Web Service-based Interoperable Geospatial Modeling for Earth Science Research and Decision Supporting

It is estimated that more than 80 percent of data that human beings have collected so far are the geospatial data. In order for the geospatial data to be useful, information has to be extracted from the data and converted to knowledge. However, currently it is very difficult for users to obtain the geospatial data and to turn them into useful information and knowledge for scientific research and decision support. This paper presents a standard-based web service framework that enables the interactive construction and running of interoperable geospatial models over the web. The models and their components can be reused in construction of other geospatial models and are sharable with peers. The framework is built on the top of the common data environment provided by Open GIS Consortium (OGC) Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Web Registries Service (WRS) Specifications, so that the models can access petabytes of geospatial data without worrying about details of the data formations and data preprocessing. The full implementation of the framework will allow anyone equipped with an Internet-connected PC to conduct large-scale projects on Earth science research and applications with great easiness. This paper also discusses a prototype system that implements the framework.