Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Moving Object Trajectories Meta-Model And Spatio-Temporal Queries

In this paper, a general moving object trajectories framework is put forward to allow independent applications processing trajectories data benefit from a high level of interoperability, information sharing as well as an efficient answer for a wide range of complex trajectory queries. Our proposed meta-model is based on ontology and event approach, incorporates existing presentations of trajectory and integrates new patterns like space-time path to describe activities in geographical space-time. We introduce recursive Region of Interest concepts and deal mobile objects trajectories with diverse spatio-temporal sampling protocols and different sensors available that traditional data model alone are incapable for this purpose.Comment: International Journal of Database Management Systems (IJDMS) Vol.4, No.2, April 201

Geospatial web services pave new ways for server-based on-demand access and processing of Big Earth Data

Big Earth Data has experienced a considerable increase in volume in recent years due to improved sensing technologies and improvement of numerical-weather prediction models. The traditional geospatial data analysis workflow hinders the use of large volumes of geospatial data due to limited disc space and computing capacity. Geospatial web service technologies bring new opportunities to access large volumes of Big Earth Data via the Internet and to process them at server-side. Four practical examples are presented from the marine, climate, planetary and earth observation science communities to show how the standard interface Web Coverage Service and its processing extension can be integrated into the traditional geospatial data workflow.Web service technologies offer a time- and cost-effective way to access multi-dimensional data in a user-tailored format and allow for rapid application development or time-series extraction. Data transport is minimised and enhanced processing capabilities are offered. More research is required to investigate web service implementations in an operational mode and large data centres have to become more progressive towards the adoption of geo-data standard interfaces. At the same time, data users have to become aware of the advantages of web services and be trained how to benefit from them most