Field Information Geospatial-database System (FIGS) for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Proof of concept and state of the art in FOSS Geospatial Technology Report by Sean Ahearn, Ph.D., Hunter College - CUNY David Almeida, Hunter College CUNY Software Engineer, TTSI Mark Gahegan, Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University To Mr. Suha Ulgen Technical Coordinator Field Information Support Project Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs One UN Plaza DC1-1368 New York, NY 10017 March 2006 FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 1 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 Table of Contents Page number Executive Summary 5 1.0 Introduction 7 2.0 Purpose of broader project 9 2.1 Phase 1: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS Geospatial Technology 9 2.2 FIGS Development 9 2.3 Phase 3: FIGS Field Implementation 11 3.0 Background 11 4.0 Phase I: Proof of Concept and state of the 12 art in FOSS Geospatial Technology 4.1.1 Initial overview of the use of geospatial 12 technology for disaster relief management. 4.1.2 Introduction: Humanitarian Information Centers (HIC) 13 4.1.3 Tsunami (South-east Asia) 16 4.1.4 Earthquake (Pakistan-India) 17 4.2 Within the context of these emergencies, conduct a 20 preliminary data needs assessment and establish functionality requirements for geospatial query, analysis and cartographic output. 4.2.1 Current software systems used 21 4.2.2 Required functionality of Geospatial environment 21 4.2.3 Critical information needs 22 4.2.4 Operational conditions 24 4.3 Assemble, integrate and test Free Open Source Software 24 (FOSS) systems for storage, maintenance, access and analysis of geospatial information. 4.3.1 State of Geospatial FOSS (core substrates for geo-processing) 24 FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 2 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 4.3.2 Set up test environment 43 4.3.3 Matrix of Interoperability among software components 46 4.3.4 Integrated stack evaluation 49 4.4 Identify and load a preliminary data set of global, 67 regional and local data into FIGS as part of testing. 4.5 Design FIGS for maximum interoperability with other 68 existing disaster management systems 4.5.1 Geo-Network 69 4.5.2 WDWW 69 4.6 Integration with existing or emerging data and software networks 70 4.6.1 GEON 70 4.6.2 GOOGLE 73 5.0 Conclusion and recommendations 75 6.0 References 78 Appendix A 79 Appendix B: Simple Database Load Script (DOS) 95 Appendix C: JUMP Evaluation: 96 FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 3 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 List of Figures and Tables Page number Figure 1: Lifecycle of a Humanitarian Information Centre: 14 from emergency to Reconstruction Table 1 Imagery and data available at time of deployment 22 Table 2 Relevant imagery and data obtained in the field 23 Figure 2 Portal and Web Services Implementation Overview showing the 29 various OGC web services. Table 3 Matrix of Interoperability 49 Figure 3 Thin Client Access 50 Figure 4: Map Builder thin client and GeoServer web services tier 51 Figure 5: Zoom in showing UN facilities using MapBuilder client 52 Figure 6 GOOGLE Earth Access 53 Figure 7 Google Earth client showing thin client and Geoserver 54 Figure 8 Google Earth client showing IDP camps, HIC hubs, UNJLC roads 55 and administrative boundaries . Figure 9 Thick Client Access 56 Figure 10: UDIG client with data obtained from PostgreSQL via GeoS 57 Figure 11 ArcMap client with data obtained from PostgreSQL via GeoServer 58 Table 4 Matrix of Functionality 67 Figure 6 GEON project architecture summary. 71 FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 4 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 Field Information Geospatial-database System (FIGS) for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): Proof of concept and state of the art in FOSS Geospatial Technology Executive Summary Geospatial technology is becoming a critical component in disaster planning, response, recovery and mitigation. This report focuses on the state of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for geospatial analysis, their level of maturity, completeness and necessary functionality for providing essential support for disaster management. The context for this analysis will be provided by reviewing how geospatial technologies have been used in two recent major disasters, the Tsunami in Southeast Asia and the earthquake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan and India. As a proof of concept into the capabilities of emerging, open-source, open-standards GIS, a test environment was created which integrated several FOSS components in a multi-tier configuration we will call the FIGS stack . It is composed of three layers: the data tier, the web services tier and the client tier. The data tier is composed of PostgreSQL/PostGIS which forms the heart of the GeoSpatial system. It is the most mature open source object/relational solution available for DBMS and is based on the OGC simple feature specification, which is a non-topological data model. The GiST Spatial indices within PostGIS provide for high-performance spatial indexing as was evident in the ease with which the system handled a 1.2 million polygon data set for New York City. GeoServer 1.3.0-PR1 was the implementation base for the web tier of the FIGS stack. It was chosen because it implements both the WFS/WFS-T and WMS functionality. Our testing showed GeoServer to be quite stable. GeoServer also supports FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 5 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 a cache of on-board styles to be used with its WMS. A number of SLDs (Styled Layer Description documents) were developed to correspond to UN/OCHA symbology and were illustrated in the FIGS video demo (attached). Both thick and thin clients were implemented in the client tier. A Mozilla Firefox Browser was used to drive a GOOGLE Earth application which tapped into the PostgreSQLql/Post GIS data tier via GeoServer WMS and returned KML via the GeoServer in a combined thin/thick implementation. MapBuilder (thin client), an open-source AJAX-like toolkit, was implemented and tested. Several thick clients, uDig 1.06 and 1.1.1, JUMP, ArcGIS and Quantum GIS were also integrated into the FIGs stack as part of the client tier. The client tier was perhaps the least mature component of the FIGs stack and lacked in sophisticated cartographic, analytic and data management capabilities. The exception was the ArcGIS platform, which is not FOSS, but was included because of its ubiquity. The FIGS stack was tested using several data sets: a 1.2 million polygons tax lot file for New York City, a 200,000 polygons building file for Manhattan, VMAP0 data covering the world, VMAP1 data tiles 132 and 131, covering Pakistan, selected Global Discovery data in OCHA s standard directory format, and Pakistan HIC Data provided by OCHA (shapefiles). The FOSS Geospatial Technologies show real promise, with a solid foundation in the data tier with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, a very impressive web services tier founded on the GeoServer 1.3.0-PR1 technology and a number of interesting options for the client tier. The FIGS stack, in its entirety, is not yet at the stage where it can offer a comprehensive environment for HIC applications that was not the intention of this pilot study. However the data tier and web services tier as implemented here could form the basis of a more comprehensive system. The client tiers are actively being developed by many groups also interested in open-source GIS, and the input of OCHA could very well drive this development effort. FIGS Working Group Document: Proof of Concept and state of the art in FOSS 6 Geospatial Technology 3/15/2006 1.0 Introduction Document s Focus The discussion and analysis that follows will be centered on the integration of a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) software stack for geo-spatial technology (excluding remote sensing) that can be used for disaster management. Its level of maturity, completeness and necessary functionality for providing essential support for disaster management will be examined in a pilot study that integrates a multi-tier stack of FOSS geospatial technologies. Technology, however, cannot be analyzed without regard for the structure and needs of the operational environment in which it is deployed. Therefore, we will first review how geospatial technologies have been used operationally for disaster management by OCHA in two instances, the Tsunami in Southeast Asia (December 26, 2004) and the earthquake in Pakistan (October 8, 2005). Role of Geospatial technology in disaster management The role of Geospatial technology (instruments, data, information and systems) is increasingly becoming a key component of disaster planning, response and recovery (Cutter et al., 2003). In emergencies, accurate and timely information is essential for saving lives in the initial response to a disaster and to insure a rapid recovery in the restoration and reconstruction phase (GDIN, 1997). Data associated with disasters is inherently spatial (Goodchild, 2003) and geospatial technology has been shown to be central to the integration, analysis, visualization, knowledge generation and communication during an emergency (Leidner, 2005). Due to its complexity, the effective use of geospatial technology for disaster management can fall short of its potential for a number of reasons. These include: (i) a lack of suitable software in place, (ii) a lack of understanding of the technology by responders, (iii) a disconnect between the producers of geospatial data and the consumers of it, (Zerger and Smith, 2003), (iv) poor integration of the information gleaned from this technology into the decision making process (van Borkulo et al., 2005) and (v) the existence of data gaps, scale inconsistencies, data currency (Leidner, 2005) and lack of meta-data.