A tool for monitoring and forecasting Available WAter REsource in mountain environment

Informazioni relative al progetto

AWARE

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 12257

Progetto chiuso

Data di avvio 1 Luglio 2005

Data di completamento 30 Giugno 2008

Finanziato da

• Aeronautics and Space: thematic priority 4 under the Focusing and Integrating Community Research programme 2002-2006.

Costo totale € 1 704 900,00

Contributo UE € 1 292 750,00

Coordinato da

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Exploitable results

Managing Earth observation data with distributed geoprocessing services

AWARE has been motivated by the urgent need to predict medium-term flows from snowmelt for an effective and sustainable water resources management. The innovations proposed by the project regard the development of an on-line tool to make runoff models accessible on the web sharing them with interested users by offering the possibility to run hydrological models, by means of specifically designed geo-services capable to select, discover and harmonize ground and EO data needed for the purpose. The AWARE application is a distributed, web-based information system that allows access to and execution of hydrological models through a set of integrated components such as user interfaces, web data processing services, databases, problem-solving wizards, and online help to guide users through model calibrations on new catchments. The approach for the implementation of the AWARE application involved the following steps: - Collection of functional requirements in order to understand properly the characteristics and data needs of the environmental models supported by the AWARE application. - Design of a conceptual architecture to support the functional requirements in terms of abstract layers, components and their relationships. - A study of the state of the art in current open source components and technologies in the topics related to the AWARE project, in order to avoid effort duplication in terms of implementation and maximise as much as possible software reuse. - Bottom-up implementation approach of components, services, user interfaces and other software components needed to support the requirements of the SRM model. - Bottom-up implementation approach of components, services, user interfaces and other software components needed to support the requirements of the HBV model. - Integration of the independent software components in order to assemble a coherent application to support environmental models. Isolated, distributed components are put together forming workflows that respond to complex tasks in the environmental models. - Creation of a web geoportal to provide online access to the various components. - Testing and demonstration, among AWARE partners and in international conferences and seminars. The AWARE application includes several existing open source components and various technologies depending on the abstract layer where the AWARE components are placed. The server and middleware sides integrate technologies such as Java 1.5.0.12, Apache HTTP Server 2.4, Apache Tomcat 5.5, JK Connector 1.2.25, Apache Struts 1.2.7, 52N WPS Implementation 0.4.0, Database MySQL 5.0.45, GeoTools 2.3.1, JFreeChart 1.0.5, Minnesota Web Map Service, Geonetwork, IDL-Java. Multiple technologies have been interrelated (mashed-up) to compose the user interface of the AWARE application. First we have used server-side technologies (e.g. JSP) for retrieving information and generating content dynamically for HTML forms. A JSP page normally combines static and dynamic information by using a set of JSP tag libraries that allow developers to access to the application model. These technologies are closely related with the service and data integration components in the middleware layer. For data visualisation, we have used the Google Maps API 2.x for building the user interface part of the mapping mashup in our Geoportal. Client-side technologies such as XML, XSLT, JavaScript and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) have been also used in the AWARE Application for enabling user interaction, as well as other technologies focused on the specification of data and visual encodings for data input to mapping mashups (e.g. KML, GML). Application architecture The AWARE application architecture adapts the principles exposed in the EU framework directive (Inspire) technical architecture (http://inspire.jrc.it/), in order to establish an open and interoperable architecture based on standard interfaces and reusable components and services. According to Inspire all service instances are interfaced by specifying functional service descriptions in a standardised manner (service metadata, as part of the INSPIRE metadata), allowing users and software applications to discover specific service instances by querying catalogue services in the context of SDIs, in order to invoke them typically through a Geoportal. In the AWARE application we have developed and deployed a service network taking into account this requirement by which available services are grouped according to the Inspire service types or categories: - Discovery Services allow searching for spatial data sets and services on the basis of the content of the corresponding metadata and to display the resulting spatial data and services' metadata. - View Services make it possible, at a minimum, to display, navigate, zoom in and out, pan or overlay viewable spatial data sets and to display legend information and any relevant content of metadata. - Download Services enable copies of spatial data sets, or parts of such sets, to be downloaded and accessed directly. - Transformation Services enable spatial data sets to be transformed with a view to achieving interoperability. - Invoke Spatial Service Services which are those services that allow geospatial services to be invoked. Results The results obtained in the AWARE project in terms of software tools are mainly two: first, a set of distributed geoprocessing services available outside (independent of) the AWARE application context, which performs general-purpose and thematic functionalities. These services may be reused in other applications and contexts. Second, the AWARE application itself, a web-based application composed of many components such as the Geoportal, middleware components, user interfaces, databases, and services interrelated with each other in order to support and interact with the environmental models proposed in the AWARE project. AWARE application for environmental models The AWARE application integrates and combines a wide variety of services by means of software components located at the 'presentation' and 'horizontal service' layers. The 'presentation layer' provides the entry point (user interfaces, map viewer, etc.) for users and decision-makers to access the data and services provided by the AWARE application. The 'horizontal service layer' enables the communication between the service and the presentation layers. Accessing transparently to service instances from the user interface implies mainly the integration of heterogeneous services and data in order to provide proper results in response to user requests. These components integrate, compose, instantiate, and invoke services instances in the service layer. To conclude, the AWARE application guides expert users in running hydrological models by executing remotely a set of distributed geospatial services. The layered AWARE architecture adapts the principles exposed in the Inspire technical architecture, in order to establish an open and interoperable architecture based on standard interfaces and reusable components. The AWARE services are also implemented according to standard interfaces in order to ensure service interoperability and reuse. The AWARE application offers the capability to AWARE users, on one hand, of discovering data and services and, on the other hand, accessing and invoking discovery, view, download, transformation and processing services to successfully interact with environmental models to support decision making.