Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Nowadays spatial processing on the web is becoming a requirement for more and more
web applications. The use of processes helps to find solutions to a wide range of spatial
problems and extends the common functionality of Web GIS. There are many open
source technologies that can be implemented in each component of a Web GIS
application. Forestry and environmental problems, with their strong territorial
implications, are especially suitable to be analyzed applying these technologies.
In order to create an application with spatial processes, we propose a framework with a
layered service-based architecture. It is layered because its structure is divided in a set
of functional layers: the user layer (geoportal or client), the service layer (inside the
server) and the data layer (spatial database). The access and processing of spatial data is
accomplished through adequate service standards of OGC (Open Geospatial
Consortium): Web Map Services (WMS), Web Feature Services (WFS), Web Coverage
Services (WCS) and Web Processing Services (WPS).
We implement a complete forestry – related application from scratch that offers access,
visualization, querying and processing of spatial data and an active user interaction. The
key of the application is WPS. Additionally, other processing solutions (like making
queries with the spatial database) are discussed.
In brief, this work presents an overview of the current technology and possible solutions
for integrating spatial processes on the web and proposes some guidelines to implement
them in a fully working system
