‐sensing images are used to obtain the adaptation knowledge in the temporal dimension. This model has been applied to the simulation of urban development in the Pearl River Delta which has a hierarchy of cities. Comparison indicates that this model can produce more plausible results than rule‐based CA in simulating this large complex region in 1988–2002.     

Evaluating the effects of land‐use development policies on ex‐urban forest cover: An integrated agent‐based GIS approach

We use a GIS‐based agent‐based model (ABM), named dynamic ecological exurban development (DEED), with spatial data in hypothetical scenarios to evaluate the individual and interacting effects of lot‐size zoning and municipal land‐acquisition strategies on possible forest‐cover outcomes in Scio Township, a municipality in Southeastern Michigan. Agent types, characteristics, behavioural methods, and landscape perceptions (i.e. landscape aesthetics) are empirically informed using survey data, spatial analyses, and a USDA methodology for mapping landscape aesthetic quality. Results from our scenario experiments computationally verified literature that show large lot‐size zoning policies lead to greater sprawl, and large lot‐size zoning policies can lead to increased forest cover, although we found this effect to be small relative to municipal land acquisition. The return on land acquisition for forest conservation was strongly affected by the location strategy used to select parcels for conservation. Furthermore, the location strategy for forest conservation land acquisition was more effective at increasing aggregate forest levels than the independent zoning policies, the quantity of area acquired for forest conservation, and any combination of the two. The results using an integrated GIS and ABM framework for evaluating land‐use development policies on forest cover provide additional insight into how these types of policies may act out over time and what aspects of the policies were more influential towards the goal of maximising forest cover.     

Space–time opportunities for multiple agents: a constraint‐based approach

Constraint‐based models and models constructing accessibility measures mainly focus on single agents having only one available transport mode. However, numerous cases exist where multiple agents or groups of individuals with different available transport modes want to participate in a joint activity at a certain location. The aim of this paper is to provide new insights into representing and reasoning about feasible space–time opportunities for multiple agents. Relying on concepts of time geography, we propose a conceptual framework in order to determine interaction spaces for groups of individuals. Besides availability of means of transport and the locations of each individual, minimum activity duration and opening hours of opportunities are taken into account. The reasoning about space and time is visualized in three dimensions using a hybrid (CAD/GIS) system.     

The potential for the use of Open Source Software and Open Specifications in creating Web‐based cross‐border health spatial information systems

Globalization is contributing to the blurring of borders making irrelevant the distinctions between domestic and international health problems. Cross‐border and global health spatial information systems (CBHSIS) are required to address the new global health challenges. There is a need to build and document alternatives for addressing the technological, economic, and sociocultural–political challenges encountered in the creation and deployment of these systems. This paper documents the building of a prototype Web‐based multimedia GIS system for use in a public health context using Open Source Software and Open Specifications and its deployment across the US–Mexico border. These technologies offer advantages in addressing several of the challenges previously mentioned. We highlight the technological and sociocultural–political issues important in successful collaboration across borders and cultures and in the creation of interoperable CBHSIS.