A Web-Based GIS and Remote Sensing Framework for Spatial Information System (SIS): A Case Study in Nuwaraeliya, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to develop a geo-spatial information system a combining web, Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing technologies. This paper introduces an integrated web-based GIS and remote sensing architecture with three levels of geographic information services called Spatial Information System (SIS). The combinations of Java, Java applets, HTML, ASP.Net, VB Script, Java Script, SQL and web server components were utilized to develop the SIS. The prototype SIS was developed to provide an easy access to the geospatial information. Multi-temporal satellite images in Nuwaraeliya, Sri Lanka, were used for the evaluation. The SIS provides many facilities on web-based image analysis and land use/cover change detection for environmental resource management. The analyzed results of the temporal land use/cover and the vegetation cover change were presented through the web-system. Areas vulnerable to soil erosion were identified using the raster-based USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation) tool created inside GIS environment. The web-based GIS and remote sensing tools were considered to be significantly useful for accessing geospatial data without using expensive image processing applications. The study area of this research was selected as an example and the system demonstrates the way of distributing the derived satellite images through the online with some processing tools. Therefore, this application can be used as an example on future research.