The GPlates Geological Information Model and Markup Language

Understanding tectonic and geodynamic processes leading to the present-day configuration of the Earth involves studying data and models across a variety of disciplines, from geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics, to plate kinematics and mantle dynamics. All these data represent a 3-D spatial and 1-D temporal framework, a formalism which is not exploited by traditional spatial analysis tools. This is arguably a fundamental limit in both the rigour and sophistication in which datasets can be combined for geological deep time analysis, and often confines the extent of data analyses to the present-day configurations of geological objects. The GPlates Geological Information Model (GPGIM) represents a formal specification of geological and geophysical data in a time-varying plate tectonics context, used by the GPlates virtual-globe software. It provides a framework in which relevant types of geological data are attached to a common plate tectonic reference frame, allowing the data to be reconstructed in a time-dependent spatio-temporal plate reference frame. The GPlates Markup Language (GPML), being an extension of the open standard Geography Markup Language (GML), is both the modelling language for the GPGIM and an XML-based data format for the interoperable storage and exchange of data modelled by it. The GPlates software implements the GPGIM allowing researchers to query, visualise, reconstruct and analyse a rich set of geological data including numerical raster data. The GPGIM has recently been extended to support time-dependent geo-referenced numerical raster data by wrapping GML primitives into the time-dependent framework of the GPGIM. Coupled with GPlates' ability to reconstruct numerical raster data and import/export from/to a variety of raster file formats, as well as its handling of time-dependent plate boundary topologies, interoperability with geodynamic softwares is established, leading to a new generation of deep-time spatio-temporal data analysis and modelling, including a variety of new functionalities, such as 4-D data-mining

Linked Data and Spatial Data Infrastructures

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) such as AuScope Grid and INSPIRE are being planned and built using discovery, access and processing components based on a services model. While the principle of distribution and delegation using the internet is a major step forward from traditional data warehouses and private collections, the query-oriented interaction paradigm is merely evolutionary, compared with traditional access systems designed for expert users. In contrast, the success and scalability of the world wide web has been based on hypertext, in which browsing is the key mode of interaction, supported by Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs). Linked Data has been proposed as the bridge from the browseable web to the deep web of technical data. Linked Data is still based on web-pages (usually HTML) for user interactions, but supported by Resource Description Framework (RDF) for richer link semantics. Links can resolve to datasets in legacy file formats which thus serve as leaf-nodes, but can also be part of the web of resources. Key standards used in SDI were designed on Linked Data principles, even before the name was coined. For instance, Geography Markup Language (GML) is essentially an RDF/XML application. Thus, in principle, SDIs should integrate seamlessly into the web of linked data. There are, however, a number of issues to consider or resolve in order to bring this about. These include: the definition of 'resource' in the context of databases that are accessed as projected subsets by query, accessed through web-service interfaces; multiple representations of the same feature from different services to support different applications; semantics embedded in structured representations expressed in non-RDF XML forms; standard vocabulary and identifier services.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat

An ontology of the physical geography of Portugal

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Geográfica e Geoinformática (Sistemas de Informação Geográfica), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009Com o advento da Web Semântica é cada vez mais premente desenvolver novas formas de partilha de conhecimento que melhorem a interoperabilidade entre sistemas de informação geográfica (SIG). A modelação e representação do conhecimento geográfico sob a forma ontológica é uma das novas possibilidades. Esta dissertação estende uma representação ontológica, de acesso livre da geográfica de Portugal, a Geo-Net-PT01, acrescentando-lhe, aos já caracterizados domínios da geografia humana e da web portuguesa, o domínio da geográfica física. Para tal, foi incorporado no meta-modelo de informação pré-existente suporte para exprimir informação geográfica geo-referenciada numericamente. Desenvolveu-se uma metodologia para produção de modelos ontológicos incorporando o conhecimento do domínio da geografia física recorrendo ás fontes de produção de informação geográfica existentes. Esta metodologia foi utilizada na produção de uma nova versão da ontologia geográfica de Portugal, a Geo-Net-PT02, que agora incorpora dados sobre mais cerca de 24.000 entidades geo-referenciadas do território português.The advent of the Semantic Web raised the need for development of new methodologies for information sharing that improve interoperability among geographic information systems (GIS). The modeling and representation of geographic knowledge in the ontologic form is one of the new possibilities. This dissertation extends an open source representation of the geography of Portugal, Geo-Net-PT01, adding to the previously characterised domains of the human geography and the Portuguese Web, the domain of physical geography. To that purpose, the existing information meta-model was extended with support for expressing geo-referenced information in numeric form. A method for production of ontologic models incorporating the knowledge from physical geography from existing geographic information producers. This methodology was used in the production of a new version of the geographic ontology of Portugal, Geo-Net-PT02, which now incorporates data on over 24,000 geo-referenced entities in the Portuguese territory

TRANSFORMING GEOLOGICAL AND LANDISLIDE SUSCEPTIBILITY MAPPING DATA TO LINKED (OPEN) DATA FOR HAZARD MANAGEMENT

Η έλλειψη ενημέρωσης για τους πληθυσμούς που είναι εκτεθειμένοι σε κατολισθητικούς κινδύνους είναι μια κοινωνικο-οικονομική συνιστώσα της τρωτότητας του κοινωνικού ιστού και μπορεί να αυξήσει τον κίνδυνο απώλειας ζωών και υποδομών. Οι χρήστες αυτών των πληροφοριών χρειάζονται πολλά δεδομένα από κατολισθητικές περιοχές έτσι ώστε να καταστήσουν τις υπάρχουσες υποδομές πιο ανθεκτικές σε πιθανό καταστροφικό συμβάν. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, οι ιδιωτικοί και δημόσιοι οργανισμοί θα έχουν πχ τη δυνατότητα να επιλέξουν μεταξύ διαφορετικών χρήσεων γης για να ελαχιστοποιηθεί ο κίνδυνος υπαρχόντων υποδομών ή για τη μείωση του ίδιου του κινδύνου (μέσω μέτρων άμβλυνσης του). Από την άλλη πλευρά, οι χωροτάκτες μπορούν να πάρουν πιο ρεαλιστικές αποφάσεις πριν να προγραμματίσουν νέες υποδομές, σε 1684 περιοχές με υψηλό κατολισθητικό κίνδυνο. Έχουμε εφαρμόσει νέα εργαλεία για να αναπτύξουμε υπηρεσίες που είναι διαθέσιμες σε κάθε ενδιαφερόμενο, για τον εντοπισμό περιοχών επιδεκτικών σε κατολισθήσεις και που βασίζονται σε διαδικτυακές υπηρεσίες προκειμένου να παράσχουμε στους ενδιαφερόμενους φορείς πολύτιμες πληροφορίες σχετικά με την παλιότερη κατανομή των κατολισθήσεων σε μια περιοχή, τον τύπο των πετρωμάτων, τις βροχοπτώσεις κλπ με σκοπό να διαμορφώσουν πολιτικές χρήσης και να αξιολογήσουν μια επικείμενη κατολίσθηση.The frequent lack of information to populations exposed to landslides is a component of the social vulnerability and can strongly increase the risk on lives and infrastructures. Determining the extent of the landslide hazard requires identifying those areas which could be affected by a damaging landslide. The users need to integrate different landslide data in order to first understand and then possibly become resilient to any potential catastrophic event. More precisely, public and private organizations can choose between different land use options to minimize the risk on the already existing infrastructures or to reduce the hazard itself through mitigation measures. From the other hand, the land use planners can also take best decisions before planning new infrastructures in high risk landslides’ areas. Based on these data we have also implemented new tools, available every day and reusable by anyone interested, to identify land areas susceptible for landslides. The tools are based on cloud web services, especially for the management and presentation of these datasets in order to provide stakeholders with valuable information about past distribution of the landslides, type of bed rock, rainfall etc. in order to focus on land use policies and assess an impending landslide.

Establishing a persistent interoperability test-bed for European geospatial research

The development of standards for geospatial web services has been spearheaded by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) - a group of over 370 private, public and academic organisations (OGC, 1999-2009). The OGC aims to facilitate interoperability between geospatial technologies through education, standards and other initiatives. The OGC Service Architecture, described in the international standard ISO 19119, offers an abstract specification for web services covering data dissemination, processing, portrayal, workflows and other areas. The development of specifications covering each of these categories of web services has led to a significant number of geospatial data and computational services available on the World Wide Web (the Web). A project1 to establish a persistent geospatial interoperability test-bed (PTB) was commissioned in 2007 by the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE), Commission 5 (Networks) of the European Spatial Data Research (EuroSDR) organisation and the OGC

Caracterización de Formatos de Almacenamiento, Transporte y Visualización de Datos Geográficos

Geographic information is characterized by a spatial component and often an additional temporal component. In the last decade the use of that information has increased due to the expansion of technologies that capture it. In particular, earth, ocean and atmosphere sciences, requires analysis of the information that varies in space and time to make decisions. The spatio-temporal data are managed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that define formats for storage, transport and display them. The Open Geospatial Consortium is one of the leading organizations define standards for these formats, but there are also other widely used. Know the different formats available, the component elements and environments and situations for which they were created is of great importance when deciding on one or the other for efficiency and optimization of its use in GIS. Therefore, this article gives a characterization of the relevant formats for storage, transport and display of geographic data: vector, raster and data sets, using pre-conceptual schemes that allow identifying the structural and dynamic relations in any domain of knowledge.La información geográfica se caracteriza por tener una componente espacial y en muchas ocasiones adicionalmente una componente temporal. En la última década el uso de esta información se incrementó debido a la expansión de las tecnologías que la captura. En especial, las ciencias de la tierra, el océano y la atmósfera requieren del análisis de la información que varía en el espacio y en el tiempo para tomar decisiones. Los datos espacio-temporales son gestionados por Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) que definen formatos para el almacenamiento, transporte y visualización de estos. El Open Geospacial Consortium es una de las principales organizaciones que definen estándares para estos formatos, sin embargo, existen otros también ampliamente usados. Conocer los diferentes formatos existentes, los elementos que los componen y los ambientes y situaciones para los que fueron creados es de gran importancia a la hora de decidirse por uno u otro en pro de la eficiencia y optimización de su uso en los SIG. Por lo anterior, este artículo hace una caracterización de los formatos más relevantes para el almacenamiento, transporte y visualización de los datos geográficos: vector, raster y series de datos, mediante esquemas preconceptuales que posibilitan identificar las relaciones estructurales y dinámicas de cualquier dominio del conocimiento

Developing Feature Types and Related Catalogues for the Marine Community - Lessons from the MOTIIVE project.

MOTIIVE (Marine Overlays on Topography for annex II Valuation and Exploitation) is a project funded as a Specific Support Action (SSA) under the European Commission Framework Programme 6 (FP6) Aeronautics and Space Programme. The project started in September 2005 and finished in October 2007. The objective of MOTIIVE was to examine the methodology and cost benefit of using non-proprietary data standards. Specifically it considered the harmonisation requirements between the INSPIRE data component ‘elevation’ (terrestrial, bathymetric and coastal) and INSPIRE marine thematic data for ‘sea regions’, ‘oceanic spatial features’ and ‘coastal zone management areas’. This was examined in context of the requirements for interoperable information systems as required to realise the objectives of GMES for ‘global services’. The work draws particular conclusions on the realisation of Feature Types (ISO 19109) and Feature Type Catalogues (ISO 19110) in this respect. More information on MOTIIVE can be found at www.motiive.net

Interactive topographic web mapping using scalable vector graphics

Large scale topographic maps portray detailed information about the landscape. They are used for a wide variety o f purposes. USGS large scale topographic maps at 1:24,000 have been traditionally distributed in paper form. With the advent of the Internet, these maps can now be distributed electronically. Instead of common raster format presentation, the solution presented here is based on a vector approach. The vector format provides many advantages compared to the use of a raster-based presentation. This research shows that Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a promising technology for delivering high quality interactive topographic maps via the Internet, both in terms o f graphic quality and interactivity. A possible structure for the SVG map document is proposed. Interactive features such as toggling thematic layers on and off, UTM coordinate readout for x, y, and z (elevation) were developed as well. Adding this type of interactivity can help to better extract information from a topographic map. A focus group analysis with the online SVG topographic map shows a high-level of user acceptance