Volume 2, Number 1, October 2006, pp.1-6 [TECHNICAL NOTES] An advanced application of Geographic Information System (GIS) to rock engineering Tetsuro ESAKI*, Yasuhiro MITANI*, Hiroaki IKEMI*, Guoyun ZHOU**, Jiro MORI*** * Dept. of Civil Engineering, Faulty of Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 812-8581 Japan ** Dept. of Civill and Environmental Enginnering, Nishinippon Institute of Technology University, Fukuoka, 800-0394 Japan *** Dept. of Investigation and Analysis Engineering, West Japan Engineering Consultants, Inc., Fukuoka 810-0004 Japan Received 06 July 2006; accepted 10 October 2006 ABSTRACT Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool for managing, processing and analyzing the spatial digital data and one of the new information technologies. It has the possibility of solving various difficult problems. Considering the future development of rock engineering, it still remains a lot of problems such as social and environmental engineering problems, which can not be solved using the current technology. In this paper, the state of arts of GIS technology is introduced, and then some advanced application examples in the rock engineering field are shown. Finally, the possibility of GIS applied in the rock engineering is discussed and the future vision of utilizing GIS technology in rock engineering field is mentioned. It is concluded that the environmental impact assessment, the protection of life and properties against the natural disaster and the creation of better environment and health will be the important issues of the rock engineering in the future. In order to solve these difficult problems, the utilization of GIS technology can expect an effective and useful technology for decision making of them. On the future prospect of GIS application to rock engineering, the followings are important: 1) preparation of data, 2) coupling of GIS with various analysis, 3) establishment of synthetic assessment method and 4) temporal and spatial phenomenon analysis in GIS. And, to develop the future GIS application for rock engineering, not only the progress in GIS technology itself, but also the action of the rock engineers and the researchers are also important. Keywords: Geographic Information System (GIS), Rock Engineering, GIS applications, Information Technology 1. INTRODUCTION Geographic Information System (GIS), as a tool for managing, processing and analyzing the spatial data (including map-related picture, image, text and data), has been used in various fields. From 1960 s in U.S.A. and Europe, GIS had been firstly developed for computer-based mapping of the management of the statistic information. From the late of 1980 s, GIS had been effectively used for business and environmental field such as area marketing, customer management, real estate evaluation, land utilization, environmental impact assessment, transportation design and management, basin management, disaster prevention and landscape evaluation (Maguire et al.,1991). Recently the GIS software with a lot of functions has been developed, it can be used as a tool for analyzing and managing various data creatively. In other words, GIS is not only simply used for memorizing, visualizing, querying and overlaying of map, but also for combining various analysis, comparing various attribute data and therefore solving those problems which are difficult for personal ability (Longley et al., 2001). On the other hand, the rock engineering is the studying field of the rock behavior and its engineering application. Rock engineering deals with a various behavior of rock or rock mass such as the rock deformation, stability of a tunnel, and tectonic movements depend on the scale. Rock engineering has been applied for the various engineering fields which are civil engineering, engineering geology and geophysics. The spatial distribution of deformation and failure of rock and rock mass are the main problem on the rock engineering. From the point of spatial distribution, it is possible to use GIS for managing in this study area. In order to demonstrate that the GIS is a useful tool for the study of rock engineering, some examples of GIS applications in rock engineering are introduced. Next, the problems and new possibility of GIS application in rock engineering are discussed in this paper. 2. STATE OF ARTS OF GIS APPLICATION 2.1 Components of GIS Geometry represents the geometric features and shapes associated with real things locations. Geometric features are JCRM All rights reserved.
2 T.ESAKI et al. / International Journal of the JCRM vol.2 (2006) pp.1-6 abstracted into points, lines, or areas (polygon). Attributes provide descriptive characteristics of the geometric features. Behavior means that geometoric features can be made to follow certain types of editing, display, or analysis rules, depending on circumstances that the user defines. In GIS, geometric features can be represented by either vector or raster format. The vector data model represents geometric features similarly to the way maps do-using points, lines, and areas (polygons). An X, Y (Cartesian) coordinate system references real things locations. The vector data model is mainly used in the GIS system concerned relatively small range such as city and regional planning. Instead of representing features by their X,Y coordinates, the raster data model assigns values to cells that cover their locations. Raster format is well suited to spatial analysis and is also appropriate for the storage of data that is collected in grid format. In the raster model, data are stored in the grid that is evenly divided by the small square mesh and expressed by two or multi value. This grid data can be easily processed by computer especially because the large volume of hard disk and the low price of memory are easily available recently. Image data, remote sensing data, digital map data are basically in the form of raster data, with its easy and direct input, it will be widely used in the future. The amount of detail you can show for a particular feature depends on the size of the cells in the grid. Any geographic information system should be capable of the following fundamental operations; capture, store, query, analyze, display, output, in order to be useful for finding solutions to the various problems (Longley et al., 2001). In order to perform GIS tasks, the following five components are needed. 1) People; This is the most important component in a GIS. People must develop the procedures and define the tasks of the GIS. People can often overcome shortfalls in other components of the GIS, but the opposite is not true. The best software and computers in the world cannot compensate for incompetence. 2) Data; The availability and accuracy of data can affect the results of any query or analysis. 3) Hardware; Hardware capabilities affect processing speed, ease of use and the type of output available. 4) Software; This includes not only the actual GIS software, but also various database, drawing, statistical, imaging or other software. A lot of general-used GIS software has been developed worldwide in university, research institute and software company, and it can be selected to fit specific purpose. 5) Procedures; Analysis requires well defined, consistent methods to produce correct and reproducible results. It is necessary to clear the procedures for the good GIS applications. 2.2 History of GIS applications From 1990's, GIS information management system has been introduced into the government organization and the local government autonomous body. This system was originally developed hardware and software system by a large computer engineering company, and that was utilized for the management of community facilities and environmental related data. This system can only show the various inputted digital map and text information for related managed region, and had the function of zoom-in, zoom-out, and scrolling for the selected interesting area. As the analysis function, it is possible to calculate the distance and area. The real GIS is originally defined as the decision making support system which helps expert for problem settling by acquiring, managing and analyzing digital data that can be referenced to spatial position and to real world existence. From this definition, it is clear that the GIS functions had not been full employed in this application example at initial stage. It is pity that in this information management system, the user had to follow the determined procedure and menus only for viewing the table and picture, it is difficult to support the various individual demands. Besides, the data and the hardware usually had to be renewed, but it was a big financial burden for maintenance and management of the system. The reason for this system failure is quite the same as the initial failure of GIS in Europe and U.S.A. in 1980's (Longley et al., 2001). On the other hand, the city information management system, such as for mapping of street, electricity network, water supply system, underground burial like as gas pipe and automobile navigation, is occupied important position and also has made a big success though it was made from same hardware and software. The reasons for these success are as followings: (1)the efficiency improvement of the daily management and possibility of advanced management, (2)the uniform of the format and the clear purpose, (3) the data is too huge to manage by manpower. Recently, preparation of national digital infrastructure information and the GIS system are planned as a part of new social capital. It had been noticed that most of ordering persons such as a government organization and local government autonomous body, just take GIS as a database and order the system following the manufacturer s proposals. It has been recognized that engineers must make clear the purpose and develop the flexible system based their needs. 3. APPLICATION IN ROCK ENGINEERING 3.1 Effects of GIS utilization The following effects of GIS utilization are expected. 1) The maps with various scale and style can be integrated under the unified standard. 2) The data can be sheared and repetition work can be prevented. 3) Maintenance and update of data are easy, and the latest information is always provided. 4) There are many tools for search, analysis, and visualization, and there is flexibility for the creativeness. 5) Added value for decision making can be produced. The GIS is not the simple mapping tool and the database but the creative tool for many purposes. 3.2 Situation of GIS application The applications for the geotechnical engineering field had been investigated. There are comparatively much applications related the geotechnical engineering field beyond wide aspects. However, there are very few published papers of GIS application in the internal journals and symposium
T. ESAKI et al. / International Journal of the JCRM vol.2 (2006) pp.1-6 3 proceedings of geotechnical engineering. Among the papers published last five years, there are no more than 10 papers that include terms of GIS in the titles or key words. It might be said that the research and development system using GIS has not been initialized yet now if considering the present situation of the introduction of GIS system only for the case study purpose. The examples of application are listed in Table 1 and are classified as followings (Maguire et al., 1991,.Kohsaka et al., 1996, Kubo, 1996,Murai, 1998). The first one is about environmental development and prevention. These are corresponded to the site selection such as the nuclear power plant, the dam, the waste disposal and the radioactive waste disposal, the environment influence evaluation, the city suburban nature environment, the landscape protection, the influence evaluation of beach cliff erosion, the evaluation of subsidence, and the site selection for various facilities, etc.. The second one is concerned about the disaster prevention and its countermeasures, such as the hazard map for the landslide, the slope failure, the debris flow, the earthquake, the flood and the volcano disasters. Particularly, there are relatively a lot of cases of earthquake related such as the seismic intensity distribution and the liquidization because GIS has been developed after the 1995 Hyogoken Nanbu Earthquake in Japan. The third one is the planning support and management of network related, in other words it is about the route selection and the maintenance management of the road, the railroad, the electricity transmission line and the lifelines. Finally, there is the geo-information database. After integrating between various maps and the boring data, it is possible to make the three-dimensional geological feature and to make the various analyze and visualization. All examples can not definitely classify into the above four types because GIS is interdisciplinary science. Table 1. Examples of GIS application in literatures. 1. Environmental development and prevention site selection of nuclear power plant, optimum dam site selection, selection of radioactive waste disposal site, selection of waste disposal site and evaluation of environment influence, synthetical basin management (flow analysis of a basin, flooding analysis), environmental impact assessment (water pollution, the noise, vibration, air pollution, soil contamination, land subsidence), dam environmental influence investigation and analysis 2. Disaster prevention and its countermeasure disasters prevention system, hazard map, evacuation simulation, road protection against disasters and hazard map, disaster revival database, volcano damage prediction 3. Planning support and management gas/water service pipeline maintenance system, park account book system of administration, city planning, regional planning, land use planning, monitoring and analysis of natural disaster such as slope failure, transportation management, selection of route for road, railway and power line, environment and scene preservation, evaluation of soil and sand production 3.3 Application viewpoint for rock engineering In the field of rock engineering, various engineering works such as the geological disposal of various wastes, the compressed air storage and the geothermal energy utilization are being planned. Beside the field of civil engineering, in the fields of geology and geophysics for understanding of the earth form and the earthquake mechanism, the rock engineering has been applied as a natural science. In the disaster prevention engineering and environmental engineering, the development of rock engineering has been expected. From the above point of view, the rock engineering is expected to be widely used including in the fields of science, engineering and even social science. However, the current technology cannot satisfy for these demands. The rock engineering in future will need to be developed not only for the construction of rock structure but also for a general technology to evaluate of the environment influence by development, prevent the disaster for protecting life and property from natural disaster and to reduce the influence on human s life and health. For this purpose, it is demanded that the study of rock engineering should change from a specific technology to a general technology. Furthermore, it demands to become global and interdisciplinary. From this point of view, GIS will obviously become an effective technology to combine the rock engineering with various engineering such as environmental and social engineering. On the other hand, the FEM in the rock engineering has closely connection with the GIS technology (the coupling of the software is not always easy). The construction of the raster model of GIS described above has many common aspects with the concept of mesh of FEM. The difference is that the rock mechanics is concerned the two dimensions of sections while the GIS is concerned the plane problem. The three dimensional GIS is being developed and now just as an expression tool of 2.5 dimensions world (because the time can be expressed discretely). But in the later example, it is possible for handling of associate three dimensions problem too. It is considered that GIS technology is effective in case of new development in the rock engineering as expressed above. 4. ADDVANCED APPLICATIONS 4.1 Hazard map of ground cave-in (Esaki et al., 2000) This example is the evaluation of influence and making hazard map for ground cave-in phenomenon. The complicated underground cavity is remained in the depth of 50 m. There are main four strata in this area, and the cave-in phenomenon reaches the ground surface frequently. From the view point of rock mechanics, the safety of cavity collapse by pillar failure has been evaluated and the hazard map of cave-in has been made using GIS (Figure 1).
4 T.ESAKI et al. / International Journal of the JCRM vol.2 (2006) pp.1-6 figure, it is possible to clarify the characteristics and situation of joint shearing such as the localization of contacted area in a rock joint, stress concentration and the distribution of failure. Furthermore, the flow path in a rock joint is changed with increasing the shear displacement. This application is a considerably special example, but it may be indicated the fine example to show the possibility of the new development of the rock engineering using GIS. 4.3 Estimation of water seepage in tunnel and shortage of water reserve due to tunnel excavation (Mitani et al., 2005) Figure 1. Safety factor distribution of cave-in and the historical cave-in area (the green enclosed line). In this case, the excavation rate of complicated cavity arrangement is calculated using the function of GIS, and the dangers of cave-in can be also calculated taking account of this excavation rate. Furthermore, the social influence by evaluating the cave-in influence to ground objects is also examined. Based on the integration of the GIS technology and the knowledge of the rock engineering, many problems, which have no solution in traditional rock engineering, can be solved. 4.2 Simulation of shear-flow coupling test (Mitani et al, 2001) This example is the simulation on shear-flow coupling test of a rock joint. In this experiment, the asperity height of a pair of upper and lower joint surfaces of joint are precisely measured by laser scanning system before shearing. From these measuring results, the change of the aperture distribution and the flow rate can be simulated accompanying normal and shear increments using GIS. The examples of results are shown in Figure 2. In tunnel construction, it is important to evaluate the quantity of water seepage. Consequently, the change of the underground water table caused by excavation may bring about shortage of water resources in surrounding area. In order to clarify these problems, spatial-time dependent underground water analysis is conducted according to the progress of tunnel excavation. In this study, GIS technology is combined with the FEM analysis. After creating the mesh using GIS (a pre-processor function), the FEM analysis is carried out, whereas the analysis result is returned to the GIS (a post-processor function) to examine the change of underground water level by advancing of tunnel excavation (Figure 3). This figure shows the decrease in the underground water level at the different terms. The underground water level is recovered at the two years later after finishing the tunnel excavation. In this example, it is possible to provide the adequate information of environmental impact for surrounded residents and to make decision of countermeasure for underground water preservation. By using GIS, the information can be shared by administration and citizens, the administrative transparency and fairness in decision making will be promoted. (a) (b) Figure 2. Flow rate distribution by simulating of shear-flow coupling test. (a) is shear disp. at 2.0 mm, (b) is shear disp. at 10.0 mm. These figures show the distribution of flow rate at different shear displacements. The black part in the figure shows the contact area in the shear process. As shown in the Figure 3. Change of underground water level due to tunnel excavation.
T. ESAKI et al. / International Journal of the JCRM vol.2 (2006) pp.1-6 5 4.4 Estimation of 3-D slope stability (Xie et al, 2003) Slope stability is widely evaluated in various development planning and slope disaster decreasing. Especially, two-dimensional (2-D) deterministic model for slope stability has been widely employed in civil engineering. However, all slope failures have a three-dimensional (3-D) geometry. Therefore, it is rational to use 3-D model to evaluate slope stability. Although several 3-D methods of analysis have been proposed in geotechnical engineering field, the difficult problems such as managing the complicated spatial data are still remained. In this example, the GIS grid-based 3-D slope stability evaluation system has been developed in order to evaluate the stability of the natural slope. One of the example results shows in Figure 4. This developed system can search for the most critical sliding mass, locating where and how amount, in a wide mountain area, which is impossible by using current slope stability approach. Furthermore, GIS introduced sophisticated techniques for the analyzing and viewing of data in a manner. Large volumes of information are stored and accessed digitally via GIS that also automates many time-consuming tasks and reduces man-hours incurred in searching and retrieving information. In addition, GIS encourages multi-disciplinary interaction in projects, allowing datasets from different disciplines to be combined and analyzed together. possible to analyze complex underground mining layers for accurate input parameters and to organize large amount of data effectively. As the result, the study area of underground mining in Japan is shown in Figure 5. The result is successfully simulated and predicted subsidence for protecting water reservoir against subsidence damage due to complex underground mining. Moreover, this subsidence prediction system can be expected as an evaluation support system for underground mining development project which enables a more rational in mining design, effective recovery and safety against mining damage in the surface environment. Figure 5. Three dimensional view of ground subsidence and the underground mining. 5. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTION METHOD Figure 4. Landslide hazard zonation map based on failure probability. 4.5 Subsidence prediction due to underground mining (Esaki et al, 2004) Development of underground mining activities may cause some effects to the surface affairs, particularly subsidence damage to structural facilities such as buildings, roads, bridges, railways. In order to predict the ground subsidence, analysis system has been developed by using GIS. The developed system is considered to be effective and efficient for predicting subsidence which also provides flexibility for all the common underground mining variables. The proposed method has capability to calculate time and space subsidence at the surface points along any direction, horizontal or dipping seam, and overburden of layer with the results of vertical displacement, slope, curvature, horizontal displacement, and horizontal strain. In this example, a strategy of close coupling between subsidence calculation model and GIS using COM (Component Object Model) technology has been proposed. Within GIS components, it is Although some of advanced applications using the latest GIS technology in the field of the rock engineering are introduced, many problems still remain in future study. The failed examples of GIS application are not a few in the past, the reasons for these failure can be considered as followings. (a) The purpose and goal of GIS application are not clear. (b) A long-term prospect in future is lacked. (c) The system design has left to the computer engineer. (d) The necessary data is difficult to get and input. To avoid these failures, it is needed to reconsider the real advantages of GIS: 1) To visualize information (Visual language) 2) A tool of investigation, analysis and management (Scientific tool or technology) 3) To support of decision making of plan (Design support) 4) To simplify and integrate of information (Integration technology). As above mention, the original utilization of GIS is not for simple querying and showing. It is important that GIS is for the spatial analysis by abstracting (data modeling) the real world and by building various subject maps using scientific analysis methods. The level of GIS application technology has to be shifted from the basic research stage to the practical stage in consideration of the real function of GIS technology.
6 T.ESAKI et al. / International Journal of the JCRM vol.2 (2006) pp.1-6 The future prospect of GIS application to rock engineering is considered as followings. (1) Preparation of data There are various kinds of data such as analog map, aerial photograph, satellite image, surveying data and text as the sources of GIS. It is indispensable for inputting and preparing these data by digitizing. The preparation of national digital map has made progresses, for example, the digital map of 1/25,000 scale had been already prepared, but the precision is not enough for the problem of real rock engineering that concerns the microtopography. The digital map of 1/2,500 scale in domestic area is also prepared, it may be useful for the city planning, however, it cannot be used in the field of rock engineering. Furthermore, the social and economical data is hard to be available. If we use those data, we have to spend a lot of times and labor for GIS works. Therefore, we have to be ready for the fine data taking account of the precision of attribute, the geometric precision, freshness and time-resolution. (2) Coupling of GIS with various analysis The numerical analysis of the rock engineering has been advanced. This numerical analysis is in an advanced level than the GIS analysis function, and the reliability is also high level. The coupling between this numerical analysis and GIS is absolutely needed. It is expected that GIS is not only for automatically creating the data for program and showing the analysis results but also can synthetically evaluate the other factors except the rock engineering factors. (3) Establishment of synthetic assessment method When conducting an environmental impact assessment, it is common to quantify various rasterlized influence factors and make synthetic assessment index by integrating weighted various influence factors. Although the selection of influence factor, ranking of classification and weighting the factors are very important and are influenced to the final assessment results, the specific method is not established. On the other hands, because the precision for various data is different, it is not appropriate to take the same treatment to all the data. And if these data are just integrated, good results cannot be obtained. Theoretically, these problems may be solved by the more accurate measurements, however, it is effective way to deal with the problems by using probabilistic statistical method, fuzzy theory and expert system. (4) Temporal and spatial phenomenon analysis in GIS The phenomenon of real world changes every moment three dimensionally, and the handling a temporal and spatial phenomenon (phenomena in time and space) is important. Current GIS software is considered to be 2.5 dimensions. In other words because it can only be used for managing the phenomenon such as points, lines and polygons on an plane, there is limitation to deal with three dimensions problem. And in particular the time progress is not considered and only the statistic phenomenon can be processed in current GIS. Development of real three dimensional GIS software and handling of time within GIS will become important in future. 6. CONCLUSIONS In this paper the state of arts and the characteristic of GIS technology have been introduced. Some examples of the advanced GIS application are also indicated. As showing these examples, the recent GIS applications are progressing from just the information management system to the functional analysis system. The GIS technology can provide the information for decision making to solve the difficult problem having the rock engineering. As considering the future development in the rock engineering, the rock engineering is expected to integrate the various science field, such as natural, social and economic science. Furthermore, the rock engineering has to be developed as the globalized and interdisciplinary engineering. In order to correspond to these changes, the creation of research environment in the rock engineering related fields is considered to be an urgent problem. The GIS is a possibly powerful tool and technology for the solution of a lot of problems, and it can be expected that GIS technology will become a popular tool during near future. However the key for the successful GIS technology is not only the progress in GIS technology itself, but also the action of the engineers and the researchers. 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