GIS System Design for the Coastal Storms Initiative

Nazila Merati OAR/PMEL & OAR Representative to NOAA Enterprise GIS

Chris Moore – OAR/PMEL

Tiffany C. Vance – NMFS/AFSC

GIS brings together data layers and analysis

GIS is used by scientists, emergency managers and planners to create data products make maps disseminate information in a timely manner

Data that are georeferenced can be put into a GISMunicipalities are increasingly using GIS to store, disseminate and document land use changes, plan for emergencies and display their data

GIS efforts in NOAA

GIS is being used within all NOAA LOs NOAA Enterprise GIS Working GroupEstablished this yearAll NOAA LOs are represented

PMEL and some other OAR Labs are providing data in a GIS format and distributing GIS products to users

GIS gaining acceptance by science community

Science interest AMS IIPS GIS Session in Feb 2003 Significant NCAR atmospheric modeling GIS effort ESRI sponsored Marine Data Model for GIS science

Benefits of GIS for science GIS increasingly useful for scientific computing

GIS products – paper and electronic maps, maps, sophisticated analysis products and applications

3D Visualization Increasing sophistication in GIS technology allow users to start

visualizing and distributing their data in 3D Support for scientific file formats

netCDF to coverages, shapefiles for in-situ and gridded fields

Getting started with GIS -approaching the CSI project

Who are your users? How will they access the data? Desktop? Web? Field applications?Are the data static? Real time? Will the users be adding their own data?Do you want a to provide a enhanced presentation of your data?Any solution requires this information

OAR Case Studies

PMELTsunami Inundation Mapping Effort (TIME)

program (OAR/PMEL) Cordell Bank (NOS/National Marine

Sancturaries)ShipTracker (OAR/NMAO)

Other OAR applicationsNSSL, GLERL, OE, ARL

TIME – GIS supporting Tsunami Hazard System

Tsunami Inundation Mapping Effort (TIME) program

Creating products for use by emergency managers in five states from model output

Involves ingesting data from municipalities, NOAA, model output, observational data

Data products are maps, both static and live

TIME Demo

ArcView Projects with data products are distributed to Emergency Managers

Live Maps for Hazards

ESRI Live MapServer allows users to click on and off layers to look at census data, inundation and hazards information

Interlayer calculations as an added feature

TIME Capabilities

TIME is able to both ingest data from different institutions and to provide data products back to the states in a format that is commonly used by emergency planners and city officials

Data are easily converted to a GIS format

Very detailed metadata should make the end user confident about the quality of the data they are about to use

TIME Limitations

Data can be hard to reformat, often metadata are missing or not available

Hard to convince scientists that users need the data in format that is easily imported into an ArcGIS project

Requires learning how to use new software to create GIS projects

Cordell Bank – Creating a GIS-based Visualization Project

NOS NMS program is reassessing the management of the Cordell Bank Sanctuary

PMEL was approached to create visualizations for use by sanctuary managers

Cordell Bank Data Layers

GIS layers from NMS – bathymetry, topography, satellite imagery

CTD data from NMFS

Hydroacoustic data from NMFS

Data mapped in ArcGIS, distributed and visualized using VRML

Cordell Visualization

GIS products visualized in 3D e.g. isosurfaces, fencelines

Cordell Application

Application allows users to turn off and on layers, move through data

More complicated time steps are being implemented

Cordell Capabilities

Portable visualizations allow users to inspect their data in more than 2 dimensions

Biological model data combined with physical data layers reveals processes interactions

Data easily disseminated as visualizations and imported into desktop GIS system

Visualizations can be viewed using free software such as CosmoPlayer

Cordell Limitations

Additional data collection can be costly, but since its already being collected,you may as well display it

Metadata may not be complete

Not everyone wants to look at the world in a 3 and 4 D display

ShipTracker- Real time tracking using GIS

Provides real time access to ship locations, now being used with marine mammals and drifting objects

JAVA/JSP front end to a GIS back end

ShipTracker Capabilities

Real time tracking of moving objects

New Technology allows for quicker map updating

Allows projects to display information that they want to

Visualization Capabilities at PMEL

PMEL has extensive visualization capabilities ranging from the I-Desk to the desktop

Ability to ingest GIS formats and standard scientific formats (EPIC, Ferret netCDF files)

Portable projects allow scientists to view data and add their own data to the visualization

PMEL Visualization

Emergency managers use visualizations for public outreach and teaching toolsEasily distributed as animations, VRML, quicktime movies, added to GIS projects

How would we approach CSIGIS is an essential component for CSIProcess Identify CSI ingest and output needs Build data conversion routines if they don’t already exist Determine if the data are better suited for a GIS RDBMS or a simpler

database Create data delivery mechanism that allows users to get data for use on

their own desktop or via the web Create the appropriate metadata to make data more understandable to

end users Determine how data will mesh with the pre-existing municipal and NOAA

layers Build a GIS that will allow for expansion as it grows, using current scalable

technologies