MONITORING AND ANALYSIS OF WATER POLLUTION USING TEMPORAL GIS
Nirvana Meratnia, F. Duzgun, Rolf A. de By · University of Twente Research Information · 2000
Water pollution caused by oil spills is a typical hazard scenario in which the understanding of object movement—here that of the oil spill—may be vital for risk minimization. Oil spills do not only present a short-term local problem but may have long-term consequences with catastrophic environmental, ecological and economic damages. If imminent movements of a spill at sea can be foreseen, the necessary resources for reducing further pollution can be allocated in time. Some factors like weather condition, marine currents, ship movements, etc. will also influence the transfer of oil spills. Such factors should be taken into account in a forecasting model. Moreover, in many cases it is also important to determine the trajectory of the object followed over time. Moving objects in general find little support in present GIS or database systems. Ad hoc solutions for their storage, manipulation and visualization can be concocted, but such solutions do not lend themselves well for scaling up. We envision a data processing need in the near future for the support of large collections of moving objects, and advanced manipulations on such collections. This is the background for the on-going study that we report upon here.