Temporal GIS Research Articles

Coastline change rate estimation on the southern coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, India using the multi temporal Google Earth images and GIS based statistical approach

<p>Coastal erosion is the process of wearing away material from the coastal profile due to an imbalance in the supply and export of material from a particular section of the coast which cause property damage, and the loss of land. This study investigates the rate of erosion and accretion along the southern coast of Tamil Nadu which was exposed to a lot of tourism and development activities. The shorelines were delineated for the years 2000,2005,2010,2015 and 2020 on the high-resolution multi-temporal satellite images in the Google Earth Pro software by visual interpretation. The long-term and short-term changes were studied by three statistical parameters functionalized in DSAS v 5.0 tool in ArcGIS 10.6 software such as endpoint rate, net shoreline movement and linear regression rate (Cenci et al., 2018). The positions of the shoreline in 2030 and 2040 are forecasted using the Kalman filter-based forecast tool in DSAS and the changes were analysed. During the study period, the average rate of changes in Kanyakumari is -1.26 m/year, Tirunelveli is -1.01 m/year and Tuticorin is -1.09 m/year. the transects showed significant erosion along 19.54% of Kanyakumari, 3.79% of Tirunelveli, and 17.81% of Tuticorin coasts, and significant accretion is observed in 1.31% of Kanyakumari, 1.07% of Tirunelveli and 3.02% of Tuticorin coasts. The outcome of shows that erosion is prevailing on the Kanyakumari coast and erosion is prevailing in Tuticorin.</p>

Temporal GIS models for cadastral data management: the knowns, unknowns and future

Numerous temporal GIS models for cadastral data management have been proposed, and to understand the state of their art, a study that critically assesses their designs is needed. This study reviewed 11 models and noted that except with earlier designs; most of the reviewed models could store temporal land parcels with their tracks of changes. However, they lack to maintain the semantics of their data, valid times and potential records of changes, and the alternative techniques to accelerate queries. Thus, a semantical and bi-temporal modelling framework is proposed. Future studies could use the framework and focus on implementation designs to obtain more robust models.

Multipurpose temporal GIS model for cadastral data management

ABSTRACT Past and current cadastral records are among the most valuable information that different countries need to solve land management and planning problems. However, many countries still face critical challenges in adopting modern temporal cadastral systems, including a sound integration of time constructs, efficient data integration and representation methods in the designed models. This research developed a new temporal GIS model to manage spatial and non-spatial temporal cadastral data, namely cadastral parcels, land-use and land-ownerships. Three-time dimensions defined by decision and valid and transaction times were formulated to qualify parcels data. A hybrid approach fusing on the Base State with Amendment and Space-Time Composite models is used to store significant parcel changes and their relationships in two interdependent sub-databases. We used administrative plot identifiers to associate with land use and ownership records, experiencing distinct temporal variations in the third sub-database within the same main repository. We experimented our model with data from Tanzania, and the results from queries demonstrate that the designed model can store all three temporal cadastral data and track their variations semantically and effectively. This model is very useful for storing cadastral parcels, reasons, events, and the transformed parcels’ values to improve decision-making processes.

Dynamics of Urbanization and Land Use/Land Cover Changes of Gurgaon, Ranchi and Jaipur, India

This paper is focused on a set of three growing cities of India namely Gurgaon, Ranchi and Jaipur, for the analyses of population growth and land use changes of the past four decades. For this purpose the census data and multi temporal satellite data and GIS software used. The decadal growth rates of the population in these cities are 44.25, 23.98 and 53.16 per cent in 2011. The effect of this growth has shown in the form of land use changes. The built-up land has increased by 1.84 km2, 2 km2, 4.5 km2 per annum, whereas agricultural land declined by 1.75 km2, 1.93 km2, and 4.52 km2 per annum in these cities. The findings of land use land cover and it spatial relationship between the changes of different classes are critical for understanding the past patterns and the consequences of urban growth so as to inform future insight to the planners, policy makers, risk management and conservation strategies for growth related problems.

A Survey of Modelling Trends in Temporal GIS

The main achievements of spatio-temporal modelling in the field of Geographic Information Science that spans the past three decades are surveyed. This article offers an overview of: (i) the origins and history of Temporal Geographic Information Systems (T-GIS); (ii) relevant spatio-temporal data models proposed; (iii) the evolution of spatio-temporal modelling trends; and (iv) an analysis of the future trends and developments in T-GIS. It also presents some current theories and concepts that have emerged from the research performed, as well as a summary of the current progress and the upcoming challenges and potential research directions for T-GIS. One relevant result of this survey is the proposed taxonomy of spatio-temporal modelling trends, which classifies 186 modelling proposals surveyed from more than 1,450 articles.

Modeling Spatio-Temporal Shoreline Shifting of a Coastal Island in Bangladesh Using Geospatial Techniques and DSAS Extension

Abstract The study attempted to assess the changes in shoreline and erosion-accretion of newly formed island at the mouth of the Meghna river estuary in Bangladesh using multi temporal satellite images and GIS techniques. The current study used NDWI an MNDWI to delineate land and water boundary to extract the shoreline and also used some overlay analysis to measure the erosion-accretion. DSAS extension is used for analyzing the shifting of the shoreline. The results (1990-2015) show that the island has 1192 hectares of land accreted during this time period, and about 1 km of its shoreline lost during this time period as it has broken in few places. Most accretion found in the northwestern part and erosion in southeastern and southwestern part. The study area was divided into four different segments and about 115 transects were constructed, of which about 74 shows the seaward movement and 44 shows landward movement. Seaward movement and rate of shoreline shifting is higher in the northwestern part where net shoreline movement (NSM) is +1897 meters and end point rate (EPR) is +73 m/year. Landward movement and the rate of shoreline shifting are higher in southeastern and southwestern part of which net shoreline movement (NSM) is about -2680 meters and end point rate (EPR) is about -129 m/year. The highest landward movement is found as -2680 meters and highest seaward movement as +1897 meters. Accretion process is dominant while erosion process discontinued the shoreline in some places.

SPATIO TEMPORAL EVALUATION OF VEGETATION COVER IN SARGODHA (PAKISTAN) FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN FUTURE

The monitoring of global vegetation through SRS (satellite remote sensing) data is central part of sustainable urban development and regional planning which is handy to improve our knowledge regarding spatial and temporal patterns and traits of vegetation in any area. In recent years rapid urbanization has converted Sargodha into 5 th largest city of the Punjab which resulted in change and modification of urban morphology and invited the attention of researchers to investigate, analyze and evaluate the type, length and conditions of plant life. In this work an attempt was made to examine spatio temporal dynamics of vegetation cover in Sargodha by integration with multi temporal satellite images and GIS. The research shows the applicability of Landsat images for the evaluation of vegetation exchange between the years of 1992-2015. The findings of the study indicated that during the past 24 years, a dramatic change took place in reduction of greenness because of rapid increase in population distribution and density, urban development and other infrastructural development. The results highlighted the importance of NDVI for better effects concerning accuracy to evaluate the vegetation cover. Keywords: Urban expansion, Image processing, Vegetation cover, NDVI, Change Detection

Application of temporal GIS to track areas of significant concern regarding groundwater contamination

This study is intended to explain discrimination of permanent and temporary groundwater quality zones using temporal geographic information system. The test area for this work is Lahore, Pakistan, where both quality and quantity of underground aquifer are under pressure due to anthropogenic activities. The analysis has been performed after developing precise interpolated surfaces, and verified through cross-validation, for the quality parameters of pH, TDS, Ca, Mg, Cl and HCO3. All the parameters have been studied from the year 2010–2013 for their individual as well as combined geographic distribution in the form of water quality index (WQI). Time series maps of individual parameters with same spatial scale have led the analysis to the extreme behavior of pH and Mg in the year 2011 and concentration of TDS crossing WHO limits in year 2010 (1323 mg/L), etc. Spatio-temporal analysis of WQI figured out temporary as well as permanent epicenters of groundwater pollution, the one around Anarkali region is not only permanent but also expanding gradually. On the basis of WQI scores, five categories have been introduced; WQI 110 is “poor.” It is found that categories attributed to “good” and “moderately good” are spatially transforming to “moderate” and “poor.” The results are endorsed by WQI for the year 2014, exhibiting the same contamination plume with an expansion rate even higher than the previous years. This study can be useful to channelize the limited resources of developing countries for preservation of existing aquifer.

A real-time geo-processing database engine linking calculations and storage for VGE

Our fast-paced, constantly changing world produces massive amounts of data in the 4V categories (volume, velocity, variety and value), which present significant challenges in geo-referenced data management. Virtual geographic environment (VGE), being a human-centred environment, plays a significant role in geographical analysis and simulation. Because of the complexity of geo-processing, time constraints and the large volume of real-time data access, linking calculations and storage has become an effective solution for combining the steps of real-time access and real-time geo-processing in VGE. However, traditional GIS database engines, such as Static GIS or Temporal GIS, that offer an offline interface for managing static geographic features or time-varying geospatial data typically have difficulty in storing streaming data and querying updated information concurrently, due to the ‘store first, and then calculate’ mode. This paper proposed a novel real-time geo-processing database engine that combines a Disk Resident Database (DRDB) and a Main Memory Database (MMDB) to ensure the efficiency of real-time storage, querying, calculation and updating. The proposed engine consists of three modules that respectively satisfy the need of real-time access, complex calculation and ample storage. To illustrate the proposed engine and its implications, a typical real-time geo-processing application, suspect tracking based on video surveillance in a public security setting is studied in this paper.

Special Issue on Spatio-Temporal Theories and Models for Environmental, Urban and Social Sciences: Where Do We Stand?

This article introduces three papers in a special issue that considers new directions relating to spatio-temporal theories for environmental, urban, and social questions. This work gives an overview of some recent perspectives on temporal GIS research including for example, cognition of geospatial dynamics, challenges of big data for urban and environmental sciences, representing mobility, and new ideas about time and space-time in geographic information science among others. The three papers consider topics including space-time pattern analysis and information retrieval, human mobility patterns and urban dynamics from mobile phone data, and spatio-temporal change as it is relates to administrative boundaries.

Applied Spatial Temporal Gis For Decision Support To Enhance Firefighting In Ho Chi Minh City

Fire-fighting problem is particularly severe problem in security and the lives of people, especially in Ho Chi Minh City in recent years. Based on collected data in Ho Chi Minh city from 2012 to April 2014 and to enhance the proactive work and minimize fire damage, enhancing firefighting resources arranged in the city is essential. The decision model, which core powered by Markov Chain, is built as well as evaluating the optimal scenarios serve to mobilize fire resources. Besides, the statistical, spatial and heuristic techniques will support the rules to layout and affect to the optimization output plan over the time. Finally, the whole process is integrated in a GIS system

A temporal GIS for field based environmental modeling

Time in geographic information systems has been a research theme for more than two decades, resulting in comprehensive theoretical work, many research prototypes and several working solutions. Howe...

An Interactive Bibliography on Temporal GIS

This report introduces TimeBliography, a dynamic and online bibliography on temporal GIS. We provide a brief description of the bibliography as well as the components and functionalities of the web application that supports it. The bibliography is fully accessible on the Web at http://spaceandtime.wsiabato.info.

A temporal GIS for field based environmental modeling

Time in geographic information systems has been a research theme for more than two decades, resulting in comprehensive theoretical work, many research prototypes and several working solutions. However, none of the available solutions provides the ability to manage, analyze, process and visualize large environmental spatio-temporal datasets and the investigation and assessment of temporal relationships between them. We present in this paper a freely available field based temporal GIS (TGRASS) that fulfills these requirements. Our approach is based on the integration of time in the open source Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS). We introduce the concept of a space time dataset that is defined as a collection of time stamped raster, voxel or vector data. A dedicated set of spatio-temporal tools was implemented to manage, process and analyze space time datasets and their temporal and spatial relationships. We demonstrate the temporal GIS and environmental modeling capabilities of TGRASS by analyzing a multi-decadal European climate dataset.

REAL-TIME GIS AND ITS APPLICATION IN INDOOR FIRE DISASTER

Abstract. GIS is now faced with the challenge how to represent and understand the fast-paced, constantly changing world, given increasingly real-time data including readings from large-scale distributed sensors and large quantities of simulation data generated by computation models. Traditional static GIS pays more attention to representing historic data and Temporal GIS(TGIS) only treats time as a occasional but not critical factor and can't support the explicit change representation. In this context, Real-time GIS(RGIS) is put forward and its data model becomes a key problem how to make an appropriate abstraction over the rapid changes implied in real-time data stream and establish the general interaction relationship between them. The paper proposes a spatiotemporal changeoriented three-domain model with the emphasis on the semantic interaction relationship of object, event and process. Based on this model, a semantic enrichment method for multi-scale spatiotemporal change is put forward. Finally, as a RGIS application, indoor fire disaster simulation is illustrated and proves the validity of the proposed model.

Unemployment in South Africa: building a spatio-temporal understanding

The spatial understanding of unemployment in South Africa is often limited to provinces. This paper explores ways to integrate unemployment data from 1991 to 2007 to obtain a spatially more detailed understanding of the phenomenon. Creating such a temporal GIS is challenging because of the changing administrative boundaries and this phenomenon is part of the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). The MAUP was overcome by using proportional aggregation to the 2005 municipal boundaries. The unemployment data were analysed spatially through mapping standard deviation intervals and spatial autocorrelation. Unemployment showed a spatial pattern over time in South Africa and municipalities with high unemployment figures over time were spatially concentrated. Furthermore, it is recommended that census data should be released at a small area level to allow more accurate comparison of socio-economic data over time.

Dynamic Visualization of Urban Changes Based on Flex

The advent of programmable vector graphics on the web has major implication for web GIS. Macromedia Flash as a plug in possesses many characteristics. However, Flash is more suitable for designer not for a programmer. Especially in the temporal GIS. Furthermore, Flash takes much time to generate SWF files. Therefore, Flex is an alternative. It has better messaging infrastructure and data synchronization. The paper provides a method to display the urban change using Flex 4.6. Another attraction of the project is the use of the Web Service which link Flex to the database. The result shows that it is easy to dynamically display the urban change using Flex and Flex is easier for web applications than Flash. Other benefit of the work is the service can be used in other application or by other people.

WORKING WITH SPATIO-TEMPORAL DATA TYPE

Abstract. Several aspects of spatiotemporal databases have been explored in past decades, ranging from basic data structure to query processing and indexing. But today, operational temporal GIS does not exist. The key impediments have been the complexity of integrating space and time and the lack of standards. OpenGIS standards for simple feature access (spatial type) do exist, but unlike the spatial type, standards for spatiotemporal data type do not exist. This paper explores a new approach to modeling space and time to provide the basis for implementing a temporal GIS. This approach is based on the concept of data types in databases. A data type provides constructors, accessors, and operators. Most commercial and open source databases provide data types to deal with the spatial component of a GIS, called spatial type. Oracle Spatial, DB2 Spatial Extender and Informix Spatial DataBlade, ST_Geometry for PostgreSQL and Oracle from Esri, PostGIS for PostgreSQL, etc., are some examples. This new spatiotemporal data type is called spatiotemporal type (STT). This STT is implemented in PostgreSQL, an open source relational database management system. The STT is an extension of Esri's ST_Geometry type for PostgreSQL, in which each spatial object has a life span. Constructors, accessors, and relational functions are provided to create STT and support spatial, spatiotemporal, and temporal queries. Some functions are extended based on OpenGIS standards for the spatial type. Examples are provided to demonstrate the application of these functions. The paper concludes with limitations and challenges of implementing STT.

Spatial contiguity and continuity of canopy gaps in mixed wood boreal forests: persistence, expansion, shrinkage and displacement

Summary1. Variation in forest gap size and duration are a result of spatial contiguity and continuity of gap infilling and tree mortality over time, which influences both species recruitment and successional pathways.2. As many gaps in boreal forests are small, their size and duration will affect the conditions influencing species recruitment. We investigate the spatial dynamics of these gaps (i.e. those which are persistent, ephemeral, expanding, displaced or disappearing) and tested whether gap spatio‐temporal patterns are consistent over different temporal periods (1998–2003 and 2003–2007).3. Forest canopy gaps were reconstructed for three plots (10, 10 and 6 ha in size) in southern boreal mixedwood forests around Lake Duparquet, north‐western Quebec (Canada), using a time series of high‐resolution canopy surface profiles from three light and ranging detection (lidar) system surveys during a 9‐year window. High‐resolution images were used to individually identify early and late successional gap makers. Dynamic changes in canopy gaps over a 9‐year period were investigated by implementing concepts of random set theory within a temporal GIS framework. Mortality was higher on the gap edges than in the forest interior, and shade tolerant species were more likely to be gap makers than shade intolerant species. Edge trees that died causing the expansion of gaps were much smaller than trees creating new gaps. Although the overall gap size distribution was consistent over the 9 years studied, the proportion of the total area opening and closing varied between periods. Independent analyses of time windows show an abundance of small gaps (below 40 m2) appearing and disappearing; however, analysis of spatial contiguity shows that the majority (over 80%) of gaps of all sizes were displaced and/or expanded.4. Synthesis. Contrary to the previous perception that small gaps are ephemeral, which would favour the recruitment of late successional species, our findings indicate that gap displacement and expansion may be a mechanism explaining the maintenance of favourable conditions for the recruitment of shade intolerant individuals, which has been previously observed in high‐latitude old‐growth boreal forests.

In Memoriam: Professor Fang Zhao: The Computing in Civil Engineering Community Loses a Great Friend

With sadness, we inform readers that Professor Fang Zhao passed away on December 7, 2010. At Florida International University, Fang was the interim chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering and deputy director of the Lehman Center for Transportation Research. She was also an active and valuable specialty editor of the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering in the transportation engineering area. Fang graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture in China, and then she moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and received her master’s and doctorate degrees in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1987 and 1991, respectively, under the direction of Professor Mary Lou Maher. She joined Florida International University in 1992 as an assistant professor and spent the remainder of her career at FIU. She specialized in computer applications to civil engineering problems, with a specific focus on transportation. Her research covered a wide range of computing topics. FIU Dean Amir Mirmiran stated, “She was a nationally recognized expert on GIS-T, especially on temporal GIS applications in transportation. For the last three years she led the department so ably as the interim chair, not only maintaining its operations, but also significantly enhancing its enrollment, degrees awarded, and research funding, as well as obtaining ABET accreditation of its two programs—civil and environmental.” Fang was an amazing person who will be sorely missed by our community. In honor of her life and her dedication to helping this journal increase its publications in the transportation area, we dedicate this issue of the Journal to our friend and colleague, Professor Fang Zhao. We will miss you, Fang.