Paper No. 2
Presentation Time: 9:15 AM
MULTI-SCALE HYDROLOGIC APPLICATIONS USING A WEB-BASED GIS SERVER AND CUSTOM GEOPROCESSING TOOLS
One of the most pressing issues of the 21st century is the development of fresh water resources, especially in areas with limited supplies and rising populations. Unfortunately, many data sets needed for assessment of hydrologic applications across vast regions of the world are expensive, unpublished, difficult to obtain, or at varying scales which complicates their use. The development of new scientific data sets and the accumulation of extensive temporal measurements has opened new research opportunities and at the same time posed new challenges for scientists attempting to retrieve, assimilate, and analyze these large data sets. GIS provides a cost effective vehicle for comparing, analyzing, and querying a variety of spatial datasets as geographically referenced layers. We have recently constructed a web-based GIS Server with Google Map’s interface and developed custom geoprocessing tools to host and analyze a large suite of relevant geological, geochemical, geophysical, and remote sensing data sets. The data has been used extensively to address a wide range of hydrologic, environmental, and geologic problems in arid environments World-wide. Users of the GIS (http://www.esrs.wmich.edu/webmap/) have access to standard web based GIS tools (e.g. pan, zoom, identify, search, and data querying), imported custom desk top tools (e.g., buffer, transparency), and in house modules. The web-based GIS data and tools enable the following tasks: (1) identify reservoir types and potential well locations on local and regional scales in various tectonic settings including: (a) extensional environment (Red Sea rift), (b) transcurrent fault system (Najd Fault in the Arabian-Nubian Shield), and (c) compressional environments (Himalayas); (2) on-demand processing of satellite rainfall (TRMM) to detect spatial and temporal trends in precipitation, recharge, and runoff in large watersheds on local, and regional scales; and (3) evaluate temporal and spatial mass variations on regional and continental scales over Africa’s watersheds and aquifers using GRACE data. The custom on-demand geoprocessing tools (e.g., graph, statistics, RESDEM) along with Google Map’s Geoeye 2 images provide users the ability to create custom derivative maps in the field/desktop and enable users to view these products on the web.