Abstract
Abstract. Blockchain is an emerging immature technology that disrupt many well established industries nowadays, like finance, supply chain, transportation, energy, official registries (identity, vehicles, …). In this contribution we present a smart contracts library, named Crypto-Spatial, written for the Ethereum Blockchain and designed to serve as a framework for geospatially enabled decentralized applications (dApps) development. The main goal of this work is to investigate the suitability of Blockchain technology for the storage, retrieval and processing of vector geospatial data. The design and the proof-of-concept implementation presented are both based on the Open Geospatial Consortium standards: Simple Feature Access, Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) and Well Known Binary (WKB). Also, the FOAM protocol concept of Crypto-Spatial Coordinate (CSC) was used to uniquely identify spatial features on the Blockchain immutable ledger. The design of the Crypto-Spatial framework was implemented as a set of smart contracts using the Solidity object oriented programming language. The implemented library was assessed toward Etheruem’s best practices design patterns and known security issues (common attacks). Also, a generic architecture for geospatially enabled decentralized applications, combining blockchain and IPFS technologies, was proposed. Finally, a proof-of-concept was developed using the proposed approach which main purpose is to port the UN/FAO-SOLA to Blockchain techspace allowing more transparency and simplifying access to users communities. The smart contracts of this prototype are live on the Rinkeby testnet and the frontend is hosted on Github pages. The source code of the work presented here is available on Github under Apache 2.0 license.
Highlights
IntroductionDespite the existence of many initiatives to develop standardized protocols for geospatial technology on the blockchain, like (FOAM, 2019), (XYO, 2019), (Helium, 2020), we notice that all those projects focus mainly on proof-of-location wireless networks and not on geospatial data structures and applications
In the solution we present in this contribution, the geometry of spatial features are stored in an OrbitDB IPFS database as OGC Well Known Binary objects for simple parsing and visualization
As a proof-of-concept for the proposed architecture for a Geospatial Decentralized Application (GeodApp), we built Decentralized land administration (DeLA) (Decentralized Land Administration) which main objective is to implement on the Ethereum blockchain all the features of the the open source SOLA-FAO (Solutions for Open Land Administration) (FAO, 2017) which is a J2EE implementation that has many uses cases in Africa and Asia
Summary
Despite the existence of many initiatives to develop standardized protocols for geospatial technology on the blockchain, like (FOAM, 2019), (XYO, 2019), (Helium, 2020), we notice that all those projects focus mainly on proof-of-location wireless networks and not on geospatial data structures and applications. To fill this gap, we investigate in this contribution the suitability of Blockchain technology for the storage, retrieval and processing of vector geospatial data. A generic architecture for geospatially enabled decentralized applications, is proposed and a proof-of-concept is developed using the proposed approach
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
