Development of Weather Processing System by Integrating Weather Data into GIS

Development of Weather Processing System by Integrating Weather Data into GIS

1.2 Scope and Objectives of the Study:
The theme of the study is to integrate weather data into Geographic Information System by converting weather data into GIS negotiable formats to develop a sophisticated Weather Processing System (WPS).
This helps cities better communicate, plan and respond to both natural and technological disasters that we are facing today. The following are the advantages by having such a sophisticated WPS:

Reducing disaster costs.
Minimizing the loss of life, limb, property and critical infrastructure
Enhancing and coordinating hazard mitigation activities.
Implementing disaster information management and decision support systems.
Improving local preparedness efforts.
Maintaining a constant high level of preparedness and response capability.

The detailed objectives under the above said theme are:

Integration of weather data into Geographic Information System
Transformation of all weather data to "GIS negotiable" formats
Acquisition of satellite images in standard projections
Web enabled GIS
Publish the data on the web that is accessible to the managers, decision makers readily available and around the clock.
Dynamic linking
Dynamic linking of weather data to see real time scenarios and predict the destructiveness of natural disasters.

2. Methodology, Data used, Results and Discussions:

2.1 Study Area:
The study area exists between Latitude 8°00’ to 36°00’ and Longitude 68°00' to 96°00' covers all the states in India.

Limitations: Data is not available at micro level*.

Another technology that can be added to this mix is the county/city-wide deployment of a network of locally based weather data collection stations. This helps to dynamically link weather data into GIS. Similar to the weather stations commonly seen along highways and on bridges, these automated devices measure wind direction, speed, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and even soil moisture and temperature, water level and flow. An advanced GIS-based decision support system can now integrate interactive maps with layers of projected storm paths, as well as real-time, “streaming” weather data giving wind direction and speed.

2.2 Materials and Methods

2.2.1 Data Used:
Weather data in GIS negotiable formats that should contain the following layers:

Surface winds
Surface temperature
Rainfall data
IMD Warnings
Local Radar Network data
Dynamic Imagery provided by METSAT

Non-weather layers (ESRI GIS format)

States
Cities
Streets
Hospitals (in case of major only)
Schools (in case of major only)

2.2.2 Software Used:

Arc View and Extensions:
- Spatial Analyst
- Tracking Analyst
ESRI Map objects to develop user friendly GUI.
Web enabled GIS (ArcIMS) to publish the weather data on the web.
Convert weather data to "GIS negotiable" formats as points, lines, polygons, images and grids.

Figure 1: Weather data ingest, display and product processing flow.
2.2.3 Methodology:
The following five elements must be demonstrated to develop sophisticated WPS: (Refer to Figure 1)

Display of meteorological data - Convert weather data to "GIS negotiable" formats as points, lines, polygons, images and grids.

Customize GIS functionality - Support conventional weather functionality such as overlay (superposition), contouring, cross sections, and information at cursor.

Integrate other sources of information - Provide access to analysis and prediction algorithms, real-time interaction with models, and calls to external programs for special functions.

User friendly interface - Customization, User Development Toolkit, support for conventional "look and feel", and meteorological character sets. Theme classification can be altered for custom subsetting.

Dynamic linking and animation - Intrinsic functions for animation are emerging (3D-Analyst), but can be supplied as call to an external program.

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