A FOSS approach to Integrated Water Resource Management: the case study of Red-Thai Binh rivers system in Vietnam Carolina Arias Munoz1, Maria Antonia Brovelli1, Simone Corti1, Marco Micotti2, Rodolfo Soncini Sessa2, Enrico Weber3, 1 HydroinformaticsLab, Dept. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy 2 Dept. Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy 3 Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, Italy Abstract The paper describes the development of a FOSS Geoportal targeted to manage information related to water resource management projects. It gives important insights on Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) using FOSS, demonstrating that are a feasible and effective solution to data and metadata collection, storage, sharing and visualization in water resources management, using open international standards. A first application of the Geoportal is also presented on the case study of Red River in Vietnam. Keywords Spatial Data Infrastructures, water resources management, time series data, multi attribute analysis, alternatives evaluation 1 Introduction Integrated Water Resource Management paradigm (GWP 2003) has been adopted in the last years by several countries and Institution (i.e. Water Framework Directive of European Union, 2000) all over the world. Hence a number of tools, methods and software have been developed to support this paradigm, dealing with system modeling, alternatives design and evaluation (Soncini Sessa et al., 2007). Topic of present research is the development of a FOSS Geoportal specifically targeted to manage information related to water resource management projects. The Geoportal has been developed by the authors inside the Integrated Management of Red River System (IMRR) project and it is actually in a testing stage. Red river has a cross-boundary basin, mainly divided between China and Vietnam, where it flows through 25 provinces in the North, including Hanoi capital, affecting a population of 26 million persons and feeding a canals network that supplies water for nearly 1.1 million hectares of agricultural lands. In the Vietnamese part of the catchment 4 big multipurpose reservoirs are in operation, targeted to hydro-power production, big floods prevention and water supply support. 471
The IMRR project aims at developing and promoting strategies for the sustainable management of the Red-Thai Binh Rivers System through coordinated decision-making, supported by modeling and optimization tools and through capacity building of local authorities in the water sector. The Geoportal allows to visualize, analyze and compare different planning alternatives for the management of the Red River water system in Vietnam, as a result of the Participatory Integrated Planning procedure (Soncini Sessa et al., 2007) applied in the IMRR project. The Geoportal characterizes for its effective and not-technical approach to the knowledge base of the project, taking advantage of the component's spatial distribution to improve the use of IMRR project outcomes. 2 The Geoportal Architecture The Geoportal has been developed like a light weighted SDI, which components are reported in Figure 1 and describe hereafter. In the backend, the Database Management Systems PostgreSQL with the spatial extension PostGIS is used to store all data, including time series and geospatial data. Geoserver is used as the GIS Server, creating and managing several types of OGC Web Services such as Web Map Service and Web Feature Service. IstSOS 1 server allows the managing and dispatching observations from monitoring sensors and other points of interest according to the OGC Sensor Observation Service standard. istsos connects also with the PosgreSQL database using a distinct data schema for each scenario considered in the project. Figure 1: Geoportal architecture On the client side we choose to use Drupal 2 CMS (Content Management System), taking advantage of the existing Geoserver and OpenLayers modules (similar to Cartaro3 distribution) and developing two new modules: 1 https://geoservice.ist.supsi.ch/projects/istsos/index.php/welcome_to_istsos_project 2 https://www.drupal.org/ 3 http://cartaro.org/ 472
a general use module 4, to connect istsos and Drupal and to manage multiple time series and different scenarios inside Drupal; a project-customized module, to manage interaction between map, popup, time-series charts and search functionalities. These modules, allow to interact with the different software within the Drupal application, without need to access directly to software such as OpenLayers or istsos to manage data, because all the main functionalities are available thought the user-friendly interface. Being a CMS, Drupal offers the possibility to have different user accounts and permissions (i.e. general public, project stakeholders and project owners), gaining additional advantage such as the extendability, namely the possibility to create different plugins, to organize and query contents and information within the website. 3 Geoportal functionalities The Geoportal have been included several functionalities, addressing specific tasks and involving specific open source tools: Project Hierarchy: the Evaluation Hierarchy5, used to describe and identify interests in the system. It is represented through a dynamic hierarchical tree chart and managed as Drupal nodes: every changes in a node is reflected directly in the chart and in the contents organization. Components, Sector and Indicators pages: Description pages for each element of the evaluation hierarchy, showed as dynamic popups, accessible through the geographic position of each item on the map (see. Fig. 1). In the popup there are also a list of related content (i.e. the list of indicators for each sector) and a dynamic chart, integrated with IstSOS time-series, which shows data related to each indicators (Fig. 2). This functionality is used to analyze historical data, models outcomes or to compare indicators results from different alternatives. Spatial indicators: Openlayers services and IstSOS data integration. It allows to represent spatially distributed indicators and to visualize performance of different alternatives directly on the map. Special chart pages: two pages, powered with a two panels chart (Charts comparison page) or a customizable number of small charts (Dashboard page, Fig. 3). Detailed analysis can be developed in thes pages, comparing Geoportal data (time-series, indicators at different time frequency,..). Scenarios: a switcher integrated with IstSOS service to easily manage different scenarios (climatic, socio-economic,..). It is used to browse the different data needed to analyze and manage the water system. Simulation: a front-end page to execute simulation of the system getting user custom inputs, using Octave as simulation engine 6. It is used to 4 https://www.drupal.org/sandbox/istsos/2149739 5 Sectors, criteria and indicators as in the classical approach of Multi Attribute Value Theory - MAVT (Keeney and Raiffa, 1976) the methodology used in the PIP procedure 6 Octave runs outside of the geoportal, but a system of automatic uploads provide the exchange of information with 473
assess water system behavior under different conditions. Notification module: A custom Drupal content form to get georeferenced feedbacks from registered users. Figure 3: Indicator dynamic chart Figure 2: Geoportal home page Figure 4: Dashboard 4 Conclusion Nowadays there are mature and well-tested FOSS for the creation of robust and reliable webgis services. Our research suggest that FOSS offer features and capabilities comparable, and in some cases superior, to their commercial equivalents for the development of the next generation of Web-based information systems in the water management domain. Collection, storage, sharing and geographical visualization of data is a crucial task for water resources management in complex contexts. The Geoportal allows to differentiate access permission amongst users, to manage contents related to a project, to visualize, analyze and compare different planning alternatives providing quick and easy access to all its functionalities both for expert and non expert users. The heterogeneous nature of the project data requires the combination of different geospatial data services (Web Map Service WMS, T, Web Feature Service WFS, Sensor Observations Service SOS), servers (Geoserver, istsos) and interface technologies (OpenLayers, Drupal) enabling interoperability of all complex resources data types. IMRR project is in the final stage: the Beta version of the Geoportal is still under development and not yet released, but it is managing a significant amount of data, since more than 100 alternatives policies of reservoirs management have been designed over a time horizon of 30 years, with 3 different scenarios (standard conditions, extreme inflows conditions and climate change). Effects of each alternative is described with temporal trajectories of more than 20 the Geoportal. 474
variables and through 24 indicators, computed at daily, yearly and horizon time scale and related to 5 sectors affected by Red River management: Floods, Hydropower production, Water supply, Environment, Navigation. The last IMRR Stakeholders meeting, scheduled for September 2015 will be informed with this huge database, accessible through a fully functional Geoportal, able to properly support results analysis and discussion. References Balbo, S., Boccardo, P., Dalmasso, S., & Pasquali, P. (2014). a Public Platform for Geospatial Data Sharing for Disaster Risk Management. ISPRS International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XL-5/W3(February), 189 195. doi:10.5194/isprsarchives-xl-5-w3-189-201 EU Water Framework Directive (2000). Directive 2000/60/ EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for community action in the field of water policy. Official Journal of the European Communities. Global Water Partnership (2003). Toolbox Integrated Water Resource Management. Gutierrez, F. V, Manso, M. A., Lang, D. H., Wachowicz, M., Bernabe, M. A., Strauch, W., Service, I. (2007). Designing web-enabled services to provide damage estimation maps caused by natural hazards, (1990). Keeney, R. L., & Raïffa, H. (1976). Decisions with multiple objectives: preferences and value tradeoffs. Wiley. Pickle, E. (2012). GeoNode Incorporating Geovisualization in Support of SDI, 125 128.B Soncini-Sessa, R., Weber, E., & Castelletti, A. (2007). Integrated and participatory water resources management-theory (Vol. 1). Elsevier. 475
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