Can open source internet GIS be used as an incident reporting system for UK emergency services?
Police Forces in England and Wales utilise Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for various aspects of their business, one area they have been traditionally protective of is the publishing of crime statistics to the public. A green paper published by the Home Office in July 2008 has set a requirement for each of the 43 Police Forces to provide crime statistics on the websites via interactive mapping.
The aim of this study is to look at whether these requirement and an incident reporting system can be achieved using Free and open Source Internet GIS Software (FOSS).
The aim will be investigated in various stages, the first of which will define a baseline set of requirements from reviewing and analysing various publications around the Home Office’s green paper. The baseline set of criteria will be used to conduct a survey of each of the 43 Police Force websites to ascertain whether they meet the Home Office requirements and what Internet GIS they are using, if any!.
From the baseline criteria a sub set of evaluation criteria, focusing on GIS will be formulated to conduct a review of a selection of FOSS internet GIS, and to form the basis for the in depth evaluation of one of these solutions.
The final stage of the investigation will be to conduct a questionnaire survey of the 43 Police Forces to ascertain the personal opinions and views of FOSS GIS within Police Forces.
The investigation showed that the majority of FOSS Internet GIS could meet the baseline set of requirements. The chosen solution ‘OSGB Web Map Tools’ could be easily used for interactive crime mapping and incident reporting, although one recommendation would be to combine this toolkit with a map server such as Geoserver to provide more functionality and use of the Open Geospatial Consortiums (OGC’s) standards.
The geographical perception of crime: A comparison between the perceptions and reality of crime in Poole
Public perceptions of crime are useful to local authorities and police departments to be able to gauge how effective the current work to combat crime they are doing is, and helps to pinpoint resources and education to those areas that are displaying high levels of fear of crime. The limitation to these surveys is that they focus on an individual’s understanding of the area they live within, and doesn’t provide any insight into an individual’s perceptions regarding the entire authority or how accurate these feelings are. By asking for this, there is the benefit of obtaining a greater understanding into the holistic knowledge of the level of crime for the authority. Residents were asked their opinions on crime as well as asking where they obtain their news information from to see how much potential influence the media may have in altering and forming public opinions and perceptions. The aim for this research was to then compare the perceptions spatially with the locations of recorded crime to see if the views of the public were correct in identifying the areas within the authority that were susceptible to the most criminal activity. The results highlighted that whilst there was some correlation between public knowledge and actual locations of crime, the general trend was for residential areas to be associated with crimes over commercial areas. Questionnaire results highlighted that the media may be a major influence on public opinion, whilst the actual impact that the geography of the area may have on perceptions was found to be more on a sub-conscious level, with extra factors perceived to be the major reason for the amount of crime in the area.
Determination of Paleocurrent Direction during the middle Mississippian Epoch
(Through the Analysis of Mica Flakes in Carbonate Deposits in southeastern Iowa, USA)
Waulsortian and Waulsortian-like mounds are unique, discrete carbonate structures which were the dominant reef-like formations during the early Carboniferous Period. There has been much discussion regarding the exact definition of a reef, however, for this research the terms Waulsortian and Waulsortian-like mounds will be used. Two Waulsortian-like mounds were discovered during the 1990s in southeastern Iowa. Prior to this, no Waulsortian or Waulsortian-like mounds had been documented in Iowa’s geology. The formation of the mounds during the Early Carboniferous Period was controlled by the local submerged geography, which was quite different from what is observed today in Iowa. A series of northwest-to-southeast trending anticlines (Anderson, 1983) appear to have controlled where the mounds formed. Of particular interest within the mounds is the presence of white mica, of which there is no known local source. It has been hypothesized for this research that the mica flakes originated in hydrothermally altered feldspars from the St. Francois Mountains of southeastern Missouri. By determining the source of the mica flakes, it is possible to ascertain the direction of the ocean currents at the time of the Waulsortian-like mounds’ formation. A bedrock topography map has been created to determine if there is any relation between the mounds’ locations and the anticline system. By understanding how and why the mounds formed where they did, it may be possible to create a model for locating additional mounds, which have economic value in the construction aggregates industry.
A Multi-Criteria Evaluation and Dempster-Shafer Based
Fuzzy Forest Fuel Type Classification
The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS) is a world-renowned method of predicting wildfire behaviour, consisting in part of the Canadian Forest Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) System. One major input to the FBP system is forest fuel types, and many options are available for classifying fuel types, each posing varying advantages and disadvantages. Because the FBP fuel type descriptions are very general, expert knowledge is a very powerful tool for assisting with cross-referencing forest environment characteristic combinations with fuel types. There is also thereby great potential for incorporating multi-criteria evaluation methods and theories that allow for the acknowledgement of uncertainty. The purpose of this study was to explore methods of incorporating qualitative expert knowledge into a fuzzy process of classifying FBP fuel types, focusing on conifer and conifer/mixedwood strata. To accomplish this task, a series of fire behaviour experts were interviewed to determine appropriate fuel types for different conifer and mixed stands, using ground plot data. These responses were evaluated in detail to extract weights of the different forest environment characteristics in their affectability towards assigning fuel types to particular strata. Factor weights and criterion scores were developed using a weighted linear combination approach and incorporated into a multi-criteria suitability evaluation (MCE) using the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The resulting suitability maps, one for each conifer based FBP fuel type, were combined using a Dempster-Shafer based Basic Probability Assignment method to incorporate uncertainty in the decision rules. Confidence was also evaluated by examining the levels of agreement between responses for particular strata and fuel type combinations. This study not only resulted in a strong approach for using MCE and Dempster-Shafer techniques with qualitative data, but also provided an interesting product that may be used in future modelling exercises and research endeavours.
An Evaluation of Inter-Local Government GIS Integration in British Columbia, Canada
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have evolved in the local government environment from departmentally based tools used to address an isolated problem or set of problems into a potentially enterprise based tool capable of integrating many other business systems and processes. The next logical step in the evolution of a GIS is to enable integration beyond the corporation of which it was initially implemented.
To this end, this research has examined the degree to which there is GIS integration among local governments in British Columbia, Canada, and has evaluated what the impacts of this integration might be. It has been found that this step requires both changes in the technology and changes in the way an organization operates.
Once the current level of GIS integration between local governments was determined, various alternatives were defined against an ideal inter-local government GIS integration environment. From this evaluation of integrated and non-integrated environments, it will be shown firstly, that it is possible to integrate local government bodies to achieve an ideal GIS environment and secondly, that it is a superior model to the current status.
GIS for industrial sites: Making the ‘intangible’ benefits, tangible
Commercial organisations usually require a positive result from a CBA prior to investment in any new Information System. Investment in a GIS is no different in this respect; this dictates that the benefits produce by the GIS need to be identified and expressed in monetary value.
Whilst there is much literature referencing GIS CBA, the majority does not assist in either the identification or quantification of benefits; indeed, much of the literature identifies ‘intangible’ benefits as not being appropriate for financial assessment.
This paper argues that the approach prohibits evaluation in the analysis, of benefits which may be more beneficial than those classed as tangible, and therefore produces an inadequate assessment of the value a GIS can bring to an organisation.
The paper’s aim is to provide a method for identifying and quantifying these intangible benefits in a GIS business case for Hazardous Industrial Sites; the Hazardous Industrial Site context chosen as a business sector also considered to have a scarcity of literature.
The paper develops a suitable method, based on improvements in the methods published in previous literature, and then critiques the method both for its ability to identify and quantify intangible benefits and also for its suitability for use in the context of Hazardous Industrial Sites.
The critique concludes that, although the method produced requires further substantiation, it has validity in both the general context of GIS implementation and of the specific Hazardous Industrial Sites context,and that rather than the Hazardous Industrial Sites contexthavingunique attributes, it is a the breadth of attributes that makes this context unique.
Developing a GIS to aid in managing the maintenance of facilities of schools in Abu Dhabi
(NOT FOR PUBLICATION)
Can open source internet GIS be used as an incident reporting system for UK emergency services?
Developing countries have long been struggling with the funding and management of national Geographical Information Systems (GIS) projects. As a means of funding and contributing to the efficient management of these projects, stakeholder funding and volunteerism is put forward as a vital option for the success of national GIS projects such as Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI’s).
The researcher sees cognisance and utilization of key management success factors as major contributors to achieving efficient management and stakeholder involvement in these national projects. It is therefore pertinent to investigate management tolls and techniques that encompass stakeholder identification, buy-ins, funding and participation. As such business cases, funding and team building models are explored.
Published literature along with questionnaires, interviews and a case study are adopted to probe these salient issues surrounding stakeholders, national GIS projects and management of national GIS projects in a away that ensures triangulation of research data.
Findings imply that stakeholders in developing countries are willing to participate in national GIS projects, but are not necessarily able to do so because of constraints such as staff availability, organizational cultures and visibility of benefits. It further suggests that the utilization of relevant management tools and techniques will contribute significantly to achieving project success.
National GIS projects such as, Jamaica’s imagery acquisition and Canada’s environmental assessment have benefited from stakeholder participation and funding. Stakeholder identification, business cases, funding models, risk management strategies, consortium, team building and partnering are some of the management success factors that are recommended for national GIS projects.
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