WebGIS Platform Research Articles

CENSUS OF ABANDONED BUILT HERITAGE ASSETS: THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFINING SHARED METHODOLOGIES AND ONTOLOGIES

Abstract. The paper shows the studies carried out within the framework of two research agreements for the census of abandoned enlisted assets owned by public bodies in the Provinces of Piacenza, Parma and Reggio Emilia, stipulated with the respective Heritage Departments. The purpose of this research is to increase the cognitive framework of cultural assets in a state of abandonment, and then to transfer the results to the dedicated WebGIS platform, with the aim of identifying the ones which are most in need of a conservation and reuse intervention, in order to return them back to their community. Afterwards, as a result of the cataloguing carried out, it was possible to make some critical considerations and statistical reworkings of the collected data. The data analysis, performed through the design of a GIS database, finds out a higher frequency of abandonment for some specific building types and with recurring locations. The research also highlights, once again, the importance of defining common ontologies, which are essential for statistical data processing and interoperability between different existing databases.

Development of a Web-GIS Platform for Environmental Monitoring and Conservation of the Muringato Catchment in Kenya

Development of a Web-GIS Platform for Environmental Monitoring and Conservation of the Muringato Catchment in Kenya

Advanced Technologies for Geosite Visualization and Valorization: A Review

This review attempts to summarize contributions by authors who, in the last decade, have dedicated their efforts to making geoheritage accessible to the public. Geoheritage is composed of geosites, which are, nowadays, real milestones on which field-based geological education can be conducted. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in particular has made it clear that a new paradigm is needed; a series of tools must be introduced and increasingly used to make it possible for potential users, be they academics, students, or the lay public, to experience geosites from locations that can be thousands of kilometers away. All these have been achieved over time by a wide range of evolving techniques and advanced technologies such as GIS tools, virtual reality applications and further innovative technologies such as WebGIS platforms accompanied by appropriate navigation tools (VR headsets and thumbsticks). The viewers, in this way, are provided with a complete view of a virtual geosite, which enables visualizing its characteristics at different scales. VR technologies, especially, have revealed a high degree of satisfaction, based on feedback collected from VR geosite visualization events, both by scientists, students and the general public, and could be the forefront of geosite visualization and valorization in the near future.

Cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea: Encounter Rate, Dominant Species, and Diversity Hotspots

We investigated the presence and diversity of cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, analysing the data collected by 32 different research units, over a period of 15 years (2004–2018), and shared on the common web-GIS platform named Intercet. We used the encounter rate, the species prevalence, and the Shannon diversity index as parameters for data analysis. The results show that cetacean diversity, in the context of the Mediterranean basin, is generally quite low when compared with the eastern Atlantic, as few species, namely the striped dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the fin whale, and the sperm whale, dominate over all the others. However, some areas, such as the Alboran Sea or the north-western Mediterranean Sea, which includes the Pelagos Sanctuary (the Specially Protected Area of Mediterranean Interest located in the northern portion of the western basin), show higher levels of diversity and should be considered hotspots to be preserved. Primary production and seabed profile seem to be the two main drivers influencing the presence and distribution of cetaceans, with the highest levels of diversity observed in areas characterized by high levels of primary production and high bathymetric variability and gradient. This collective work underlines the importance of data sharing to deepen our knowledge on marine fauna at the scale of the whole Mediterranean Sea and encourages greater efforts in the networking process, also to accomplish the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, with particular reference to Descriptor 1: biological diversity is maintained.

Digitization of the Makassar City Creative Economy Sub-Sector Based on GIS

This research was conducted to compile a mapping of the creative economy sub-sector in Makassar City. Research approach with qualitative-descriptive methods. The spatial data obtained were analyzed using the ArcGIS 10.5 application and produced spatial and non-spatial data. There are 261 business actors in 15 sub-districts in Makassar City who have spatial and non-spatial data. This study concludes that parekraf sub-sector activities are spread evenly in the Makassar City area and there are 3 (three) leading sub-sectors including culinary business as much as 31%, fashion as much as 17% and crafts as much as 10% . The results of this research are expected to facilitate the government in making policies related to the development of the creative economy in realizing Makassar as a world city. Apart from that, it is easy for the community to search for the Makassar City parekraf through and know the location of the location because it is supported by the display of the Makassar City parekraf distribution map. Future research is expected to be able to develop modeling of the Makassar City Parekraf subsector with a webgis platform that is connected to the hotel industry, restaurants and tourist villages in the Maminasata Region as the main requirement for a metropolitan city.

Asset Monitoring of Water Meters Using Integration of GIS and Low-Cost GNSS

The high growth rate of the City of Surabaya increases the use of clean water services. The Regional Drinking Water Company (PDAM) of Surya Sembada, as the main provider of clean water in the city of Surabaya and its surroundings needs to carry out optimal asset management to maintain the expected level of service. In this study, an analysis of the condition of PDAM Surabaya’s assets will be carried out on a WebGIS platform that is connected to a database for optimal and sustainable PDAM water meter asset management. Location, water consumption history, and condition data of water meter assets from January to April 2022 are recorded using an Android-based GIS application that is connected to low-cost GNSS. The data recorded in the android application is integrated with WebGIS in real time for accurate positioning and cost-effective asset monitoring. Analysis of asset conditions will be carried out in the form of risk analysis to determine the risk of an asset in each service zone. The resulting data shows that zone 102, 104 and 105 was categorized as a very high risk zone for meter failure. This means, that there are a higher probability of a meter failure incident within that subzones

A WebGIS platform for managing the seismic risk at regional scale: the case study of the Emilia-Romagna Region

The Emilia-Romagna Authority commissioned Eucentre to carry out a regional scale seismic assessment of residential buildings and to update spectrum- and seismic- compatible natural accelerograms for the ground response estimation in the microzonation studies of level III. The results of these studies are available in a specially developed WebGIS platform that is accessible according to two different roles: the technicians of the regional Authority and the practitioners. While the former can benefit from all the platform functionalities, the latter can only download the accelerograms to be used in technical activities such as seismic microzonation. The platform shows on a regional scale map: (i) the seismic hazard, on outcropping bedrock or with ground amplification; (ii) the exposure in terms of number of buildings, dwellings, and population; and (iii) the fragility curves, specifically calibrated for the Emilia-Romagna exposed asset. Furthermore, the platform provides tables and maps with the seismic risk of the building stock calculated for predetermined time windows and return periods, according to the level of the seismic hazard specified by the Italian Building Code.

UAVs and GIS: An Innovative System for Monitoring Structures

In the last years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) – systems have become relevant for multiple purposes in different fields of study. The purpose of this work is presenting an innovative experimental system for the assessment of the structural conditions of buildings and infrastructures through continuous monitoring stations based on the use of UAVs. This allows the automation in the monitoring of artifacts that present structural criticalities. The system consists in the acquisition, processing, and selection of images from a group of drones flying from wireless charging stations, whose data are then transmitted to a cloud platform which identifies defects and transmits them to an online Web-GIS platform. This will be the tool for viewing all elements that need maintenance. In addition to the improvement in the automation of data processing and in the precision of their selection, we will analyze an experimental procedure that uses different algorithms for damage detection.

Web Mapping on Land Cover Change of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur District

Land cover change is rapidly following path of environmental degradation, imbalance on ecosystem. Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur district has experienced a very high trend of urbanization and land use land cover change. Mapping this trend is absolutely necessary for sustainable development as well as conservation of the ecosystem. While there are desktop applications for making this mapping and analysis possible, upgrading to the web is the best possible way in order to interact with public as well as much easier way of data visualization, data analysis and data dissemination. This paper portrays the design and implementation process along with the visualization of a WebGIS platform via thin client architecture. A dynamic web map portal has been developed concerning the land cover change of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur district. Among the several Free Open Source server software, OpenGeo Suite has been adopted for the project because it has a robust and flexible design that allows us to reliably handle and publish geospatial data. PostgreSQL/PostGIS, QGIS, Geoserver, Leaflet, and Apache Tomcat has been utilized as the web server in this suite. A fully functional website has been developed in order to host the maps and its components. WMS layers has also been published using Geoserver and styled as can be displayed on the web map portal. Leaflet plugins has been used with the help of which different tools like Zoom, Pan, Full Screen View and Distance Calculator are made available on the portal.

3D DATA INTEGRATION FOR WEB BASED OPEN SOURCE WebGL INTERACTIVE VISUALISATION

Abstract. Recent advances in open-source geospatial technologies in WebGIS allowed the visualization of a 3D complex environment on the web, exploiting realistic Globe reproduction of the real territorial asset. At the same time, in the field of gaming technologies, the new possibilities offered by open-source WebGL JavaScript libraries allowed the creation of Virtual Reality navigation models on the web. The integration between 3D GIS globe navigation models and VR environment navigation is a solution that offers a further level of detail in web navigation, exploiting the capabilities of web browsers in the best way. This research further contributes to this field, showing a workflow to integrate different 3D data in a VR and 3D WebGIS navigation model. The case study for this research is the new building of the University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of Enschede (The Netherlands). This work tests the online integration of variety of 3D input data that can lead to different Levels of Details (LoD) of the buildings inside the Globe-based WebGIS platform. The developed solution works on desktop and mobile devices using the capabilities of the most common web browsers, avoiding any software installation. The result of this work is based on completely open-source solutions that offers the possibility to navigate within a 3D model, which is useful for citizens, governmental or private institutions in decision-making processes. This work represents a first step towards the ambition to generate a web Digital Twin platform to combine datasets from different sources in a unique open-source solution.

Preventing and Managing Risks Induced by Natural Hazards to Critical Infrastructures

A procedure for assessing and monitoring the response of critical infrastructures when subjected to natural hazards is proposed in this paper, with a particular focus on bridges and viaducts, which are very peculiar and strategic assets of transport networks. The proposed procedure is characterized by three levels of analysis (L1–L3) with increasing reliability and complexity. The first level of analysis (L1) is carried out by evaluating a Class of Attention in line with the approach that is proposed by the Italian Guidelines for the safety assessment of bridges. The second level (L2) of analysis requires the definition of a numerical model of the bridge. The third level (L3) of analysis relies on the seismic response data from a seismic monitoring network. For all the three levels of the proposed procedure, data are collected in the CIPCast Decision Support System (CIPCast-DSS), a WebGIS platform developed by ENEA to support the decision-making process related to risk prevention and the management of impacts induced by natural hazards on critical infrastructures. The real-time analysis of the data collected and processed in the CIPcast-DSS in post-disaster circumstances provides a quasi-real-time prediction of the impacted infrastructures, and the extent of damages they could have suffered before a local inspection and analysis could take place. The continuous static and dynamic monitoring in periods without seismic events enables the planning of preventive and effective maintenance interventions.

Editorial: A new EJG section entitled “Geographic Insights in Brief”

We are happy to announce a new European Journal of Geography (EJG) section titled ‘Geographic Insights in brief’. This initiative complements the new approach of EJG publishing (immediate publication of papers after the end of the review process) The short papers in this section will be published as part of each issue of the journal and will be reviewed only by the editorial team, in order to achieve fast dissemination of new and interesting ideas and applications. This section will accept two kinds of papers: First, papers announcing new ideas, breakthroughs and innovations in all Geographical areas that need to be immediately communicate to all geographers. The authors can later proceed to publish a fully developed traditional paper. Second, brief reports focusing on short, clear and pointed geographical research results and data. These shorter and more digestible items will help geographers to get a better understanding about specific spatial dimensions of environmental, social and economic phenomena and interactions that can feed an ongoing policy discussion with just a small amount of original visual analytics and geographical data. That is, present a smart and successive visualization or datasets, such as cartograms, mental maps, web-GIS platforms, real-time geographies and so on. This process provides new opportunities for intellectual communications and benefits for both researchers and practitioners to present new theoretical and empirical findings from new research and/or innovative geospatial applications. This new EJG section follows the trend in contemporary scholarship on geography to provide open access, inclusive and flexible platforms that express new, vibrant and exciting ideas. The requirements for the new series in EJG are: 1. Scope: European topics in human or physical geography, using cartography, GIS, remote sensing, quantitative or qualitative methods. 2. It includes one main idea or one research question, a reproducible method and one single map and up to two extra figures or/and tables. 3. It has an abstract of 100 words, three to six keywords and one or two research highlights. 4. It has a total word limit of around 1.000-2.000 words (including the main text, figures, tables and references). 5. Maps should comply with the usual cartographic and semiotic rules 6. Data and/or Code should be available on currently available repositories (e.g., Figshare, Mendeley data, Github, CRAN, Dataverse etc.) We welcome research contributions in the scientific fields of geography, planning, sociology, regional science, health, history, engineering, informatics, architecture. For any questions, please write to the editorial team (editor@eurogeojournal.eu) to discuss intended submissions.

A Web-GIS hazards information system of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China

The typical earthquake hazards chain includes main shock, surface ruptures, aftershocks, and earthquake-induced landslides, leading to structural damage and casualties. Lots of investigation and research were published. But there is no Web-GIS platform to integrate earthquake hazards chain data and compare relative research results. This paper studies compiling such a hazards chain database and building a cloud-based Web-GIS system of the 2008 earthquake. The system introduced by this paper provides buttons and tools to browse, query and analyze map data. In addition, this system is open to anyone to add data for viewing and comparing in the web map. The result showcases that the cloud-based system runs efficiently and flexibly. The multi-scale and multi-source data can be integrated into a “one-map” system by well-design map services and geodatabase.

WebGIS approach of entity-oriented search to visualize historical and cultural events

Abstract The chronological biography or ‘Nianpu’ is a special style of Chinese historical writing formed by a person’s life events in time order. It provides significant records for the research of historical events. However, from syntactic collation, structural, and semantic aspects, the heterogeneousness of Nianpu materials caused the lack of systematical information collation, which could hinder the research of historical events. The article presents a semantic WebGIS platform based on an entity-oriented search and visualization system to reorganize unstructured information. It delivers: (1) a Chinese historical event database to store and manage Chinese historical information derived from the chronological biography; (2) an ontology to integrate different historical datasets; and (3) a web geographic information system to visualize and analyze information of historical events. This platform achieves the reorganization of historical event information at spatial and temporal levels by the Web. It enables humanities researchers to explore the relationships of historical entities and their evolution visually and interactively. The platform is available at https://nianpu.pkudh.org/.

Dissemination, assessment and management of historic buildings by thematic virtual tours and 3D models

The digitalization of the historical-architectural heritage for virtual reality (VR) applications is crucial within the contemporary scientific and technical debate for several aspects. In fact, beyond the exploration for education and entertainment purposes, the employment of three-dimensional (3D) reality-based and computer-based models and environments seems to be very promising for performance assessment and risk management as well. Particularly, in order to develop and validate smart, low-cost and user-friendly tools, which might apply even in cases of limited time and budget, the present paper is going to propose a methodological workflow based on thematic virtual tours of 360° scenes, which integrate a variety of informative contents and digital products as external hotspots/switches. The VR tours, where 3D models might play a key role for an accurate representation of relevant parts and/or analytical elaboration of further data, are conceived as flexible and scalable solutions, supporting users, technicians and authorities through remote access, diagnosis of the state of conservation and communication of safety measures. The application of the proposed methods and techniques to a representative case study, the Norman-Swabian Castle of Gioia del Colle (Ba), South Italy, is presented in order to illustrate the achievable results and highlight the benefit of innovative “digital” solutions for data collection, storage and communication, compared to the traditional “analogical” practices. In detail, a Web-GIS platform, developed within a previous research project, is integrated with direct links to three thematic virtual tours that provide added contents for inclusive dissemination (timeline schemes, aerial views, 3D sculptural and architectural details), performance assessment (diagnostic reports, decay maps, 3D reconstructions of technical components) and risk management (exit signs, help instructions, warnings). Thus, the VR tours, while documenting realistically the state of the site, might act as host environments of digital products, at increasing complexity, all displayed according to an intuitive and accessible communication approach.Highlights:• Virtual tours of 360° scenes, linking thematic digital contents, are proposed as intuitive and versatile tools for smart documentation, conservation and protection of historical buildings.• The role of 3D reality-based and computer-based models is discussed toward their integration and correlation within thematic virtual tours of 360° scenes.• The potential of immersive environments for sharing knowledge about conservation issues and training users on safety measures in historic buildings is underlined.

Climate web GIS platform for research of climate processes and responses to them: Potential and prospects

Climate web GIS platform for research of climate processes and responses to them: Potential and prospects

ABYSSAL Database: an integrated WebGIS platform for deep-sea information from the South Atlantic

South Atlantic deep waters provide a huge diversity of habitats, with variations in areas such as geology, macrofauna, microbiology, physics, and chemistry. However, most of the data lacks central organization, important for subsequent deep-sea research, especially considering the multidisciplinary approaches and comparisons of the South Atlantic with other oceanic basins. Given the rising interest in commercial exploration off the deep-sea, especially with respect to hydrocarbon extraction and mining, there is an urgent need for a centralized repository of information with tools to collect and share geospatial data to support the conservation of this important oceanographic region. The main objective of this manuscript is to present an integrative database in WebGIS format for South Atlantic deep waters, open to further development in terms of data input, reliant on researcher collaboration, and with tools for ongoing maintenance and usability improvement driven by user feedback. The WebGIS format provides an open access, cost-free, feature-rich, and easy to use database through any Internet browser to reach the greatest number of researchers and students possible. The ABYSSAL database can be accessed at http://abyssal.io.usp.br.

A Cooperation Project in Lesotho: Renewable Energy Potential Maps Embedded in a WebGIS Tool

In this paper the background, activities undertaken, and main outcomes of the cooperation project “Renewable Energy Potential Maps for Lesotho” are presented. The project was launched in 2018 in fulfilment of the Paris Agreement by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Lesotho Ministry of Energy and Meteorology, with the aim to facilitate the local Government in the future planning and development of renewable energy in the country. A user-oriented WebGIS platform was utilised to share and analyse the outcomes of the project: a hydrological map to recognize potential areas for power generation; a wind atlas to identify specific sites with the most potential for wind energy generation; a solar radiation map, defining the different levels of radiation intensity, useful to localise sites for photovoltaic production. Human capacity building and technology transfer were carried out to strengthen the local expertise and ability to manage and plan renewable energy sources exploitation. The implementation of the project was based on a fruitful collaboration between scientists and stakeholders at the same time giving the local authorities a useful dataset and tool for renewable energy growth in Lesotho.

THE ROLE OF OPEN-SOURCE PYTHON PACKAGE GEOSERVER-REST IN WEB-GIS DEVELOPMENT

Abstract. This work describes geoserver-rest, an open-source python package that can manage the geospatial data in a geoserver which is helpful for uploading, editing, and deleting the raster/vector layers from various sources. It is also useful for generating the style/legend from the uploaded geospatial data. Thus, generated legend can be used for visualization of maps in the web-GIS platform. The package is successfully used to build the web-GIS portal for agricultural datasets of Afghanistan, which has around 6000 map layers. The main benefit that geoserver-rest provides to this project is the ability to upload the data to the geoserver and create the styles file dynamically. Thus, created style file are directly linked to the corresponding layer and provide the Web Mapping Service (WMS) standard and visualize in an interactive way.

ULIN-D: WEB-BASED GIS SUPPORTING NEW HABITS IN THE TOURISM SECTOR IN BANDUNG CITY

Abstract. Indonesia is one of the countries that has enormous tourism potential where this sector has contributed a total of 229.5 trillion for the country's foreign exchange. However, in the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses in the tourism sector have to stop temporarily and result in economic pressure which directly impacts the acceleration of the economic recession in Indonesia. One of the solutions to reduce the impact of economic pressure while reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the tourism sector is the application of health protocols that are directly applied in tourist attractions. To do this a variety of careful preparations are needed. In this case, geospatial information technology can help the community, government, and tourism business managers in implementing health protocols in tourist attractions. Seeing the urgency of implementing health protocols in the tourism sector, we developed the ULIN-D product as a WebGIS platform that is able to visualize, plan, and evaluate the condition of health protocol facilities in various tourist locations. Some of ULIN-D's strategic functions are its ability to provide recommended visitor capacity, display the number of visitors in real-time, and display the number of hand-washing places at tourist attractions based on the profile characteristics of each tourist location. The method used in this research is the combination of various kinds of spatial data and non-spatial data in a dynamic and integrated platform. Tourism location profile information is analyzed in detail to obtain accurate scenario results in establishing a standard health protocol. ULIN-D is expected to be a solution and a reference for how geospatial technology can help improve the quality of policies in the tourism sector for the continuation of the new habits adaption.