Environmental Sustainability: The Role of Geographic Information Science and Spatial Data Infrastructures in the Integration of People and Nature

2012 ◽  
pp. 123-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clodoveu A. Davis ◽  
Frederico T. Fonseca ◽  
Gilberto Camara
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Willington Siabato ◽  
Javier Moya-Honduvilla ◽  
Miguel Ángel Bernabé-Poveda

The way aeronautical information is managed and disseminated must be modernized. Current aeronautical information services (AIS) methods for storing, publishing, disseminating, querying, and updating the volume of data required for the effective management of air traffic control have become obsolete. This does not contribute to preventing airspace congestion, which turns into a limiting factor for economic growth and generates negative effects on the environment. Owing to this, some work plans for improving AIS and air traffic flow focus on data and services interoperability to allow an efficient and coordinated use and exchange of aeronautical information. Geographic information technologies (GIT) and spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are comprehensive technologies upon which any service that integrates geospatial information can rely. The authors are working on the assumption that the foundations and underlying technologies of GIT and SDI can be applied to support aeronautical data and services, considering that aeronautical information contains a large number of geospatial components. This article presents the design, development, and implementation of a Web-based system architecture to evolve and enhance the use and management of aeronautical information in any context, e.g., in aeronautical charts on board, in control towers, and in aeronautical information services. After conducting a study into the use of aeronautical information, it was found that users demand specific requirements regarding reliability, flexibility, customization, integration, standardization, and cost reduction. These issues are not being addressed with existing systems and methods. A system compliant with geographic standards (OGC, ISO) and aeronautical regulations (ICAO, EUROCONTROL) and supported by a scalable and distributed Web architecture is proposed. This proposal would solve the shortcomings identified in the study and provide aeronautical information management (AIM) with new methods and strategies. In order to seek aeronautical data and services interoperability, a comprehensive aeronautical metadata profile has been defined. This proposal facilitates the use, retrieval, updating, querying, and editing of aeronautical information, as well as its exchange between different private and public institutions. The tests and validations have shown that the proposal is achievable.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Merschdorf ◽  
Thomas Blaschke

Although place-based investigations into human phenomena have been widely conducted in the social sciences over the last decades, this notion has only recently transgressed into Geographic Information Science (GIScience). Such a place-based GIS comprises research from computational place modeling on one end of the spectrum, to purely theoretical discussions on the other end. Central to all research that is concerned with place-based GIS is the notion of placing the individual at the center of the investigation, in order to assess human-environment relationships. This requires the formalization of place, which poses a number of challenges. The first challenge is unambiguously defining place, to subsequently be able to translate it into binary code, which computers and geographic information systems can handle. This formalization poses the next challenge, due to the inherent vagueness and subjectivity of human data. The last challenge is ensuring the transferability of results, requiring large samples of subjective data. In this paper, we re-examine the meaning of place in GIScience from a 2018 perspective, determine what is special about place, and how place is handled both in GIScience and in neighboring disciplines. We, therefore, adopt the view that space is a purely geographic notion, reflecting the dimensions of height, depth, and width in which all things occur and move, while place reflects the subjective human perception of segments of space based on context and experience. Our main research questions are whether place is or should be a significant (sub)topic in GIScience, whether it can be adequately addressed and handled with established GIScience methods, and, if not, which other disciplines must be considered to sufficiently account for place-based analyses. Our aim is to conflate findings from a vast and dynamic field in an attempt to position place-based GIS within the broader framework of GIScience.


Author(s):  
Willington Siabato ◽  
Javier Moya-Honduvilla ◽  
Miguel Ángel Bernabé-Poveda

The way aeronautical information is managed and disseminated must be modernized. Current aeronautical information services (AIS) methods for storing, publishing, disseminating, querying, and updating the volume of data required for the effective management of air traffic control have become obsolete. This does not contribute to preventing airspace congestion, which turns into a limiting factor for economic growth and generates negative effects on the environment. Owing to this, some work plans for improving AIS and air traffic flow focus on data and services interoperability to allow an efficient and coordinated use and exchange of aeronautical information. Geographic information technologies (GIT) and spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are comprehensive technologies upon which any service that integrates geospatial information can rely. The authors are working on the assumption that the foundations and underlying technologies of GIT and SDI can be applied to support aeronautical data and services, considering that aeronautical information contains a large number of geospatial components. This article presents the design, development, and implementation of a Web-based system architecture to evolve and enhance the use and management of aeronautical information in any context, e.g., in aeronautical charts on board, in control towers, and in aeronautical information services. After conducting a study into the use of aeronautical information, it was found that users demand specific requirements regarding reliability, flexibility, customization, integration, standardization, and cost reduction. These issues are not being addressed with existing systems and methods. A system compliant with geographic standards (OGC, ISO) and aeronautical regulations (ICAO, EUROCONTROL) and supported by a scalable and distributed Web architecture is proposed. This proposal would solve the shortcomings identified in the study and provide aeronautical information management (AIM) with new methods and strategies. In order to seek aeronautical data and services interoperability, a comprehensive aeronautical metadata profile has been defined. This proposal facilitates the use, retrieval, updating, querying, and editing of aeronautical information, as well as its exchange between different private and public institutions. The tests and validations have shown that the proposal is achievable.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1794-1808
Author(s):  
Antony K Cooper ◽  
Serena Coetzee ◽  
Derrick G Kourie

User-Generated Content (UGC) in general, and Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) in particular, are becoming more important as sources for official data bases, such as those used in national Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). Discovering and assessing VGI as suitable geospatial resources for one’s purposes is hence becoming more important, but can be difficult. One way of assessing VGI resources is by classifying them into different types of resources, i.e. a taxonomy of resources. The question is whether such taxonomies can accurately identify suitable VGI resources. We assess five taxonomies both subjectively and using formal concept analysis to determine their discrimination adequacy, that is, how well the taxonomies discriminate between repositories containing UGC in general, or VGI in particular.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukáš Brůha

The advancements in geospatial web technology triggered efforts for disclosure of valuable resources of historical collections. This paper focuses on the role of spatial data infrastructures (SDI) in such efforts. The work describes the interplay between SDI technologies and potential use cases in libraries such as cartographic heritage. The metadata model is introduced to link up the sources from these two distinct fields. To enhance the data search capabilities, the work focuses on the representation of the content-based metadata of raster images, which is the crucial prerequisite to target the search in a more effective way. The architecture of the prototype system for automatic raster data processing, storage, analysis and distribution is introduced. The architecture responds to the characteristics of input datasets, namely to the continuous flow of very large raster data and related metadata. Proposed solutions are illustrated on the case study of cartometric analysis of digitised early maps and related metadata encoding.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3157-3170 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kalabokidis ◽  
N. Athanasis ◽  
M. Vaitis

Abstract. With the proliferation of the geospatial technologies on the Internet, the role of geo-portals (i.e. gateways to Spatial Data Infrastructures) in the area of wildfires management emerges. However, keyword-based techniques often frustrate users when looking for data of interest in geo-portal environments, while little attention has been paid to shift from the conventional keyword-based to navigation-based mechanisms. The presented OntoFire system is an ontology-based geo-portal about wildfires. Through the proposed navigation mechanisms, the relationships between the data can be discovered, which would otherwise not be possible when using conventional querying techniques alone. End users can use the browsing interface to find resources of interest by using the navigation mechanisms provided. Data providers can use the publishing interface to submit new metadata, modify metadata or removing metadata in/from the catalogue. The proposed approach can improve the discovery of valuable information that is necessary to set priorities for disaster mitigation and prevention strategies. OntoFire aspires to be a focal point of integration and management of a very large amount of information, contributing in this way to the dissemination of knowledge and to the preparedness of the operational stakeholders.


The chapter presents the geospatial indicators. Over the last 10 years, development of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) has become an important subject being a driving force for the national geospatial strategies and plans, increasing the availability and accessibility of geographic information and the exchange and sharing of spatial data. It has become a necessity to have reliable methods and instruments to assess these SDI initiatives. SDI monitoring and evaluation can provide justification for providing public sources to SDI and a measure of success of SDI strategy. The chapter presents the newly developed Country Geospatial Readiness Index.


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