Publishing sensor observations into Geospatial Information Infrastructures: A use case in fire danger assessment

Abstract

To improve environmental monitoring, the availability of great coverage of spatiotemporal data in an interoperable way is crucial for its integration into environmental models, for example, to compute fire danger models. To produce up-to-date and accurate results those models need the availability of data with high temporal and spatial resolution. Thus, it is promising to consider the increasing number of in-situ sensors providing observations of our environment in real-time. Today, interoperable access to such spatio-temporal data is achieved by Geospatial Information Infrastructures (GIIs). From a technical point of view GIIs provide this data through standards-based Web service interfaces. While those Web service interfaces already enable the interoperable discovery and retrieval of sensor observations, the functionality to publish sensor observations is still an arduous task. Hence, in this paper, we present an approach to improve the registration of sensors and the publication of their observations via standards-based Web service interfaces. We evaluate our approach by extending a standards-based GII and by applying the developed approach to the example of integrating in-situ weather observations into the European Forest Fire Information System for assessing fire danger in Spain.

Future Internet technologies for environmental applications

“…For example, the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standard specifications of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) enable the discovery of sensors and their observations, exchange and processing of such observations, as well as tasking of sensors and sensor network systems (Br€ oring et al, 2011). The predominant role of SWE standards in designing environmental software applications has been widely validated (Usl€ ander et al, 2010;Hill et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2012;Díaz et al, 2013), together with mature implementations of SWE-based services in a wide range of environmental domain applications (OGC SWE Report, 2013). Despite these advances, Havlik et al (2011, p. 3876) posed the question whether "environmental applications do not use the decentralized and collaborative nature of today's Internet to its maximal extent.…”

Integrating modelling and smart sensors for environmental and human health

“…Recognising that sensors can be readily deployed as networks, the issue is whether information can be obtained by exploiting the higher density of measurements. There is an increasing body of literature suggesting that while this question is not fully resolved, low cost sensors and sensor networks have an increasing role to play (Schimak et al , 2010; Ostfeld et al , 2013; Diaz et al , 2013; Austen, 2015). It has to be noted that information content is a function dependent on the relevance of data to one or multiple objectives of stakeholders involved in the decision making process.…”

Representing Geospatial Environment Observation Capability Information: A Case Study of Managing Flood Monitoring Sensors in the Jinsha River Basin

“…Along with the development of geospatial web services [6], distributed geospatial environmental sensors and their observations have been registered and stored in a geospatial sensor clearinghouse using standards-based web service interfaces. The interfaces include sensor observation services and the Catalog Service for the Web (CSW), which enables the web-based discovery of environmental sensors [7]. Specifically, when an emergency observation is requested, inquirers can openly and standardly retrieve a list of environmental sensors through a web-based platform under the Sensor Web environment.…”