Geographic Information System Interface Research Articles

User-defined mid-air gestures for multiscale GIS interface interaction

ABSTRACT Multisize geographic information system (GIS) has widely used in social life, and the introduction of natural interactive methods such as gesture interaction further broadens the applications of GIS. Gestures, as a natural means of expression, bring a convenient experience to the use of GIS. The user-elicitation method can determine the user’s original operational intention and take advantage of the natural and convenient gesture interaction. However, current research on elicitation methods mainly focuses on defining the function factors of operation commands and rarely considers the influence of environmental factors such as spatial sizes. This paper takes GIS as the object, which is closely related to multisize space. This paper reports a research project on user-defined gestures for interacting with two-dimensional maps in a virtual reality environment, including three types of GIS operation commands and six sizes of maps. The results showed that the user-defined gestures for the same GIS operation commands varied across map sizes. The increase in map size increased the amount of gestural movement. Drawing on our research, we developed a set of gestures for multisize GIS interface interaction. We hope that this research can provide a guiding foundation for mid-air gesture design for all multisize interfaces.

Geographic information system and process-based modeling of soil erosion and sediment yield in agricultural watershed

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The study explored the capability of the geographic information system interface for the water erosion prediction project, a process-based model, to predict and visualize the specific location of soil erosion and sediment yield from the agricultural watershed of Taganibong.METHODS: The method involved the preparation of the four input files corresponding to climate, slope, land management, and soil properties. Climate file processing was through the use of a breakpoint climate data generator. The team had calibrated and validated the model using the observed data from the three monitoring sites.FINDINGS: Model evaluation showed a statistically acceptable performance with coefficient of determination values of 0.64 (probability value = 0.042), 0.85 (probability value = 0.000), and 0.69 (probability value = 0.001) at 95% level, for monitoring sites 1, 2, and 3, respectively. A further test revealed a statistically satisfactory model performance with root mean square error-observations standard deviation ratio, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, and percent bias of 0.62, 0.61, and 44.30, respectively, for monitoring site 1; 0.65, 0.56, and 25.60, respectively, for monitoring site 2; and 0.60, 0.65, and 27.90, respectively, for monitoring site 3. At a watershed scale, the model predicted the erosion and sediment yield at 89 tons per hectare per year and 22 tons per hectare per year, respectively, which are far beyond the erosion tolerance of 10 tons per hectare per year. The sediment delivery ratio of 0.20 accounts for a total of 126,390 tons of sediments that accumulated downstream in a year.CONCLUSION: The model generated maps that visualize a site-specific hillslope, which is the source of erosion and sedimentation. The study enables the researchers to provide information helpful in the formulation of a sound policy statement for sustainable soil management in the agricultural watershed of Taganibong.

User requirements elicitation in web-based Participatory Geographic Information System interface design

This ongoing work is aimed to collect a set of specific user requirements to develop a participatory web-based Geographic Information System using the User Centered Design approach. By using several techniques of requirement specification as the part of the User Centered Design such as observation of user behavior, interview session and paper prototyping design for testing user interaction, this initial stage in the development of the application could identify the important features to increase the usability of the application. These key features needed by the user are divided into three categories; the type of available maps, the data input features, and the data management features. The categories founded will help the system developer prioritize the important features to create an application to support spatial-based planning and to support the coordination between government agencies in Banda Aceh Municipality.

IMPACT OF HEADWATER HYDROLOGICAL DEFICIT ON THE DOWNSTREAM FLOOD‐BASED FARMING SYSTEM IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

AbstractFlood‐based farming is a means of improving crop production in rain‐deficit lowlands. Such spate irrigation systems are growing in importance, although the effects of headwater hydrological deficit on downstream flood farming are lacking evidence. This study investigates the impacts of headwater hydrological deficit on the extent of spate‐irrigated agriculture in the Guguf spate system. The length of canals and area of spate‐irrigated agriculture to the right and left of the Guguf River for the 1980s and 2010s were tracked using a global positioning system and mapped in a geographic information system interface, while climate data were collected from National Meteorological Agency. Trends of selected hydroclimatic variables were analysed using linear regression and the Pettitt test. The flash floods have shrunk by 7.36 × 106 m3, as a result of which the length of canals and area of spate‐based farms declined by 1.37 km and 1540 ha, i.e. 35 and 57.5%, respectively, in only three decades. This corresponds to an average withdrawal of −44.0 ha yr‾¹. A single 1 million m3 decline in flash floods caused a 366.4 ha decline in spate‐based farms. Moreover, farm fields located next to the river course are less affected, compared to those at the tail of the scheme. If the current trend continues, there is a high risk that the remaining farms currently receiving floods may find themselves outside of the spate systems. Therefore, we suggest that flood management technologies are needed to optimize the efficiency of soil moisture in the spate system. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulated hydrological impacts of land use change from temperate grassland to energy crops: A case study in western UK.

When considering the large‐scale deployment of bioenergy crops, it is important to understand the implication for ecosystem hydrological processes and the influences of crop type and location. Based on the potential for future land use change (LUC), the 10,280 km2 West Wales Water Framework Directive River Basin District (UK) was selected as a typical grassland dominated district, and the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrology model with a geographic information systems interface was used to investigate implications for different bioenergy deployment scenarios. The study area was delineated into 855 sub‐basins and 7,108 hydrological response units based on rivers, soil type, land use, and slope. Changes in hydrological components for two bioenergy crops (Miscanthus and short rotation coppice, SRC) planted on 50% (2,192 km2) or 25% (1,096 km2) of existing improved pasture are quantified. Across the study area as a whole, only surface run‐off with SRC planted at the 50% level was significantly impacted, where it was reduced by up to 23% (during April). However, results varied spatially and a comparison of annual means for each sub‐basin and scenario revealed surface run‐off was significantly decreased and baseflow significantly increased (by a maximum of 40%) with both Miscanthus and SRC. Evapotranspiration was significantly increased with SRC (at both planting levels) and water yield was significantly reduced with SRC (at the 50% level) by up to 5%. Effects on streamflow were limited, varying between −5% and +5% change (compared to baseline) in the majority of sub‐basins. The results suggest that for mesic temperate grasslands, adverse effects from the drying of soil and alterations to streamflow may not arise, and with surface run‐off reduced and baseflow increased, there could, depending on crop location, be potential benefits for flood and erosion mitigation.

City‐wide emissions modelling using fleet probe vehicles

Five UK cities will implement clean air zones to improve air quality (AQ), specifically in relation to oxides of nitrogen, and 253 UK local authorities have declared AQ management areas. Extended range electric vehicles can offer zero emission (ZE) operation but cities lack the ability to monitor and control when vehicles can switch from engine to battery. Project Autonomous and Connected vehicles for CleaneR Air (ACCRA) aims to develop and demonstrate a system allowing hybrid vehicle to become part of a city's urban traffic management control system; monitoring the vehicles’ location and operational state, and controlling the strategy to ensure ZE operation through geofenced zones with poor AQ. This study demonstrates a new methodology to model emissions using state-of-the-art instantaneous vehicle emissions modelling, geographic information system (GIS) and a new method for capturing vehicle behaviour using global positioning system. Probe vehicles were used for the pilot study in Leeds, UK, to capture drive-cycle data and the emissions are modelled. A GIS interface is used to match these emissions to the network. Finally, a high-resolution emissions map is generated to be used as input for AQ dispersion models and the ACCRA decision-making engine for the generation of geofencing AQ zones.

Spatial progression of estate property management system with customized freeware GIS

Estate property management system mainly deals with geographical area with associated information for monitoring and managing estate properties. Geographic Information System (GIS) has potential to handle spatial and aspatial data in a single platform which makes GIS a favourable choice for estate property management system. The availability of free and open source GIS helped this technology affordable and popular in large number of applications. Hence there is a demand to develop a new or upgrade an existing non-GIS based system to a GIS based property management system. In this paper a novel case study is presented where an Oracle based system is integrated with GIS platform using freeware ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) customization. The integration of dynamic data from Oracle server is challenging due to non-supportive database type in AGX. The issue is overcome by introducing an intermediate file handling mechanism in the GIS interface using Oracle client in .net frame work. The proposed system can run in multiple nodes in a local area network and capable of fetching data from Oracle server. It serves user queries on both spatial and aspatial data that enables spatial visualisation of aspatial data.

Development of GIS Interface Tool for GAMES Model and Its Application to an Agricultural Watershed in Southern Ontario

Soil erosion is an important economic and environmental concern throughout the world. In order to assess soil erosion risk and conserve soil and water resources, soil erosion modeling at the watershed scale is imperative. The Guelph model for evaluating effects of Agricultural Management System on Erosion and Sedimentation (GAMES) is tailor-made for such applications; it, however, requires a significant amount of spatial information which needs to be pre-processed using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The GAMES model currently lacks any such automated tools. As such, the GAMES was loosely coupled to a GIS interface to manage the large spatial input data and to produce efficient cartographic representations of model output results. The developed interface tool was tested to simulate the Kettle Creek paired watershed in Southern Ontario, Canada. Result demonstrated that the GIS-assisted procedure increased the ability of the GAMES model in simulating such a spatially varied watershed and made the process more efficient and user-friendly. Furthermore, the quality of reporting and displaying resultant spatial output was also significantly improved. The developed GAMES interface could be applied to any watershed, and the enhancement could be used to assess soil erosion risk and conserve soil and water resources in an effective way.

First Results From the Phenology-Based Synthesis Classifier Using Landsat 8 Imagery

A fully automatic phenology-based synthesis (PBS) classification algorithm was developed to map land cover based on medium spatial resolution satellite data using the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. Vegetation seasonality, particularly in the tropical dry regions, can lead conventional algorithms based on a single date image classification to “misclassify” land cover types, as the selected date might reflect only a particular stage of the natural phenological cycle. The PBS classifier operates with occurrence rules applied to a selection of single date image classifications of the study area to assign the most appropriate land cover class. Since the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013, it has been possible to acquire imagery at any point on the Earth every 16 days with exceptional radiometric quality. The relatively high global acquisition frequency and the open data policy allow near-real-time land cover mapping and monitoring with automated tools such as the PBS classifier. We mapped four protected areas and their 20-km buffer zones from different ecoregions in Sub-Saharan Africa using the PBS classifier to present its first results. Accuracy assessment was carried out through a visual interpretation of very high resolution images using a Web geographic information system interface. The combined overall accuracy was over 90%, which demonstrates the potential of the classifier and the power of cloud computing in geospatial sciences.

A logit-based model for facility placement planning in supply chain management

The facility placement in supply chain management entails suppliers and consumers along with the terminals in between for distributing commodities. This study seeks to find the best terminal placement by taking into consideration the costs for both transportation and terminal construction. We call this a supplier-terminal-consumer (STC) problem and show that the STC is an NP-hard quadratic assignment problem. The NP-hard problems in real-size are proven to be intractable; hence, we develop a two-fold heuristic method for solving the STC problems. First, we identify the commodity flow by using a logit-based mathematical programming (Logit-MP) methodology based on the demand for the commodity and the locations of the candidate-terminals. We apply Logit-MP in an iterative process and specify the maximum utilisation of the candidate-terminals. Second, the best possible locations for the terminals are identified by analysing the utilisation rates in a geographic information system interface and using an interpolation method for converting the point-based utilisation rates into spatial data. We present numerical results of a large-size transportation case study for the city of Chicago where the commodity, terminals and consumers are interpreted as wheat, silos and bakeries, respectively.

Designing and evaluating a groundwater quality Internet GIS

Contaminated unregulated drinking water in rural communities is a continuing health issue, leading many resource users to unknowingly consume water with elevated levels of harmful chemicals. Though geographic information systems (GIS) and Internet technology have been particularly useful for water resource management, to date, there exist few studies that specifically address the development of Internet-based GIS applications to increase user access to unregulated drinking water source information. Informed by an existing user centered development framework for Internet mapping, we created an Internet GIS that visualized groundwater contamination on the Navajo Nation in the southwest United States. We employed a usability focus group, expert review of content and pilot test of a prototype GIS application to gather empirical evidence on effectiveness for informing users of a significant water quality issue. Results suggested that the designed and deployed GIS application was appropriate for the target audience of environmental nongovernmental organization (ENGO) and institution of higher education (IHE) professionals. Usability testing and expert review confirmed the importance of these evaluation measures to ensure a high quality GIS prior to deployment. Use of existing Internet mapping guidelines was found to be insufficient for creating a refined GIS interface appropriate for the target audience. Additionally, we demonstrated that an existing user centered design and evaluation framework could be applied successfully to visualize water quality for unregulated groundwater wells in the rural southwest United States. Suggestions for continued research in the use of Internet GIS to inform rural residents about drinking water quality are provided.

Flood Inundation Modeling for a Watershed in the Pothowar Region of Pakistan

The flood mechanism and inundation behavior of a watershed in the Pothowar (semi-hilly) region of Pakistan was investigated by computer modeling. The Lai Stream Basin has an area of 235 km2 and is located in northern Pakistan. Lai is the main stream passing through the city of Rawalpindi and has a history of flood damage of almost once every three years. The flood of 2001 was the largest among recorded events, claiming 74 human lives, affecting 400,000 people and inflicting a capital loss of US$ 250 million. Mike 11 software was used to develop a valid rainfall–runoff model for the basin using refined rainfall data and available cross-section data, and a simulation was performed to confirm the reproduction of the 2001 flood event. Thereafter, the model was slightly modified to simulate standard flood discharges for various return periods. Flood inundation was then assessed by generating flood maps of the area for various future scenarios using a geographic information system interface. From the results of this study, recommendations regarding the orderly arrangement of gauged data, increasing in the number of rainfall gauging stations, installing automatic water-level gauging stations, establishing a proper flood warning code, establishing an efficient flood forecasting and warning system, regular channel desilting activities, updating the rating curve at a reference point and generating a flood hazard map were made to mitigate the flash flood hazard in the urban/inhabited Pothowar region of Pakistan.

Nutrient Tracking Tool--a user-friendly tool for calculating nutrient reductions for water quality trading

The Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTrT) is an enhanced version of the Nitrogen Trading Tool, a user-friendly Web-based computer program originally developed by the USDA. The NTrT estimates nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment losses from fields managed under a variety of cropping patterns and management practices through its user-friendly, Web-based linkage to the Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX) model. It also accesses the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service9s Web Soil Survey to utilize their geographic information system interface for field and operation identification and load soil information. The NTrT provides farmers, government officials, and other users with a fast and efficient method of estimating nitrogen and phosphorus credits for water quality trading, as well as other water quality, water quantity, and farm production impacts associated with conservation practices. The information obtained from the tool can help farmers determine the most cost-effective conservation practice alternatives for their individual operations and provide them with more advantageous options in a water quality credit trading program. An application of the NTrT to evaluate conservation practices on fields receiving dairy manure in a north central Texas watershed indicates that phosphorus-based application rates, filter strips, forest buffers, and complete manure export off the farm all result in reduced phosphorus losses from the fields on which those practices were implemented. When compared to a baseline condition that entailed manure application at the nitrogen agronomic rate of receiving crops, the reductions in total phosphorus losses associated with these practices ranged from 15% (2P Rate scenario) to 76% (forest buffer scenario).

Arsenic contamination in groundwater and its proposed remedial measures

Arsenic contamination occurs in groundwater of Bangladesh mainly from the alluvial and deltaic sediments. Arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh was first detected more than a decade ago and the ’shallow tubewells’ were reported as the main source of arsenic contaminated water. From the nutritional and metabolic points of view, arsenic is likely to adversely affect human health and nutrition. Up to now, several studies have been carried out on this context; however, inadequate knowledge on arsenic sources, mobilization and transport still remains as a constraint due to lack of data, information and technological advances. Thus, a review study has been undertaken on the sources of arsenic, its causes, mobilization, transport, effects on human health, arsenic test procedures and removal methods, in the context of groundwater contamination in Bangladesh, and finally sustainable remedial measures of arsenic have been proposed. This study suggests that laboratory facilities for testing of arsenic and effects of enhanced groundwater pumping, phosphate fertilizer etc., need to be updated, expanded and studied. This review work is significant to further knowledge improvement, as the topic is general and worldwide. It can be concluded that the integration of the proposed remedial measures with the national geographic information system interface database relating to arsenic for analysis, production of hazard maps, and dissemination on television show for the planners, engineers, managers, field supervisors and affected people, can reach at the sustainable solution for mitigating arsenic and associated problems successfully in Bangladesh.

Risk evaluation of real‐time accident scenarios in the transport of hazardous material on road

PurposeThis paper seeks to tackle the complex problem of integrating real‐time data information about the tracking of a hazardous material (hazmat) vehicle with classical risk evaluation methodologies in order to describe possible accident scenarios. The application deals with the transport of hydrocarbon dangerous goods, where the accident consequences may involve the population exposed along the infrastructure used for transportation.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken consists of three phases. First, the acquisition of real‐time data about the travel and the carried hazmat; second, the evaluation of the risk area; and finally, a Geographic Information System (GIS) are taken into account.FindingsThe findings of this analysis constitute the methodological basis to implement a decision support system as regards hazmat transport risk analysis, also in real time, with important evaluations for planning criteria. Using TIP (Transport Integrated Platform), the data collection is received in real time and the scenario construction and visualization may represent a user‐friendly tool for prompt risk evaluation.Research limitations/implicationsThe information displayed by the GIS interface is easy to use, and gives prompt information about the accident consequences.Originality/valueIn terms of the total impact from the hazmat transport system to the whole environment (humans, goods, infrastructures, services and natural elements), the paper focuses on the importance of creating a historical real‐time database implemented from a real time information, that represents a standard set of information necessary to define an accident scenarios, for hazmat transport.

An object-oriented shared data model for GIS and distributed hydrologic models

Distributed physical models for the space–time distribution of water, energy, vegetation, and mass flow require new strategies for data representation, model domain decomposition, a priori parameterization, and visualization. The geographic information system (GIS) has been traditionally used to accomplish these data management functionalities in hydrologic applications. However, the interaction between the data management tools and the physical model are often loosely integrated and nondynamic. This is because (a) the data types, semantics, resolutions, and formats for the physical model system and the distributed data or parameters may be different, with significant data preprocessing required before they can be shared; (b) the management tools may not be accessible or shared by the GIS and physical model; and (c) the individual systems may be operating system dependent or are driven by proprietary data structures. The impediment to seamless data flow between the two software components has the effect of increasing the model setup time and analysis time of model output results, and also makes it restrictive to perform sophisticated numerical modeling procedures (real-time forecasting, sensitivity analysis, etc.) that utilize extensive GIS data. These limitations can be offset to a large degree by developing an integrated software component that shares data between the (hydrologic) model and the GIS modules. We contend that the prerequisite for the development of such an integrated software component is a ‘shared data model’, which is designed using an object-oriented strategy. Here we present the design of such a shared data model taking into consideration the data type descriptions, identification of data classes, relationships, and constraints. The developed data model has been used as a method base for developing a coupled GIS interface to Penn State Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM), called PIHMgis.

Flood hazard awareness and hydrologic modelling at Ambos Nogales, United States–Mexico border

AbstractAppropriate land‐use, watershed‐management, and flood‐attenuation plans are critical in the cross‐border urban environment known collectively as Ambos Nogales. This paper summarizes methodologies for predicting the watershed response associated with land‐use change within a spatial and temporal context through the use of a hydrological model in a cross‐border setting. The KINEROS2 model is implemented via the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment 2.0 geographic information system interface to evaluate the watershed of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, to assess flood vulnerability by quantifying volumes of runoff and peak flow, based on alternative land‐use scenarios. Cross‐border geospatial data acquisition and input to models are described. Discussions about the KINEROS2 model results identify flood‐prone areas, simulate the impact of land‐use change, and evaluate the impact of potential flood‐control interventions in the Ambos Nogales watershed. Products from this research are being used in a comprehensive plan for sustainable development in Ambos Nogales.

Sustaining the Earth's Watersheds-Agricultural Research Data System: Data development, user interaction, and operations management

To support the USDA Agricultural Research Service Conservation Effects Assessment Project, a publicly available Web-based watershed data system, named Sustaining the Earth9s Watersheds-Agricultural Research Data System (STEWARDS), was developed to provide data search, viewing, and downloading capabilities. The objectives of this paper are to (1) describe the data within STEWARDS, (2) describe the process of accessing watershed data and (3) provide an overview of the system management. STEWARDS is a data delivery system with a geographic information system interface, using space, time, and topic as key fields for searching an extensive database of soil, water, climate, land management, and socio-economic data from multiple long-term research watersheds. STEWARDS facilitates (1) researchers in obtaining USDA Agricultural Research Service historic watershed data for hydrological studies; (2) modelers in retrieving measured data over extensive time periods for model calibration and validation in watershed assessments to support CEAP; and (3) watershed managers, partners, and stakeholders in accessing long term data to support decision-making for selecting effective conservation practices.

NRCS GeoHydro—A GIS interface for hydrologic modeling

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has developed NRCS GeoHydro 9x, a new ArcGIS application, to complement the WinTR–20 application and assist USDA field staff, and other government, private, and foreign organizations. WinTR–20 is a storm event hydrologic model used to evaluate impacts of structural and land treatment measures. NRCS GeoHydro 9x, using geographic information systems (GIS) tools and techniques, performs hydrologic modeling on a drainage area to compute its catchments, drainage points, drainage lines, slope, runoff curve number, longest flow path, time of concentration ( T c ), and cross-section details. The application acts as a GIS interface to WinTR–20 by exporting the results of GIS analyses of the drainage area in the input format of WinTR–20. NRCS GeoHydro 9x reinforces the idea that GIS tools and techniques enhance productivity by doing preliminary hydrologic analysis of the drainage area in an objective and accurate manner in a relatively short duration.

Development of a GIS Interface for Estimation of Runoff from Watersheds

Development of accurate surface runoff estimation techniques from ungauged watersheds is relevant in Indian condition due to the non-availability of hydrologic gauging stations in majority of watersheds. Besides this, the high budgetary requirements for installation of gauging stations are another limiting factor in India, which leads to the use of surface runoff estimation techniques for ungauged watersheds. Natural Resources Conservation Services Curve Number (NRCS-CN) method is one of the most widely used methods for quick and accurate estimation of surface runoff from ungauged watershed. Also, the coupling of NRCS-CN techniques with the advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities automates the process of runoff prediction in timely and efficient manner. Keeping view of this, a GIS interface was developed using the in-built macro programming language, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) of ArcGIS® tool to estimate the surface runoff by adopting NRCS-CN technique and its three modifications. The developed interface named as Interface for Surface Runoff Estimation using Curve Number techniques (ISRE-CN), was validated using the recorded data for the periods from 1993 to 2001 of a gauged watershed, Banha in the Upper Damodar Valley in Jharkhand, India. The observed runoff depths for different rainfall events in this study watershed was compared with the predicted values of NRCS-CN methods and its three modifications using statistical significance tests. It was revealed that using all the rainfall data for different AMC conditions, the modified CN I performed the best [R2 (coefficient of determination) = 0.92; E (model efficiency) = 0.89) followed by modified CN III method (R2 = 0.88; E = 0.87), while the modified CN II (R2 = 0.42; E = 0.36) failed to predict accurately the surface runoff from Banha watershed. Moreover, under AMC based estimations, the modified CN I method also performed best (R2 = 0.95; E = 0.95) for AMC II condition, while the modified CN II performed the worst in all the AMC conditions. However, the developed Interface in ArcGIS® needs to be tested in other watershed systems for wider applicability of the modified CN methods.