Integrating heterogeneous geospatial data for decision support system using fuzzy logic

Abstract

The geospatial information is becoming an integral part of many decision making processes, specially related to socio-economic development. Geospatial data are often collected and maintained by different organizations and become a major bottleneck for spatial integration. Further, the spatial relationships between various spatial objects and the influence on each other are often not defined crisply. There exists a spatial or thematic relation between the data of different themes. In real world situations, inferring accurate relationship between the data of different themes is not possible. In order to address this inaccuracy and uncertainty, a fuzzy logic concept has to be used. In this paper, a framework has been proposed to integrate these diverse data using fuzzy spatial web services. The framework uses fuzzy geospatial data model to integrate the data across various organization. Such data model is developed based on base feature set, domain knowledge and fuzzy logic. The association between data of different themes derived from domain knowledge and fuzzy logic is used to map the uncertainties between the relationships of these diverse data. A database has been designed and populated using the fuzzy geospatial data model. The data are integrated and accessed through Enterprise GIS Framework geospatial web service that conforms to OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) geospatial web services. For analysis and decision support a fuzzy decision system has been used implemented using fuzzy logic concepts.