ITR/IM: Enabling the Creation and Use of GeoGrids for Next Generation Geospatial Information

The objective of this project is to advance science in information management, focusing in particular on geospatial information. It addresses the development of concepts, algorithms, and system architectures to enable users on a grid to query, analyze, and contribute to multivariate, quality-aware geospatial information. The approach consists of three complementary research areas: (1) establishing a statistical framework for assessing geospatial data quality; (2) developing uncertainty-based query processing capabilities; and (3) supporting the development of space- and accuracy-aware adaptive systems for geospatial datasets. The results of this project will support the extension of the concept of the computational grid to facilitate ubiquitous access, interaction, and contributions of quality-aware next generation geospatial information. By developing novel query processes as well as quality and similarity metrics the project aims to enable the integration and use of large collections of disperse information of varying quality and accuracy. This supports the evolution of a novel geocomputational paradigm, moving away from current standards-driven approaches to an inclusive, adaptive system, with example potential applications in mobile computing, bioinformatics, and geographic information systems. This experimental research is linked to educational activities in three different academic programs among the three participating sites. The outreach activities of this project include collaboration with U.S. federal agencies involved in geospatial data collection, an international partner (Brazil\u27s National Institute for Space Research), and the organization of a 2-day workshop with the participation of U.S. and international experts

GHS-POP2G User Guide

The Population To Grid tool (GHS-POP2G) –version 3- is an information system developed in the framework of the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) to produce geospatial raster grids of population counts at different spatial resolutions. The GHS-POP2G v3 is a flexible tool to produce geospatial population grids in GeoTIFF format from census data. The tool operationalises the workflow developed for the production of the Global Human Settlement Layer Population Grid layers (GHS-POP). The GHS-POP2G v3 tool allows the creation of population grids at 50 m, 100 m, 250 m, and 1 km spatial resolutions, handling census data stored as point and/or polygon vector data (in latter case requires additional covariate as input for dasymetric disaggregation). The principal purpose of the tool is the production of the population grid used as input for the Degree of Urbanisation Grid (GHS-DUG) also produced in the GHSL framework. However the potential uses of the tool and population grids go far beyond this main application. The tool is a capacity enhancement asset in the framework of the multi-stakeholder effort for the uptake of the Degree of Urbanisation, the people-based harmonised definition of cities and settlements recommended by the 51st Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission as the method to delineate cities and rural areas for international statistical comparison. The GHS-POP2G, as all GHSL tools, is issued with an end-user licence agreement, included in the download package.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen

Supporting security-oriented, inter-disciplinary research: crossing the social, clinical and geospatial domains

How many people have had a chronic disease for longer than 5-years in Scotland? How has this impacted upon their choices of employment? Are there any geographical clusters in Scotland where a high-incidence of patients with such long-term illness can be found? How does the life expectancy of such individuals compare with the national averages? Such questions are important to understand the health of nations and the best ways in which health care should be delivered and measured for their impact and success. In tackling such research questions, e-Infrastructures need to provide tailored, secure access to an extensible range of distributed resources including primary and secondary e-Health clinical data; social science data, and geospatial data sets amongst numerous others. In this paper we describe the security models underlying these e-Infrastructures and demonstrate their implementation in supporting secure, federated access to a variety of distributed and heterogeneous data sets exploiting the results of a variety of projects at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow

GHS-POPWARP User Guide

Changing the coordinate system of grids storing population counts is typically a challenging task, due to the need to keep the population totals unchanged (i.e. volume preservation). The Population Warp tool (GHS-POPWARP), version 1, is an information system developed in the framework of the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project to convert geospatial raster grids of population counts between different map projections and/or resolutions, while preserving population volumes. The GHS-POPWARP v1 is a flexible tool to produce geospatial population counts grids in GeoTIFF format starting from another grid in a different coordinate system and/or resolution. The tool operationalises a stable and rigorous workflow long used in the Global Human Settlement Layer to handle gridded population data. The GHS-POPWARP v1 tool allows the creation of population counts grids via a sequence of oversampling, structure conversion and reprojection geospatial procedures. The principal purpose of the tool is to expand the interoperability of GHSL tools which require population grid data as input (e.g. GHS-DUG that strictly requires a kilometric population grid in equal area projection) or to simplify the warping of population grids for users less familiar with geospatial processing. The tool is offered as a contribution to capacity enhancement in the framework of the multi-stakeholder effort for the uptake of the Degree of Urbanisation (DEGURBA) classification method. Degree of Urbanisation refers to the people-based harmonised definition of cities and settlements recommended by the 51st Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission as the methodology to delineate cities and rural areas for international statistical comparison. The GHS-POPWARP, as all GHSL tools, is issued with an end-user licence agreement, included in the download package.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen

Geospatial Data Management Research: Progress and Future Directions

Without geospatial data management, today´s challenges in big data applications such as earth observation, geographic information system/building information modeling (GIS/BIM) integration, and 3D/4D city planning cannot be solved. Furthermore, geospatial data management plays a connecting role between data acquisition, data modelling, data visualization, and data analysis. It enables the continuous availability of geospatial data and the replicability of geospatial data analysis. In the first part of this article, five milestones of geospatial data management research are presented that were achieved during the last decade. The first one reflects advancements in BIM/GIS integration at data, process, and application levels. The second milestone presents theoretical progress by introducing topology as a key concept of geospatial data management. In the third milestone, 3D/4D geospatial data management is described as a key concept for city modelling, including subsurface models. Progress in modelling and visualization of massive geospatial features on web platforms is the fourth milestone which includes discrete global grid systems as an alternative geospatial reference framework. The intensive use of geosensor data sources is the fifth milestone which opens the way to parallel data storage platforms supporting data analysis on geosensors. In the second part of this article, five future directions of geospatial data management research are presented that have the potential to become key research fields of geospatial data management in the next decade. Geo-data science will have the task to extract knowledge from unstructured and structured geospatial data and to bridge the gap between modern information technology concepts and the geo-related sciences. Topology is presented as a powerful and general concept to analyze GIS and BIM data structures and spatial relations that will be of great importance in emerging applications such as smart cities and digital twins. Data-streaming libraries and “in-situ” geo-computing on objects executed directly on the sensors will revolutionize geo-information science and bridge geo-computing with geospatial data management. Advanced geospatial data visualization on web platforms will enable the representation of dynamically changing geospatial features or moving objects’ trajectories. Finally, geospatial data management will support big geospatial data analysis, and graph databases are expected to experience a revival on top of parallel and distributed data stores supporting big geospatial data analysis

GHS-POPWARP User Guide

Changing the coordinate system of grids storing population counts is typically a challenging task, due to the need to keep the population totals unchanged (i.e. volume preservation). The Population Warp tool (GHS-POPWARP) version 3, is an information system developed in the framework of the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project to convert geospatial raster grids of population counts between different map projections and/or spatial resolutions, while preserving population volumes. The GHS-POPWARP v3 is a flexible tool to produce geospatial population counts grids in GeoTIFF format starting from another grid in a different coordinate system and/or resolution (i.e. cell size). The principal purpose of the tool is to expand the interoperability of GHSL tools which require population grid data as input or to simplify the warping of population grids for users less familiar with geospatial processing. The tool is offered as a contribution to capacity enhancement in the framework of the multi-stakeholder effort for the uptake of the Degree of Urbanisation (DEGURBA) classification method. Degree of Urbanisation refers to the people-based harmonised definition of cities and settlements recommended by the 51st Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission as the methodology to delineate cities and rural areas for international statistical comparison. The GHS-POPWARP, as all GHSL tools, is issued with an end-user licence agreement, included in the download package.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen

Tool support for security-oriented virtual research collaborations

Collaboration is at the heart of e-Science and e-Research more generally. Successful collaborations must address both the needs of the end user researchers and the providers that make resources available. Usability and security are two fundamental requirements that are demanded by many collaborations and both concerns must be considered from both the researcher and resource provider perspective. In this paper we outline tools and methods developed at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) that provide users with seamless, secure access to distributed resources through security-oriented research environments, whilst also allowing resource providers to define and enforce their own local access and usage policies through intuitive user interfaces. We describe these tools and illustrate their application in the ESRC-funded Data Management through e-Social Science (DAMES) and the JISC-funded SeeGEO projects