Virtual Geosite Communication through a WebGIS Platform: A Case Study from Santorini Island (Greece)

Abstract

We document and show a state-of-the-art methodology that could allow geoheritage sites (geosites) to become accessible to scientific and non-scientific audiences through immersive and non-immersive virtual reality applications. This is achieved through a dedicated WebGIS platform, particularly handy in communicating geoscience during the COVID-19 era. For this application, we selected nine volcanic outcrops in Santorini, Greece. The latter are mainly associated with several geological processes (e.g., dyking, explosive, and effusive eruptions). In particular, they have been associated with the famous Late Bronze Age (LBA) eruption, which made them ideal for geoheritage popularization objectives since they combine scientific and educational purposes with geotourism applications. Initially, we transformed these stunning volcanological outcrops into geospatial models—the so called virtual outcrops (VOs) here defined as virtual geosites (VGs)—through UAV-based photogrammetry and 3D modeling. In the next step, we uploaded them on an online platform that is fully accessible for Earth science teaching and communication. The nine VGs are currently accessible on a PC, a smartphone, or a tablet. Each one includes a detailed description and plenty of annotations available for the viewers during 3D exploration. We hope this work will be regarded as a forward model application for Earth sciences’ popularization and make geoheritage open to the scientific community and the lay public.

Urban Air Pollutant Monitoring through a Low-Cost Mobile Device Connected to a Smart Road

“…The collected data are processed and made available to a GIS, which is conceived of as a DSS for the territory's managers. The system provides a user-friendly display of maps in given layers of the GIS (similarly to [9,10]), local spatial analysis along given routes of particular importance, and the possibility of setting alarm thresholds.…”

“…In particular, the use of a GIS-based DSS opens the way to a friendly interaction with the particulate data collected in the urban area. It allows us, as an example, to display the historical series in a given location or inspect other relevant geographical information in the area in an interactive way as in [9,10]. The DSS can also effectively support GIS multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-based techniques in order to allow for the visualisation and interpretation of the spatial distribution of air pollution impacts [11].…”

Construction of a WebGIS Tool Based on a GIS Semiautomated Processing for the Localization of P2G Plants in Sicily (Italy)

“…The possibilities offered by GIS, in recent times, have led scientists to use geospatial datasets for studying problems related to several fields of research. For instance, virtual web GIS-based applications have been recently used for improving the accessibility of geosites [22]. Similar applications have been recently experimented with to investigate the level of contaminations in a sewage system, providing information through geovisualiza-tion techniques [23].…”

Bridges as Geoheritage Viewpoints in the Western Caucasus

“…Viewpoint geosites themselves may or may not have some heritage value (cf. [10]), and they are something in between physical geosites (i.e., geosites with intrinsic value) and the so-called "virtual" geosites (sensu [5,38]). Technically, all geoheritage viewpoints are of utmost importance, as they facilitate geoconservation and geotourism (see above).…”