Resolving uncertainty in Geographical Information Systems
The Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) arm of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme funds projects that push the technology envelope. The FET project REV!GIS aimed to overcome well-known problems with incomplete or indeterminate data in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Specialists with the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) in the Netherlands took on this challenge in the framework of a coastal management case study. The beaches and dunes on the Dutch coast are constantly changing under the influence of varying winds, weather and tides. Erosion has negative impacts on the local ecosystem and economy, so money is invested in reversing erosion by beach nourishment. Faced with large areas of coastline to manage, authorities turn to GIS-based decision support systems. The work performed by ITC involved developing the requisite ontology for the coastal system describing its composite elements and their relationships. The approach implemented was designed to enhance information sharing among the various organisations contributing data. The result is that coastal managers can more easily identify eroded areas and subsequently optimise the remediative nourishment program. The system incorporates spatial, biological and climatological data. The level of detail in the data is scale dependent. The system was successfully tested on one of the Wadden Islands in the North Sea. The approach devised by ICT can also be applied to other, similarly complex environmental challenges.
