Web-based GIS technologies for monitoring and analysis of spatio-temporal processes

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe two Web-based technologies of geographic information systems (GIS) to be used in monitoring and analysis of environmental processes, proposed by the authors. The technologies analyze the temporal aspect of the process together with the spatial aspect, which defers them from most other works on environmental processes, as these are usually limited either to spatial statistics or to temporal statistics. The approach is instrumental in dynamically finding the relationships between the processes and predicting critical incidents.

Design/methodology/approach

Often, the study of natural processes is limited to the analysis of their spatial properties presented by individual time series. The principal idea of this approach consists in supplementing this traditional analysis with the analysis of time fields. In this way, the authors are able to analyze temporal and spatial properties of environmental processes together.

Findings

The paper presents two technologies which provide the analysis of spatial and temporal data obtained in natural environment monitoring. The discussed spatio-temporal data mining methods are shown to enable the research into environmental processes, and the solution of practical issues of critical situation forecasts.

Originality/value

The paper discussed Web-based GIS technologies for the analysis of the temporal aspect of the environmental process together with the spatial aspect. Application examples demonstrate the ability of this approach to find the relationships in dynamics of the processes and to predict critical incidents.

Citation

Gitis, V., Derendyaev, A. and Weinstock, A. (2016), "Web-based GIS technologies for monitoring and analysis of spatio-temporal processes", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 102-124. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWIS-10-2015-0032