Geospatial Information Science Research Articles

CHALLENGE BASED LEARNING GEOSCIENCE: STUDENT-ORIENTED TEACHING FOR DIGITAL MAPPING

Abstract. This essay presents Challenge-Based Learning with a student-oriented perspective in Geoscience showing how digital mapping constitutes a useful tool for teaching geomatic, geographical, urban and tourism disciplines. Focused on real-life case studies, it stimulates students to acquire integrated hard and soft skills in an active and collaborative way, to let them be protagonists of their educational path. The learning strategy adopted within some master’s courses at the University of Bergamo (Italy) is presented with the aim of offering an overview of its usefulness in the context of Geospatial Information Science for spatial planning, in respect of the environment and its ecosystems, of the bio-diversity of the territories and, also, of the vocations of a place and the communities living it. All these aspects are addressed through the use of cartography, intended not only as an Euclidean system of representation, but also as an interactive archive of spatial, geographical, environmental, socio-economic and human information in continuous transformation and evolution. In the master’s courses in “Geo-urban Planning” and “Planning and Management of Tourism Systems”, the Challenge-based learning and the student-oriented approach are experimented through the use of real-life case studies and collaborative processes and mapping to transfer Geosciences competencies and allow students to adopt measures for urban regeneration, landscape enhancement and slow tourism promotion.

MONITORING OF LAND SURFACE DISPLACEMENT BASED ON SBAS-INSAR TIME-SERIES AND GIS TECHNIQUES: A CASE STUDY OVER THE SHIRAZ METROPOLIS, IRAN

Abstract. Nowadays, subsidence as one of the natural disasters, threaten urban environments. Over the past three decades, the small baseline subset (SBAS) InSAR method due to its capability to monitor medium to large-scale deformations, has emerged as an important tool for estimating surface displacements. In densely vegetated environments, however, the SBAS technique is not effective due to the decorrelation effect. Since the SBAS technique can estimate millions of points for subsidence, these data can be used as input to the Kriging method to estimate the unknown points. Therefore, in this study, we identified the subsidence disaster-stricken-urban areas in the Shiraz metropolis over a 4-year period (between 2017 and 2021) based on the fusion of the SBAS technique and geospatial information science (GIS) using Sentinel-1A time-series images. In the GIS part of this research, the ordinary kriging method was used for interpolation of the SBAS data. Also, the kernel estimation density (KED) was used for the preparation of the raster layers of a population and the built-up density. Based on 33 radar images in ascending and descending orbit, a total of 95 interferograms have been computed. In this research, temporal baselines of less than 100 meters and multi-look window dimensions of 200 meters were used. What is more, the amount of coherence was 0.8 in estimating displacements. Based on the results, the highest displacements occurred in districts 2, 4, 7, and 11. The maximum value of the displacement (30 mm per year) was seen in the southeast of the Shiraz metropolis, in district 7. Moreover, the surface displacement was mainly observed in the lands of the Shiraz international airport and some of the agricultural lands located in district 2. The reasons for the displacements in districts 4 and 11 are related to the high density of the building coverages in these regions. Also, the increased population density was another reason for the subsidence in district 4. It can be concluded that the suggested framework is efficient in determining time-series surface movements in extensive urban and non-urban areas.

Progress and Reflections of International Cartographic Education

With the development of geospatial information science and technology and applications in numerous areas, cartography and geospatial information education is becoming increasingly more important in training graduates equipped with new capacities. Cartography and geospatial information education are crucial to cartography and geospatial information science, as a discipline and a profession. The contents have always gradually been changing, as well as corresponding effective approaches to deliver sustainable and resilient education. In the new normal era of post COVID-19, summaries and reflections on the progress of available practices and theories can support better design of effective and quality education. In this paper, the conference papers and abstracts on educational topics published in the last 10 International Cartography Conferences are used to trace the path that educators in cartography and geospatial information have gone through. Bibliometric analysis is conducted on educational topics, authors, and regions. A domain term knowledge map is drawn showing that the number of publications on education in the International Cartography Conferences has been increasing. The geographic distribution of authors is very concentrated, with authors from European countries contributing about 50% of the publications and those from the top ten countries contributing 60%. Works in many other regions are less reported. The research topics are mainly focused on undergraduate and graduate education in geographic information systems, secondary education, education atlas, learning theories, learning environmental design, online education, etc. Pedagogies and experience of distance learning and online education in the last 20 years have been well applied. However best practices of online and distance education are rarely reported to support effective new normal education in the context of COVID-19 pandemics.

Report of the 5th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on AI for Geographic Knowledge Discovery (GeoAI 2022)

Emerging advances in artificial intelligence, hardware accelerators, and big data processing architectures continue to reach the geospatial information sciences, with a transformative impact on many societal challenges. Recent breakthroughs in deep learning have brought forward an automated capability to learn representative features from massive and complex data, including text, images, or videos. In tandem, rapid innovations in sensing technologies are supporting the collection of geospatial data in even higher resolution and throughput, supporting the observation, mapping, and analysis of different events/phenomena over the earth's surface and in socioeconomic environments with unprecedented detail. Combined, these developments are offering the potential for breakthroughs in geographic knowledge discovery, impacting decision-making in areas such as humanitarian mapping, intelligent transportation systems, urban expansion analysis, health data analysis and epidemiology, the study of climate change, handling natural disasters, and the general monitoring of the earth's surface.

Remote Sensing for Land Administration 2.0

Contemporary land administration (LA) systems incorporate the concepts of cadastre and land registration. Conceptually, LA is part of a global land management paradigm incorporating LA functions such as land value, land tenure, land development, and land use. The implementation of land-related policies integrated with well-maintained spatial information reflects the aim set by the United Nations to deliver tenure security for all (Sustainable Development Goal target 1.4, amongst many others). Innovative methods for data acquisition, processing, and maintaining spatial information are needed in response to the global challenges of urbanization and complex urban infrastructure. Current technological developments in remote sensing and geo-spatial information science provide enormous opportunities in this respect. Over the past decade, the increasing usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), satellite and airborne-based acquisitions, as well as active remote sensing sensors such as LiDAR, resulted in high spatial, spectral, radiometric, and temporal resolution data. Moreover, significant progress has also been achieved in automatic image orientation, surface reconstruction, scene analysis, change detection, classification, and automatic feature extraction with the help of artificial intelligence, spatial statistics, and machine learning. These technology developments, applied to LA, are now being actively demonstrated, piloted, and scaled. This Special Issue hosts papers focusing on the usage and integration of emerging remote sensing techniques and their potential contribution to the LA domain.

Entity-oriented spatial coding scheme and its application for spatial topology

ABSTRACT Based on a newly proposed spatial data model Spatial Chromatic Model (SCM), we developed a spatial coding scheme, called the full-coded Ordinary Arranged Chromatic Diagram (full-OACD). As a type of spatial tessellation, full-OACD partitions a geographic space into a number of subspaces, such as cells, edges, and vertices. These subspaces are called spatial particles and are assigned with unique codes chromatic codes. The generation, structure, computation, and properties of full-OACD are introduced. Relations between particulate chromatic codes and spatial topology are investigated. Full-OACD is a kind of new discrete spatial coordinate system where the information of real-world entities is embedded. Full-OACD provides an informative and meaningful spatial coding framework for spatial topological analysis and many other potential applications in geospatial information science.

Geospatial Information Research: State of the Art, Case Studies and Future Perspectives.

Geospatial information science (GI science) is concerned with the development and application of geodetic and information science methods for modeling, acquiring, sharing, managing, exploring, analyzing, synthesizing, visualizing, and evaluating data on spatio-temporal phenomena related to the Earth. As an interdisciplinary scientific discipline, it focuses on developing and adapting information technologies to understand processes on the Earth and human-place interactions, to detect and predict trends and patterns in the observed data, and to support decision making. The authors – members of DGK, the Geoinformatics division, as part of the Committee on Geodesy of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, representing geodetic research and university teaching in Germany – have prepared this paper as a means to point out future research questions and directions in geospatial information science. For the different facets of geospatial information science, the state of art is presented and underlined with mostly own case studies. The paper thus illustrates which contributions the German GI community makes and which research perspectives arise in geospatial information science. The paper further demonstrates that GI science, with its expertise in data acquisition and interpretation, information modeling and management, integration, decision support, visualization, and dissemination, can help solve many of the grand challenges facing society today and in the future.

On geospatial information science in the era of IoE

On geospatial information science in the era of IoE

Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of an Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Educational Game for Learning Topology Relations at Schools: A Case Study

Education has always been modified by employing different technologies to enhance the knowledge acquisition and performance of students. Virtual Reality (VR) along with the Game Industry is among those evolving technologies for educational applications. This study aimed to design, implement, and evaluate an immersive VR-based Educational Game (IVREG) for learning topology relations. Topology relations are one of the fundamental topics which exist in Geospatial Information Science (GIS); due to the great capabilities offered by GIS, learning these basic topis is of great importance. A total of thirty-seven male middle-school students participated in this study. A total of four questionnaires were designed to evaluate the suitability of the proposed learning environment and its components at schools, particularly for learning geospatial topics. In conclusion, students found the IVREG useful and effective in classrooms. Additionally, the results showed that the components, namely the integrated pedagogical approach, gamification, and VR technology, were all suitable for being used at schools. On a final note, however, the study indicated that the immersion aspect of such learning environments should be enhanced in future studies.

Flood susceptibility assessment for ungauged sites in urban areas using spatial modeling

AbstractIn urban areas, flood susceptibility assessment is of special importance because of the high settlement population, properties, and infrastructures. Geospatial information science (GIS) provides a tool for investigating flood susceptibility based on several aspects including economic damages and critical infrastructures in cities. This study aims to provide a tool based on GIS analyses to support decision‐makers in identifying flood hazards in urban areas, in which previous flood data, flood causative factors, and urban infrastructure data are not adequately available. To assess flood susceptibility in the study area, the related spatial high‐resolution data were produced. Then, flood zones were estimated for different recurrence intervals using meteorological data. Finally, susceptibility was assessed in urban areas for different urban infrastructures using GIS modeling. The model was designed based on the assumption that any critical urban infrastructure, such as power towers, was affected by flood zones and, in addition to flooding, could cause hazards by itself. Moreover, five scenarios were defined to calculate susceptibility when in the problematic locations of the floodway. DoAsb Floodway was chosen as a case study located in Zanjan city, northwest of Iran. The results indicated the high‐susceptible areas around the floodway. Moreover, the flood susceptibility level for each urban infrastructure in the study area was calculated and classified into five classes from low susceptible to very high susceptible. Also, the results of the five scenarios showed if some parts of the floodway had problems, the susceptibility rate would be high. The generated flood susceptibility maps of this model can be used to plan suitable programs in order to avoid flood damage and ensure public safety.

Long-term investigation of subsidence rate and its environmental effects using the InSAR technique and geospatial analyses

Herein, we examined the subsidence occurring over two main plains for agricultural activities in Qom province in Iran using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). ENVISAT-ASAR images from 2003 to 2010 and Sentinel-1A images from 2014 to 2019 were used to produce interferograms and mean velocity maps of subsidence in the line of sight (LOS) direction. Using the analyses in geospatial information science (GIS), the spatial correlations between areas with subsidence and water level drop and agricultural land-uses were explored. The results showed the mean velocity map which revealed 35 and 28 mm/yr of deformation going away in the LOS direction in Jafarabad and Qanvat plains, respectively, between 2003 and 2010 and higher subsidence rates between 2014 and 2019. Moreover, maximum subsidence occurred in the places that had not only a larger water level decline, but also a greater thickness of fine-grained sediments. Finally, the environmental effect of subsidence on the ground, infrastructures and water salinity was examined.

Design and development of a web GIS for management and performance evaluation of agricultural farms of sahar food industries company (SFIC)

The web has changed everything, and GIS is no exception. Web GIS, as a combination of web and Geospatial information system or science (GIS) has become an evolving discipline. Web GIS provides all GIS functions, including easy access to spatial information, display, storage, editing, management, manipulation, analysis, and sharing of spatial information anywhere in the world at a relatively low cost and easily for end users. Has accepted. In this article, we will discuss the key technology of digital spatial information management system (Web GIS) of digital farms, then we will introduce SFIC. Finally, we design and develop a Web GIS as a management system with the aim of providing a suitable platform for the realization of visual management performance and also evaluating the performance of agricultural farms. This management and monitoring system helps decision makers and professionals to easily make appropriate decisions to increase crop production, management, updating spatial and descriptive farm information, and other related activities. Sahar Web GIS Agricultural Farm Management Spatial Information System helps ordinary and non-expert users to easily access information and improves the necessary measures for making decisions in this field.

3D-Position Determination using GNSS Techniques – A Comparative Analysis

This study was carried out to determine 3D-position of selected points within Obafemi Awolowo University. The points were located at Africa Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGST), Central Technological and Laboratory Workshops (CTLW), main Bus Stop, Religion ground, New Environmental Design and Management (New EDM), and Spider building. China HuaCe Corporation (CHC) GPS and Promark 3 GPS were used to carry out observation on the selected points. The data gotten were post processed using GNSS solution software for Promark3, Compass software for CHC GPS and the result gotten were compared with the known coordinates of those points. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to determine the most accurate instrument between the two. The occupation time for the two instruments on each station was 45 minutes. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Chi square Variance analysis were conducted, the result showed that there is no significant difference between the observations of the two instruments in comparison with the adjusted coordinate. It can be concluded that any of the two instruments can be used for 3D point positioning to obtain accurate result.

3D-Position Determination using GNSS Techniques – A Comparative Analysis

This study was carried out to determine 3D-position of selected points within Obafemi Awolowo University. The points were located at Africa Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGST), Central Technological and Laboratory Workshops (CTLW), main Bus Stop, Religion ground, New Environmental Design and Management (New EDM), and Spider building. China HuaCe Corporation (CHC) GPS and Promark 3 GPS were used to carry out observation on the selected points. The data gotten were post processed using GNSS solution software for Promark3, Compass software for CHC GPS and the result gotten were compared with the known coordinates of those points. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to determine the most accurate instrument between the two. The occupation time for the two instruments on each station was 45 minutes. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Chi square Variance analysis were conducted, the result showed that there is no significant difference between the observations of the two instruments in comparison with the adjusted coordinate. It can be concluded that any of the two instruments can be used for 3D point positioning to obtain accurate result.

Why are events important and how to compute them in geospatial research?

Geospatial research has long centered around objects. While attention to events is growing rapidly, events remain objectified in spatial databases. This paper aims to highlight the importance of events in scientific inquiries and overview general event-based approaches to data modeling and computing. As machine learning algorithms and big data become popular in geospatial research, many studies appear to be the products of convenience with readily adaptable data and codes rather than curiosity. By asking why events are important and how to compute events in geospatial research, the author intends to provoke thinking into the rationale and conceptual basis of event-based modeling and to emphasize the epistemological role of events in geospatial information science. Events are essential to understanding the world and communicating the understanding, events provide points of entry for knowledge inquiries and the inquiry processes, and events mediate objects and scaffold causality. We compute events to improve understanding, but event computing and computability depend on event representation. The paper briefly reviews event-based data models in spatial databases and methods to compute events for site understanding and prediction, for spatial impact assessment, and for discovering events' dynamic structures. Concluding remarks summarize key arguments and comment on opportunities to extend event computability.

Authentic learning using mobile applications and contemporary geospatial information requirements related to Environmental Science

ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine the potential of authentic learning activities and assessment to enhance the student learning experience in a standalone introductory geospatial information science module. Computer laboratory sessions form seventy-five percent of contact hours and final grade, so authentic learning used a field-based project with specified features, study area and aerial photo form the basis of assessment. The class collects all relevant geospatial information using mobile devices. Students present personally collected, and class-merged geospatial information as workplace style reports in scaffolded assessments. All submitted data are collected by the class and managed by the students. Essential skills and employment opportunities using GIS skills form the basis of authenticity of this module and guide student expectations. We evaluate outcomes through a two-year case study examining design, implementation and revision of the Unit, by using a mixed-methods approach including multiple, staged student surveys, focus groups, and student results. A focus on authenticity increased student appreciation of employability in GIS-related positions, and students reported increased motivation to learn.

Advances of geo-spatial intelligence at LIESMARS

ABSTRACTThe enhancement of computing power, the maturity of learning algorithms, and the richness of application scenarios make Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution increasingly attractive when solving Geo-spatial Information Science (GSIS) problems. These include image matching, image target detection, change detection, image retrieval, and for generating data models of various types. This paper discusses the connection and synthesis between AI and GSIS in block adjustment, image search and discovery in big databases, automatic change detection, and detection of abnormalities, demonstrating that AI can integrate GSIS. Moreover, the concept of Earth Observation Brain and Smart Geo-spatial Service (SGSS) is introduced in the end, and it is expected to promote the development of GSIS into broadening applications.

An IEEE value loop of human-technology collaboration in geospatial information science

ABSTRACTGeosensing and social sensing as two digitalization mainstreams in big data era are increasingly converging toward an integrated system for the creation of semantically enriched digital Earth. Along with the rapid developments of AI technologies, this convergence has inevitably brought about a number of transformations. On the one hand, value-adding chains from raw data to products and services are becoming value-adding loops composed of four successive stages – Informing, Enabling, Engaging and Empowering (IEEE). Each stage is a dynamic loop for itself. On the other hand, the “human versus technology” relationship is upgraded toward a game-changing “human and technology” collaboration. The information loop is essentially shaped by the omnipresent reciprocity between humans and technologies as equal partners, co-learners and co-creators of new values.The paper gives an analytical review on the mutually changing roles and responsibilities of humans and technologies in the individual stages of the IEEE loop, with the aim to promote a holistic understanding of the state of the art of geospatial information science. Meanwhile, the author elicits a number of challenges facing the interwoven human-technology collaboration. The transformation to a growth mind-set may take time to realize and consolidate. Research works on large-scale semantic data integration are just in the beginning. User experiences of geovisual analytic approaches are far from being systematically studied. Finally, the ethical concerns for the handling of semantically enriched digital Earth cover not only the sensitive issues related to privacy violation, copyright infringement, abuse, etc. but also the questions of how to make technologies as controllable and understandable as possible for humans and how to keep the technological ethos within its constructive sphere of societal influence.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF CROWDSOURCING BASED CHINA'S NATIONAL PUBLIC GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION COLLECTION SYSTEM

Abstract. As the basis of public geospatial information service, geospatial information data with wide coverage, strong timeliness, rich content and high positioning accuracy is the key infrastructure of geospatial infrastructure for building smart cities and digital China. How to collect and update massive geospatial information resources fast and efficiently has always been the bottleneck for the rapid development of surveying and mapping geospatial information science and technology and industries, and the construction of China's national spatial data infrastructure. At present, the mainstream of geospatial data collecting and updating in China is that the government and enterprise employ professional engineers to for this work, but the problems of professional and complex data processing process, data management level by level, closed and off-line data update mode lead to a relatively slow update rate and poor data actuality, which seriously restricted the applications of geospatial information service in the fields of government decision-making, planning and construction, resource and environment monitoring, and emergency response. The contributions to the geospatial information data from the public community has also been ignored. This paper addresses the issues of low efficiency on data collection and update occurring in China's national geospatial information service platform, proposing a solution for public geospatial data collection and update based on crowdsourcing. The key technologies of data collection, storage, reviews and publication are studied, and the basic technical process of online data update for the government and the public users is designed. In order to verify the effectiveness and practicality of the mode discussed above, a prototype system is developed by expanding China's national geospatial information service platform, which fulfilled data online collection and reviewing, such as POIs, roads, and residential areas. The system can provide new methods and reference ideas for the collection and update of spatial data for the national geospatial information public service platform. It is a useful supplement to the current spatial data collection and update, and has important significances.

Software Systems Approach to Multi-Scale GIS-BIM Utility Infrastructure Network Integration and Resource Flow Simulation

There is an increasing impetus for the use of digital city models and sensor network data to understand the current demand for utility resources and inform future infrastructure service planning across a range of spatial scales. Achieving this requires the ability to represent a city as a complex system of connected and interdependent components in which the topology of the electricity, water, gas, and heat demand-supply networks are modelled in an integrated manner. However, integrated modelling of these networks is hampered by the disparity between the predominant data formats and modelling processes used in the Geospatial Information Science (GIS) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) domains. This paper presents a software systems approach to scale-free, multi-format, integrated modelling of evolving cross-domain utility infrastructure network topologies, and the analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of their resource flows. The system uses a graph database to integrate the topology of utility network components represented in the CityGML UtilityNetwork Application Domain Extension (ADE), Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) real-time streaming messages. A message broker is used to disseminate the changing state of the integrated topology and the dynamic resource flows derived from the streaming data. The capability of the developed system is demonstrated via a case study in which internal building and local electricity distribution feeder networks are integrated, and a real-time building management sensor data stream is used to simulate and visualise the spatiotemporal dynamics of electricity flows using a dynamic web-based visualisation.