Açık Kaynaklı Web Tabanlı Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemi Geliştirilmesi

Abstract

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are increasingly being used by different disciplines and user groups (personal, corporate, etc.). With the advancements of mobile technologies, many applications have started to use locational information and thus become more sophisticated. In addition, the widespread access to broadband Internet worldwide has facilitated the transfer and sharing of the data online, in particular on the Web; thus has helped the GIS data to be shared instead of storing and sharing them on single computers or Intranets only. One of the key components of the GIS is location based data, and with the widespread use of Web and mobile-based GIS, it has become possible to collect the data by non-expert users who do not have domain knowledge. The aim of this study submitted as a master's thesis is to develop a Web based GIS environment at Hacettepe University using open source software and tools. Within the scope of the thesis, availability and functionality of open source GIS software have been investigated, a system prototype has been designed and a Web based GIS application has been implemented with selected components. In order to collect test data and create a Volunteer Geographical Information (VGI) application at the same time, a mobile app on Android operating system has been implemented. The app can collect user’s experience on earthquakes after their occurence together with the location information (geographical coordinates), and the collected data is presented on the Web map server. Users can categorize and send their feeling after a quake together with the location information using the mobile app named "Sarsıntıyı Hissettim" (I felt the quake) to the database. An open source Web map server, called MapServer, is used to present the collected data to the Internet. The submitted data include quake feeling, location of the user, date and time, and name and surname of the user (depending on the user choice). This system implemented here is aimed at being used as a data sharing platform for different research projects and disciplines, providing necessary technological infrastructure and tools for any geographical application inside the university and facilitating sharing and dissemination of the information produced in scientific projects.