ESRI EUC 2007 - Web-based Water Information System Using GIS in Turkey

Web-based Water Information

System Using GIS in Turkey

by Alper DinçerM.Sc. Civil EngineerGeo Web Developer

State Hydraulic Works (DSİ)TURKEY

Outline

DSİ in Brief Infrastructure of GIS System Technology used in New Formation Conclusion Discussions

DSİ in Brief

State Hydraulic Works (DSİ) is a legal entity included in general budget, and is the primary executive state agency responsible for planning, management, development and operation of the nation’s overall water resources.

It is founded in 1953 as a public agency.

DSİ in Brief

DSİ is responsible for four major tasks namely;• Irrigated agriculture enhancement• Hydroelectric energy generation• Water supply to large cities• Flood prevention measures

DSİ in Brief

DSİ is responsible for dam projects, surface water and groundwater.

DSİ in Brief – GIS Usage

• Most of the data produced and used in DSİ has a spatial component.

• Analyzing spatial data with GIS makes results and reports more meaningful and valuable.

• DSİ started to use GIS & RS in 1998. In 1999, ESRI, CH2M HILL, Islem GIS and Suis are prepared a GIS Feasibility Report for DSİ to expedite the usage of GIS in agency.


Layers used in DSİ are :• National and City Boundaries• Sea Boundaries• Lakes and Ponds• Dams• Rivers and streams• Hill shade and DEM• Areas due to usage, ex: residential areas • Observation Stations


• River Basins• DSİ districts• Wells• Irrigation Areas• Soil Classification Areas• Geological Areas


Some of Layers used in DSİ in Action

Infrastructure of GIS System

Current infrastructure is depend on desktop architecture. Data production, analysis and reporting are all done on desktop softwares with connected to a spatial database.

Desktop Software : ArcMap

Spatial Database : Arc SDE on Oracle


Everything seems fine with this formation but doing all the things on desktop softwares has some disadvantages. These are :

1. Installation, update and support problems

2. Licence problems

3. Even an easy task needs some experience

4. Complicated user interface

5. Slow response when layers are increasing.


Disadvantages 3 and 4 can be handled by using ArcObjects to prepare special softwares and user interfaces for different tasks, but disadvantages 1 & 2 are still valid for this kind of solution.


As a result of these problems, we need to discuss the alternatives and ESRI ArcGIS Server is the superb choose for our previous infrastructure.

The next section will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of new formation built up on ArcGIS Server.


As explained before, ArcGIS Server is the foundation of our new formation. ArcGIS Server and ArcSDE is installed on our application server and database server respectively.

ArcMap is still used for advanced tasks, but Web based applications are written for easy or special tasks.

Infrastructure of GIS System – New Formation

• No installation, update procedure for each user

• Only get a licence for ArcGIS Server• User Friendly Interface

Infrastructure of GIS System – New Formation

Due to new formation, we planned a road map for this new formation.This can be shown below :

DevelopingBranch Web Site

DatabaseRedesign

Data Verification

Training on .NET, ArcGIS Server and ArcSDE

Preparing ArcGIS Services

DevelopingApplications for Water Inf.System

ongoing

finished

Installation of Server Side and Developer Side Components

Infrastructure – DevelopingBranch Web Site

Platform : ASP.NET C#, CSSAuth. Type : LDAP

This process finished on January 2007


Documents about ArcGIS


Videos and screen casts from our ArcMap Trainings

Infrastructure – Database Redesign

Previous database design is out of date, so a new design must be done. This process is done with the collaboration of all the departments within DSİ.

This process finished on July 2007.

Infrastructure – Data Verification

After redesign of database, data verification needed in order to get correct information.

This process is very difficult because of amount of data used in DSİ.

This process is started on July 2007 due to dependence of database redesign and it is still going on. The primary datasets are finished in order to use our demos.

Infrastructure – Training

New formation needs some additional tasks which needs some training for our staff.

The trainings are as follows :• ASP.NET C# (Done)• ArcObjects (Ongoing)• ArcSDE (Done)• ArcGIS Server (Ongoing)

Infrastructure – Installation of Components

ArcGIS Server and ArcSDE are installed on our servers.

SOC, SOM and IIS are all installed on same server, since we don’t know the load of applications yet.

When all of the water information system services and applications are finished, the load of machine will be observed and if needed some SOC machines will be added to current structure.

Infrastructure – Installation of Components

This process is started on January 2007 with ArcSDE and continued with ArcGIS Server, but the purchase of ArcGIS Server license was a problematic due to bureaucratic steps.

Our license was available after August 2007. As a result of this, some applications that will be presented here has not been developed yet.

Infrastructure – Preparing ArcGIS Services

This step is also very important for both desktop and web applications.

At first, we started with non-cached services, but non-cached services are very slow against cached services.

Infrastructure – Preparing ArcGIS Services

• Cached Services

Using cached services need more attention than others, because scale and layers must be selected carefully due to disk space.

Planned Scales : 1/10.000.000, 1/5.000.000, 1/1.000.000, 1/500.000, 1/250.000, 1/100.000, 1/25.000 (in the future 1/5.000)

Infrastructure – Developing Applications

Two types of web based application is planned • Intranet Web Applications• Web Applications (open to world)


Intranet Web Applications :

All of these applications are planned to do with ArcGIS Services. These are open to intranet and approximately 1.000 people will have access to applications. Cached services are used in order to make a speedy application.


SampleApplication done with ArcGIS Server




As it is seen from screenshots, ArcGIS Server templates are used for applications, because the trainings are still going on.

In few months, our templates will be replaced with previous templates.


Web Applications :

Opening a GIS application to world needs more servers than intranet applications. We checked options for alternatives to reduce the usage of ArcGIS Server.

Finally, we decided to use Google Maps as a base and ArcGIS Server as a WMS Server to show our layers.


Our Google Maps application is more advanced than previous intranet application because we have started it with the web page of branch.

Google Maps JavaScript API, CSS and AJAX are used in the application. The server side can be PHP-MySQL or ASP.NET-Oracle Spatial.



Google Maps with WMS on ArcGIS Server






Conclusion

I have mentioned that our road map to new formation with ArcGIS Server in this presentation.

As it is seen from slides, it is not an easy job to finish such kind of Water Information System within a limited time, but as the technology used in ESRI softwares evolves, the development time decreases.

This process will be finished within a 1 year, if there will be no changes in the infrastructure.

THANKS FOR ATTENTION!

Discussions

Questions & Answers