Building & Developing the Environmental Web Explorer for Riyadh City Authors: Engineer Yousef Bin Othman Al-Fariheedi Manager of Environmental Data Unit Environmental Management and Protection Department Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA), Riyadh, KSA Mohamed Sharara GIS Project Manager Saudi Consolidated Engineering Company- Khatib and ALami 1- Introduction ArRiyadh Development Authority (ADA) is the Authority who is currently undertaking the establishment of sustainable development programs and policies for the Riyadh city in the economic, social, urban and environmental aspects. Being the party responsible for the planning of the city, GIS plays an important and main role in the works of ADA. ADA has already built an integrated GIS system which includes a base map for Riyadh city loaded in a comprehensive GIS database which allows the various departments and units in ADA to deal with as well as the public. The Environmental Management and Protection Department (EMPD) is responsible for the assessment, monitoring and protection of environmental resources within the Riyadh City. Currently the department has a wide range of environmental data, either developed internally by EMPD, or through other studies conducted by other ADA departments, or even collected from the other agencies and institutions. 2- Wadi Hanifah GeoDatabase & Environmental Database Project Using GIS (WHEGIS) Since the planning is one of the major ADA s tasks, and since the environmental dimension is one of the major required parameters for planning, the development of an integrated and a complete set of environmental data that cover the different environmental domains of Riyadh has become vital and urgent need. 1
And while Wadi Hanifa is considered as the most important natural feature for Najd Plateau and that influences Riyadh city in many different aspects, it was very fundamental to build the basemap in the Wadi area with the required landuse and related environmental information, this will allow updating the basemap in order to identify the changes and to track violations in the Wadi and eventually to assess the environmental conditions and influences in the Wadi. Due to the reasons listed above, EMPD realized the needs to carry out a project that achieves the departments goals; the project named Wadi Hanifah GeoDatabase & Environmental Database Project Using GIS (WHEGIS). WHEGIS project comes under the context of the general strategy of ADA which aims to establish the Environmental Monitoring and Decision Support System using GIS (EMDSS) as well as owning and managing an integrated and comprehensive database that covers many different domains (urban, transportation, landuse, environmental and others), and also aims to develop different search and analysis tools that help the specialists and the concerned people within and outside ADA in the spatial decision-making by using the latest GIS technologies in Desktop and Web platforms. Figure 1: Wadi Hanifa (in green) crosses Riyadh City from the north to the south (More than 130 KM) 2
2.1- Riyadh City Environmental Data ADA owns very precious environmental data for the Riyadh City, streaming from different sources: Presidency Meteorology an Environment (PME), Different studies and projects implemented by ADA, King Abulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), forecasting agencies and other sources. The main environmental data is as follow: Ground and surface water quality and level data related to monitoring and observation stations (well and boreholes and others) Metrology data such as precipitation, Temperature, Wind and others Geology, hydrogeology and soil data Air quality Solid Waste data Figure 2: Sample of Environmental Data: Geology feature class for Riyadh City 3
2.2- Wadi Hanifa Data As mentioned above, the stream of wadi Hanifa and other contributory affiliates constitute a unique environmental area and a natural storm water stream for large areas in Riyadh. The Wadi and other tributaries are penetrating the city of Riyadh covering large areas within the city. The Wadi stream flows for a distance more than 120 km. The developed wadi data covers: Parcel boundaries, roads, bridges, dams and others Detailed landuse and space use information for each parcel Detailed environmental data for each parcel: environmental problems, type of wastewater systems, type of irrigation systems, number of wells and more Ownership information Different boundaries and zones classifications for the Wadi areas 2.3- Project Tasks and Deliverables The philosophy of the WHEGIS project, like any typical GIS project, stands on the three major concepts: 1. Design: includes the system design, database design, Application design data dictionary and the related documentations such as metadata etc. 2. Build: includes Wadi hanifa basemap development using the field survey, Riyadh city environmental data development, and the development of the Desktop and Web applications 3. Educate: includes conducting a training program that covers the different GIS skills areas. The project deliverables can be summarized as below: Integrated Environmental dataset with full converted data Integrated Wadi Hanifa Basemap with full surveyed data Integrated desktop interfaces including the following applications: Parcel Locator 4
Environmental Locator Map Editor Charting and symbolizing Generating contours and rasters based on queries Generating reports Document management Map production Figure 3: Desktop Application Integrated GIS Web Explorer (described later) 5
Figure 4: WHEDGIS project s concepts and tasks 3- GIS Web Explorer As previously stated, one of the ADA major aims is to develop set of tools in order to serve the public through the Internet in a way that satisfies their different demands in different domains. The demands could vary from a quick and simple search to the complex queries and analysis. 6
3.1- ArcGIS Server, the New GIS Web Technology ArcGIS Server is a comprehensive Web-based GIS that comes with out-of-the-box, end user application and services for spatial data management, visualization, and spatial analysis. ArcGIS Server has been chosen for WHEGIS project to be the platform of the web explorer due to the several offered advantages that can be summarized by the follwing: Lower cost of ownership through centrally managed, focused GIS applications that can scale to support many users Integration with other enterprise systems, databases Ability to create custom applications using.net or Java 3.2- MUSTAKSHEF, Riyadh Environmental Explorer One of the WHEGIS project deliverables is an integrated Web GIS Environmental explorer for Riyadh City named MUSTAKSHEF (Explorer). The site was developed using ASP.net and the data retrieved directly from the ADA enterprise database. Figure 5: MUSTAKSHEF main interface 7
3.2.1 To whom MUSTAKSHEF is addressed? As MUSTAKSHEF is a web explorer for the environmental and basemap of Riyadh; specialists, environmental institutions/experts, urban planners, students and the other concerned people can benefit from MUSTAKSHEF. Here, it is useful to mention that the site is in both languages Arabic and English. 3.2.2- Functionalities During the User needs survey in the design phase, the project team have set number of functionalities that satisfy the required needs. We can list the applications of the Environmental Explorer as following: Parcel Locator Environmental Locator Charting and Analyzing Map production Linking files Below are the major capabilities that can be done by the developed applications: 3.2.2.1- General capabilities These functions allow users exploring the map by: - Zooming In/Out, Panning etc. - Adding/Removing layers: the layers are symbolized, and scale dependent - Exporting/Importing: the maps and the tabular result in different formats: html or Excel Figure 6: Zooming/Panning toolbar 8
3.2.2.2- Search, Locate and Query Capabilities This function allows user performing basic and advanced search and queries: - By using the identify tool and click on the feature - By defining the search criteria that could be: different type s values, specific/set of geographic locations, specific/range of values, specific/range of dates, and other criteria. The search results will appear on the map as well as on a special grid where the attributes of the selected features are listed; user can select the record he wants and zooms to its related feature on the map. 9
1 2 6 3 10 4 5 9 8 7 Figure 7: Sample of a query (Ground water level based on the recorded depth)s 1: Locator type 2: selection types 3: Geo. Location 4: specific/range of values (the system gives the Min. and Max. values) 5: Specific/range of dates 6: Query result on the map (boreholes) 7: Query result on a grid 8: Zoom on the map to the record 9: Query SQL 10: Legend 10
3.2.2.3- Analysis Capabilities Analysis capabilities cover the landuse data for Riyadh city and the environmental data but each differently: - Landuse: each parcel will be analyzed by symbolizing it based on its space use percentage distribution. Three ways were set for the symbolization: Pie chart on each parcel on the map Bar chart on each parcel on the map Give different colors on the map for the parcels based on the dominant parcel s landuse - The environmental data: will be analyzed by creating charts that could be based an different selected criteria: by specific types by specific geographic locations by specific/range of dates 11
Figure 8: Symbolize parcels based on landuse (Pie) Figure 9: Symbolize parcels based on landuse (bar) Figure 10: Symbolize parcels based on landuse (unique values) 12
1 2 3 5 4 Figure 11: Sample of charting the environmental data (Air quality, dust on all monitoring station within range of date) 1: Locate type 2: selection type 3: Geo. Location 4: Specific/range of dates 5: Chart result (values on the Y axis per year on the X axis per clored Stations) 3.2.2.4- Reporting Capabilities The reporting capabilities of MUSTAKSHEF are sophisticated, the search results will be reported by generating reports, and these reports will document the geographic extent of the selected features with the related records. The user can select only the fields he wants to show in the report. 13
Figure 12: HTML Report 14
3.2.2.5- Linking Files Linking Files functionality consists of viewing the linked files of the geographic features. Figure 13: Hyper Linking tool- Viewer 15
3.2.2.6- Printing Capabilities Set of layouts were created in order to print the maps in the ADA format, user can choose the layout he wants and paper size also. Figure 14: Printing viewer 16
4- Future Vision As mentioned previously, WHEGIS project is the first step on the way to establish the Environmental Monitoring and Decision Support System using GIS (EMDSS), the purpose of this system is to build the required tools that support decisions regarding environmental problems and analysis using GIS. The system would help engineers and other users to propose and examine presupposed development and planning scenarios, and study the environmental impact of the scenarios. Such system would include the following modules: Groundwater modeling 3D Modeling of Flood Areas Meteorological Data Analysis Air pollution Data Analysis Geology, Hydrogeology, and Soil Data Analysis Water Impact Assessment Surface Water Preventive Damage Prediction Water Disease Management Hence, Maintaining data accuracy and innovation is one of the most difficult and important processes related to data manipulation. Because the physical world is constantly changing, the GIS data must be updated to reflect these changes. The credibility of the GIS database is at stake if the data is not current. Usually, the effort required to maintain the database is as much, or more than that required creating it. In order to preserve the usefulness of the environmental data and the basemap (parcels) that have been developed during the WHEGIS project ADA has to keep this data current by performing the required updates and modifications. As it is known, different governmental agencies are responsible of its data field whatever this data is environmental or related to the parcels such. This means that ADA, in order to keep the above mentioned data updated, has to be always connected to all the concerned agencies. In addition, access can be granted to contactors, consultants or ministries. 17
In order to facilitate ADA s efforts required for data updating, EMPD has already started a project which includes developing applications that would allow all the concerned agencies updating remotely and modifying the related data. These applications will be Web based, in order to allow the smooth modification of the data without any software and hardware restrictions in other words Mustakshef will be extended in order to transform it to a Web GIS Portal. Procedures, work flows will be defined during the project. Agency n Agency 3 Agency 2 Agency 1 Internet Browser Internet Browser Internet Browser Internet Browser Client Side Server Side Create Data Edit / Update Data QA/QC Editor Module Grant Privileges ADA GeoDatabasea) Access Permission User n Version User 3 Version User 2 Version User 1 Version Version Administration Verify Data Administration Module ADA GeoDatabase (Env. & Parcel Data) Default Version Figure 15: The required system architecture (future expansion) 18