Content area
Software design and development of web-based geographic information systems and cartographic services for environmental monitoring problems are discussed. List of requirements for appropriate information & communication infrastructure has been formulated. It includes a number of items, such as organization of the technological environment for the integration of generated information resources, design and implementation of environmental monitoring facilities databases, development of new computational and mathematical models and methods for environmental monitoring data interpretation, etc. Integrated web based geographic information system for environmental monitoring in the area of oil and gas industry in Krasnoyarsk region territory is presented. The developed software is based on the leading GIS and web mapping technologies, frameworks and toolboxes, free and open source software libraries. In particular, we discuss developed software components, such as web interface for spatial metadata catalog, web mapping interactive tools, map data direct access by OGC protocols, specific services for ecological web applications, geoportal programming interfaces.
ABSTRACT
Software design and development of web-based geographic information systems and cartographic services for environmental monitoring problems are discussed. List of requirements for appropriate information & communication infrastructure has been formulated. It includes a number of items, such as organization of the technological environment for the integration of generated information resources, design and implementation of environmental monitoring facilities databases, development of new computational and mathematical models and methods for environmental monitoring data interpretation, etc. Integrated web based geographic information system for environmental monitoring in the area of oil and gas industry in Krasnoyarsk region territory is presented. The developed software is based on the leading GIS and web mapping technologies, frameworks and toolboxes, free and open source software libraries. In particular, we discuss developed software components, such as web interface for spatial metadata catalog, web mapping interactive tools, map data direct access by OGC protocols, specific services for ecological web applications, geoportal programming interfaces.
Keywords: environmental monitoring, web mapping, spatial data, geoportal, web-gis
INTRODUCTION
Effectiveness of monitoring the state of the environment is largely determined by its information and analytical software. To manage successfully the territory and to manage efficiently its resources, you need a good understanding of the generalized characteristics of its condition and to be able to as soon as possible to receive the necessary decision-making detailed information about management facilities in visual form.
These requirements can be achieved through the establishment of modern information and communication infrastructure, environmental monitoring, which allows you to assess objectively the situation in the operational mode, and generate options for management decisions.
Environmental spatial data is digital data concerning spatial objects, including information on their location and features, on their spatial and non-spatial attributes. Spatial data is data on geographical objects, which represents the formalized digital models of material or abstract objects in the real or virtual world [1, 2].
The full description of environmental spatial data consists of two interrelated parts: these are positional data and non-positional data, i.e. descriptions of spatial location and thematic content of the data, of topological and geometric, as well as attributive data (geometry and semantics). Spatial and temporal data is used for consideration of temporal aspects. A representation of spatial data, or a model of spatial data is a way of a digital representation of spatial objects, or a type of a structure of spatial data. Spatial data can be represented as regular network, as well as vector and attributive models. Within a regular network model the whole territory that is being explored is divided into the elements of a regular network, or cells, and is subdivided into raster models and GRID-models by value type. A vector model represents spatial data basing on vectors. Graphic primitive, i.e. the point, linear and polygonal ones, are the major ones among them [3, 4].
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Generalizing the accumulated experience of development and implementation of environmental monitoring information-analytical systems, a list of requirements for the information & communication infrastructure has been formulated. It includes a number of following items.
* Organization of the technological environment for the integration of information resources generated by the present problem of environmental monitoring; creation of a data warehouse (digital terrain models, digital maps of natural regions and objects to be monitored, landscape maps, anthropogenic transformation of the landscape, and others.). Data storage can be centralized or distributed depending on the specifics of the problem.
* Creation of tools for information exchange between users; user authentication and access management; software for support of information resources metadata along data authorized access; services for thematic web services and applications creation (geoportal, web services, remote data access, etc.).
* Design and development of database specifications for environmental monitoring of natural and anthropogenic objects, including the dynamics of their changes, as well as spatial and tabular data navigation and search tools.
* Creation and maintenance of databases containing information to assess the state of the territory, its different spatial characteristics based on statistical and research data generated by a variety of information and mathematical models.
* Development of new information and mathematical models and methods for the interpretation of environmental monitoring data, including processing methods, online interpretation and classification of satellite images.
* Creating a system of access to the tools of interpretation and analysis of data processing based on the specific web services based applications. These services and applications should form the basis of the distributed GIS and environmental monitoring of the basis of the information infrastructure, provide an opportunity to effectively meet the new challenges in the area under consideration, on the state assessment of environment and spatial modeling to promptly inform authorized users of onset emergencies.
This list of tasks does not claim to uniqueness, and probably can be extended, but it's enough for a considerable list of requirements that can be presented to the environmental monitoring software system. First of all, it should be viewed as a distributed information-analytical system based on hybrid technology - client-server and multitier internal system architecture, distributed storage and processing of data, GIS and web technologies, applications and web services standards for information exchange. The elements of considered system can and should be resource-intensive application subsystems that perform a significant amount of computation, including supercomputer simulations software along with lite mobile applications for simple data visualization [5].
The author has been directly involved in the development and implementation of projects of ecological orientation. Different software libraries and components for data manipulation and analysis, web mapping and user interface design has been used in software development. The software used is mostly free and open source. To create server-side web applications a number of GIS platforms has been used, such as MapGuide Open Source, UMN Mapserver and Geoserver. GeoWebCache was another essential component of distributed web mapping applications for environmental monitoring. Original software tools has been implemented for task-specific geospatial web services.
SOFTWARE AND TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS
Research and development in the field of the environmental monitoring software systems and spatial data infrastructure on the regional level have been carried out at Institute of Computational Modeling of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences (ICM SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk) for somewhere 10 years now. This work resulted in the creation of software and technological tools for applied geoinformational websystems and geoportals, mainly connected with environmental monitoring. The procedure of quick implementation of applied geoinformational web-systems has been developed, and the appropriate program and technological, informational and computational software, such as storage, processing and spatial data analyzing (including satellite images) services and media, along with applied program and user interface repositories, access authorization media within the structure of the geoportal and spatial data catalogue, cartographic web-visualization system, auxiliary and applied web-services have been created. Many developers use a similar approach to the creation of such systems [6-10].
Software and technological tools that are being developed represent high-level repositories of functions and classes, application templates directed at the end user. These provide an operational solution of the following tasks:
* Maintenance and storage of digital cartographic materials, raster images of the location enabling the univocal addressing and positioning of objects in the regional (municipal) infrastructure;
* Navigation through informational cartographic resources, visualization and analysis of spatially oriented data on unified digital maps;
* Interaction with cartographic and attributive resources (databases) of third party applied information systems;
* Solution to various spatial tasks using resources of the spatial data storage (spatial search, object creation etc.);
* Provision of access to the system using modern geoinformational system technologies and interfaces.
As of today, developed environmental monitoring software represents a set of software and technological tools consisting of the following elements:
* Data storage subsystem within which the support of all the formats of popular geoinformational systems (ArcGIS SHP, MapInfo TAB, etc.) and spatial databases, such as PostgreSQL/PostGIS and others is provided.
* Environmental data resources catalogue, which is a metadata management subsystem, a database and a program repository set (API) for various operations with resources on the base of web-services on SOAP protocol.
* Administration subsystem of environmental data. The main task of this is the registration of informational resources in the catalogue, entering and editing of metadata. Further functions relate to the distinctions of access rights, metadata import from third party WMS-resources and its applicable registration in the catalogue and others.
* Style layer and map designing editor. This is a Windows-based program designed for creating and editing of a style map design. This program forms a XML-description of the geoportal style layer and map design and saves it in the resource catalogue database;
* Web-interface of metadata resources catalogue that is a web-application designed for navigation through the resources registered in the system, and search among these resources. It provides navigation though the resource catalogue with regard to the multiple resource classification and filtration on different criteria, as well as creation of user data sets ("Shopping Cart") and others;
* Cartographic web-visualization user web-interface (subsystem), which is a webapplication for representation of maps and particular geodata layers of the geoportal though the web-interface. A capability to mark various background cartographic substrates such as Google, Bing, ArcGIS, OSM and others (more than 40 items) should be specially noted;
* Web-publication subsystem. While in the first version of the geoportal this subsystem was a series of services based on 1C-Bitrix CMS software, now it is a complex of media for the formation of geoportal thematic sections on the base of Drupal web content management system;
* Cartographic web-services, which include address search, geocoding, routing, watercourse constructing and others. These services are designed for work carried out as a part of third party applied geoinformational systems.
Developed software and technological tools has successfully proved itself as a program and technological base for resource-intensive informational, analytic systems on the regional level for tasks on different subjects, such as presented here ecological monitoring, and estimation of the environment conditions [11].
WEB-GIS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING IN THE AREA OF OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY IN KRASNOYARSK REGION
Intensive research in the field of ecological monitoring of the environment in the zone of oil and gas enterprises (OGE) of Krasnoyarsk region began in 2008, with the support of regional authorities, the Ministry of natural resources and the forest industry of the Krasnoyarsk region.
The focus is initially given to the characterization and assessment of the current state of environment components in the areas of accommodation of OGE facilities of Krasnoyarsk territory, the technical characteristics of objects related to the prospecting, exploration and production of hydrocarbons, as well as objects of its transportation, processing, storage and marketing. From the very beginning of work, considerable attention was paid to assessing the effectiveness of existing systems of industrial environmental monitoring at the OGE facilities, the level of facilities readiness for the prevention of emergency situations and liquidation of their consequences. We consider the problem of assessing potential environmental risks, and forecast environmental changes in the areas of activity of OGE projects; a comprehensive assessment of the overall impact of the OGE sites on the environmental components; form of digital maps of natural regions and objects, digital terrain models of different scales, information databases.
One important area of research in this context was the task of designing and developing an integrated geographic information system, which should be a central repository for geospatial data, to provide software and technology foundation for a variety of analytical thematic applications and services, information exchange environment for professionals.
Designed system can be characterized as an information-analytical system based on Internet and GIS technologies, which assumes processing of large volumes of cartographic information for OGE territory, the use of effective methods of data analysis, visualization of statistical and analytical data, highly variable in space and time, with the help of maps and combinations thereof, with advanced tools of data access. This system presents several types of public (user and program) interfaces: user web interface for a standard web browser, cartographic web services based on the OGC international standards, application program interfaces (API) for geoportal cartographic data visualization, informational services for third party applied systems [12].
For the direct access to spatial data the protocols Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), such as Web Map Service (WMS), Web Map Tiling Service (WMTS) and others are used. These protocols allow access to the geoportal resources from applied user programs directly such as ArcGIS, MapInfo, QGIS etc., as the support of these protocols is integrated into most of the modern geoinformational systems. Thus, at first the users can become acquainted with thematic maps via the web interface, and then link them by a web-service to their geoinformational system project for data analyzing.
Specially developed GeoExpress maps editing software perform fine adjustment of parameters of map and particular layers representation via a web-interface and webservices. Using it, a registered user can form personal spatial data sets, save them in the virtual "My Documents" folder and further represent the data in external applications by through of OGC protocols.
The client web interface and server mapping application components have created using free and open source geospatial software, including OpenLayers, UMN MapServer, GeoWebCache, Mapguide Open Source, Sencha Ext JS, a number of another OSGeo community projects, geospatial libraries. There have been developed various options for the business logic of web mapping applications. Using a raster or vector format spatial data according to different application features and spatial data. The data rasterization into tiles can be performed automatically. There is an opportunity to use base map background when display geoportal spatial data, including maps or satellite images from Google, Bing Maps, Yandex, OpenStreetMap, ArcGIS, and others. Developed software provides support for nonstandard cartographic projections adopted in Russia and preferred for Krasnoyarsk region territory.
Completed implementation of the system has two basic user interface components - module for administration and end-user software. The information is organized in the form of a thematic resource directory tree. Sections of this directory are system documents, among them - the hypertext pages, tabular data sheets, interactive maps, subject heading, and so on (Fig. 1).
In particular, the directory elements may be documents in a pdf-format. System Documents are closely interrelated cross hyperlinks, similar to traditional web pages. If the key contains subkeys, then the list of subsections (a tree in the left part of the screen). For cartographic maps directory listing appears when you select the desired section. When you select the desired map view is displayed interface card that contains a toolbar, the legend and the map itself.
The developed system has been successfully used for several years by regional authorities. Ecological data collection and monitoring using the considered system started a year before the start of oil production in the Krasnoyarsk region on an industrial scale (at Vankor field, Eastern Siberia), which started in 2009.
CONCLUSION
The author has been directly involved in a number of projects connected with the development and implementation of environmental monitoring software. By analyzing and summarizing the experience gained creating information systems for environmental monitoring support, it should be noted that the use of web-based solutions can dramatically improve the efficiency of solving the environmental problems. To support environmental problems decisions a number of open geospatial technologies has been involved; the software used is mostly free and open source.
Analyzing the current state of environmental monitoring problems, you should pay attention to the following. On the one hand, addressing issues of environmental monitoring, we are talking about increasing the role of the community in its implementation. It is also a growing need for quick and easy access to the raw data observations of the state of the environment and the results of their processing; it is connected with the socio-political trends in society. On the other hand, we are witnessing the rapid growth of technology and Internet capabilities, thanks to which in recent years, and have become very popular social networks and cloud services, publicly available high-resolution satellite imagery, operational reports about weather and natural phenomena. Also, there was a lot of information resources cooperatively created and continuously updated by the user community (crowdsource), including the cartographic content, which is consistent with the objectives of environmental monitoring. Combining these two aspects will bring environmental monitoring information support to a new qualitative level.
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