Opportunities and Impediments for Open GIS

The UN Open GIS Initiative is to identify and develop, under UN guidance, an Open Source GIS bundle that meets the requirements of UN operations, taking full advantage of the expertise of mission partners (partner nations, technology contributing countries, international organizations, academia, NGO’s, private sector). The project, started in 2016, is composed by 4 working groups. <br><br> One of the working group is specifically related to Capacity Building, given its importance for the success of the project. <br><br> UN Open GIS will be based on some existing open source geospatial software (packages and libraries) with many extensions specifically developed. The users of the platform will be the UN staff supporting with mapping and GIS the peacekeeping missions. Therefore, they are generally expert of this specific domain, even if they are currently using proprietary software. UN Open GIS Capacity Building is specifically thought for covering this gap, providing them the suitable background about open source geospatial software in general and the education tailored to the solution that has been being developed within the project itself.

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A Real-Time and Open Geographic Information System and Its Application for Smart Rivers: A Case Study of the Yangtze River

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi8030114 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 114 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zeqiang Chen ◽

Nengcheng Chen

Keyword(s):

Information System ◽

Real Time ◽

Yangtze River ◽

The Yangtze River ◽

The Real ◽

Gis Model ◽

Application Systems ◽

Sensor Web ◽

Open Gis

The timely sharing and interoperation of multi-source cross-sectoral information is an important issue for a Geographic Information System (GIS). To study this issue, a real-time and open GIS model called GeoSensor is proposed in this work. GeoSensor integrates the real-time GIS model, real-time computation framework, and Open Geospatial Consortium services. This paper illustrates the system architecture and the implementation methods of the GeoSensor. One of the methods developed is the conceptual mapping of a real-time GIS data model to open GIS models and services and a real-time computation framework. The other method developed is the integration of open GIS services, a real-time computation framework, and hybrid databases. The GeoSensor was tested in a case study of building a smart river. In the case study, a comprehensive sensor web was constructed and integrated with the real-time information on rainfall, beacon, channel, sediment, and water levels derived from space-based sensors, air-borne sensors, and underground sensors from multiple sectors in the Yangtze River basin. The GeoSensor manages the comprehensive sensor web with 32 types of sensors and more than 10 billion observation records. Three application systems were developed based on the GeoSensor to manage flood control, hydropower production, and navigation of the Yangtze River. The results of the three application systems show that the real-time and open system improves the management efficiency of the Yangtze River. This system is promising for managing smart rivers.

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