Geographic Information System (GIS) and Data Management and
Retrieval System (DMRS) in the CENAS Project
A. Dante, M. Gonella
Med Ingegneria S.r.l., Ferrara, Italy
P. Teatini, L. Tomasi
Dept. Mathematical Methods and Models for Scientific
Applications, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
ABSTRACT
The large quantity of non-homogeneous data resulting from the analysis
of field measurements and the simulation of the different physical
phenomena of CENAS have been organized in an
''overall data management environment'' developed in the course of the
project.
The structure of the environment is divided into two main modules:
a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a Data Management and
Retrieval System (DMRS).
Manipulation of site-specific raster, vector, and point data
has been performed by means of the GRASS package, a GIS system
developed at the US Army Corp of Engineers.
GRASS was used for the definition of digital elevation models of the
study area and of the land use maps of the coastal regions of the
Eastern Po plain, and for the analysis of littoral dynamics of the
Upper Adriatic Sea coastline at the local and macro scales.
The DMRS has been developed for the
efficient storage and retrieval of the project data files.
The files, in their original formats, have been organized in a
subdirectory tree and subdivided into two main classes according
to the related scale (macro or local).
A further subdivision within each class has been establish according
to the physical characteristics of the data and their possible
utilization in the different simulation models that form the overall
project (e.g. bathymetry, land use, subsidence).
The capabilities of the World Wide Web (WWW)
has been used for the implementation of a Data Retrieval System that
easily allows the query of project data and at the same time
the exchange of data between the different project partners.
In the CENAS ''WWW home page'' all types of information about the
project can be obtained, and field data and simulation results can be
visualized or retrieved through Internet.
