THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION-SYSTEM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS

Environmental monitoring and restoration at the U.S. Department of Ene rgy's Savannah River Site (SRS) requires efficient access to large amo unts of diverse spatial information. These geographic information syst em (GIS) and remotely sensed data are related to both physical and man -made features. In order to handle this task, the Environmental Scienc es Section (ESS) of the Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC) cre ated the Environmental Data Atlas (EDA) that uses spatial keys to link all data sources to a common geographical data base. Furthermore, it was important that all of the data be readily accessible on the deskto p of scientists regardless of the type of computer platform they used. This paper describes the creation of a comprehensive computing enviro nment that utilizes a geographical data browsing system as the core fo r meeting these requirements. It also describes how bibliographic sear ch and aerial photography browsing functions were incorporated into th e system. Finally, it describes a sophisticated modeling system that h as been integrated into the system to support site selection activitie s. By taking advantage of the latest advancements in geographical data browsing systems, fourth generation procedural programming languages, and network communications, the integrated system represents an impor tant step in the evolution of GIS.