Perspectives on GIS Development in China

CHEN Shupeng and ZHONG Ershun (Institute of Geography )(Chinese Academy of Sciences)



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
　　http://www.hwcc.com.cn
 2001年4月10日　　.
 

Researches and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in China started in the early 1980s. In the early period, the development of GIS was mainly depended on the progress and applications of remote sensing, aerial photography, as well as computer aided design (CAD). In recent years, with the development of GPS and Internet technology, GIS has being developed vigorously in the country. Looking ahead to the 21st century, a new era of "Digital Earth" and "Cyberspace" is coming, which will provide a great opportunity as well as a challenge to the China''''s GIS circles.
1. Progress Pace of GIS

Researches of GIS in China can date back to the early 1980. At that time, a remote sensing application project was being carried on in Southwest China and using GIS method integrated with remote sensing data to solve the area measurement automatically was initiated. After the first successful test of GIS, a proposal to start GIS research was proposed in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Since then a great success has been achieved both in research and application of GIS in China. While its history or progress pace can be divided into four periods.

From 1981-1985, it is the initial period of GIS in China. During this period, GIS was mainly keep in research and experimental stage, a number of scientists in CAS and some high learning institutes started to follow the tracks of GIS development in world. With the support of the State Science and Technology Commission (SSTC) and CAS, a number of research projects were initiated and conducted, leading to build up some typical case information systems. In this period five systematical and experimental researches had been conducted. Those are geo-data capture methods, regional information system modeling, national basic geographic databases building, development of geo-analysis software and national geographic data standards and specifications. While the most influential one of those researches was the formulation of a draft GIS technology specification, in which over 50 scientists and specialists had been involved. The first State Key Laboratory of GIS was set up in the Institute of Geography, CAS, providing an open and new type research laboratory specialized in GIS in the country. Also, a large number of GIS personnel had got trained, and some of them are leading edge specialists today.

In the 1986-1990 period, the importance of GIS technology had been generally got recognized by governmental officials at different levels, and more scientists started to adopt this technology as a tool for their researches. In carrying out a state key research program on remote sensing application supported by the State Planning Commission and SSTC, a national level GIS research project was initiated within the program. The project was mainly focused on flood forecasting and prevention methods, soil erosion on Loess Plateau and Three North Forest Belt. The objects of these researches were to provide regional planning and management as well as decision-making services to the governments. Also, during this period, some national level systems, such as national basic resource database, land resources database, mineral resources and forest resource databases had been built up. It should be noticed that the building of these systems was under the planning economic system. At this period all the built systems were in the domain of public welfare and supported by the governmental funds. There was no idea about GIS industry.

Beside personnel training and research sites building, the achievements of this period include the following two aspects:

(1) A large number of geographic related databases had been designed and built, including 1:1 million China land resources information system, 1:2.5 million water and soil reserve information system and 1:4 million natural resources and environmental database and earthquake disaster database. Regional systems included those of Dongting Lake, Lower Reaches of the Yellow River, the Yellow River Delta, the Loess Plateau, the Taihu Lake Basin, the Wusulijiang-Helngjiang- Songhhuajiang Plains, as well as Liaoning Province and Haunts City, etc.

(2) A lot of achievements on technical methods of GIS had been made in the period, such as the use of "OR" model to solve aerial photograph interpretation, directly input into computer, realizing the automation for the whole process of photograph rectifying, mapping, measurement and statistics. Improvement of Chinese language version for some GIS software packages and PC based mapping systems. And a national grid system standard had been formulized.

From 1991-1996, it was a very important period for the development of GIS in China. With opening to the outside world and deepening its economic reform, especially with urbanization and fast economic growth along the coastal areas of the country, the demands for GIS had been increased greatly, GIS applications in urban planning and land management had been springing up vigorously in country. As a whole the applications of GIS in these areas had improved the abilities of database updating, spatial retrieving and office automation. With the increase of GIS, the demand for homemade GIS industry has risen. Meantime, at the impetus of the China 21st Agenda, about 42 governmental departments and sectors had put information systems as their priority, financial and customs sectors had implemented their information infrastructure, among them GIS plays a very important role for management and planning. At the national level, lots of efforts have been made on GIS research and system building, including those activities of building up a National Basic Information System for the State Council, organizing an evaluation for home-developed GIS software, building up a disaster fast response information system and a national agricultural evaluation information system.

Since 1997, GIS has been into a new stage. Firstly, GIS has been generally recognized as important part of IT in the country. The government has given a priority to the development of GIS. In December 1997, the first National Working Conference for GIS was held by SSTC and State in Beijing, which was aiming to promote GIS technology and GIS application. Over 100 local officials in charge new technology applications and noted GIS experts attended the conference. Local officials had expressed their interests and enthusiasm in adopting GIS for assisting the local planning and management. And in 1998, a lot of GIS activities have seen. Fig.1 shows the development and distribution of urban GIS in China.

It is astonished that the development of IT in 90s in the world, particularly computer and network technologies. For China, it has also been connected with the outside world through optical fibers and submarine cable, as it having connected with the United States via San Francisco and Los Angeles and with Japan and South Korea. China is actively participated in international co-operations. For example, it recently had successfully participated in the launch of the “iridium” satellite series. The fast growing of economy and social development, more and more areas have had the interests in GIS. In recent years, a lot of operational GIS systems have been seen in the country. There are some good examples, such as the Hong Kong GIS for the Hong Kong Troops of the PLA, the China Ecological Research Network (CERN), National Marine Information System and National Land Information System (ARC/CHINA) which will be soon available in the market. It should be noticed that the situation for China’s GIS circles is severe, as there are too many things ahead for meeting the demands for GIS of the society and keeping up with the development of modern technology.

2. Regional GIS Application Waves

Generally, in a developing country like China the demand for GIS is much greater in the urban area than that in the rural area and greater in the coastal area than that in the inland. The development and applications of GIS technology in management and planning is usually keep with the development of regional economy. It is estimated that only when the average land price has increased to a certain level that can maintain the running systems, then it is possible to build GIS in the region. Geographically speaking, China is developing uneven and the development of GIS applications is also uneven. After two decades’ efforts, a regional GIS application wave has emerged in China. Based on regional differences and the application level, regionally it can be divided into four types of GIS applications.

(1) GIS Industry Region: This region is mainly located to the south of the LingNan Mountain, equaling to the LingNan Culture influential area, including Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan Provinces, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Taiwan Province. Early urban GIS applications were started from the coastal cities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Beihai and Xiamen as well as Taiwan’s Taipei and Taizhong. And in this area GIS applications are going into small cities and towns, for example a town called Xiaolan near to Zhongshan City has built up a GIS for township planning. It is likely to form a three level of GIS applications from the regional GIS to urban and township GIS. It is the most active region in the country of GIS applications and is in somewhat forming a specialized industry of GIS.

(2) “Public Welfare Supported GIS Region”: It includes the region of those provinces and regions along the LongHai-Jiejiang-Jiangxi Railway and the Yangtze River industry belt. GIS is very active in the region with GIS specialized organizations being formed in some places. In Shanghai Municipality, Jiangsu, Jiejiang and Jiangxi provinces, provincial level GIS centers have been set up recently for organizing GIS applications. In Chongjing and other large and middle-sized cities of Wuhan, Ningpo, Hangzhou, Changzhou, Suzhou and Shashi have also started their GIS programs. While GIS application in this region is still supported by the governments and is far to reach an industrial stage.

(3) Experimental GIS Application Region: It includes North and Northeast China. GIS programs in this region are usually planned by the central and local governments. As there are many research institutes located in this region and it has had a stronger technical support in developing GIS systems. The early experimental GIS systems, such as those of the Three North Forest Belt, the Loess Plateau, are built in the region and most of them had not been used for direct management and planning. And even in Beijing, Tianjin and Zibo city, there are still some problems remained in using the built GIS systems.

(4) GIS Developing Region: It includes five provinces in Northwest China and Inner Mongolia. GIS is still in a developing stage in this region. It is conjunction with large engineering projects. The building up of the Pan Asia Railway and development of Meigong River and Tumen River has increased the demand for GIS application both for regional planning and project possibility study.

In addition to that, national level GIS systems in different subjects are under construction. Census data, agricultural, industrial and resources inventory data as well as other geographic related data are needed to handle. Meanwhile, with the development of remote sensing technology and network, more systems will be built up in the country soon.

Generally, from the central government to the locals it is uneven in GIS applications in the country. And the regional GIS applications are in a developing stage. It is concluded that GIS applications are mainly depended on the local economy and technology bases.

3. An Era of Knowledge-Based Economy

GIS is part of knowledge-based economy. The GIS industry and market are never isolated. GIS industry can not be considered as simply just importing advanced equipment and technology or developing some software systems. It needs the understanding of the whole knowledge-based economy and changes the traditional concept of the industry. It is also related with the management system, science and technology bases and educational quality and productive forces as well as other factors.

Looking ahead to the new era of the 21st century, a new type society of information and knowledge-based industry will come. Although a great success has obtained in GIS development and application in China, there is a long way to go for GIS research and GIS industry in the country.

Digital Earth and Network World:

A new revolution of technology is on the way that has made a profound change on data capture, data handling and displaying. It makes it possible for us to handle and utilize large mount data of environment and cultural phenomena. Most of those data are geographically related. There exists a critical problem about data and data handling. On one hand, many people are thirst for data for some purposes. On the other hand there are a large number of data are in waste. For example, the Landsat satellite is capable of taking a complete photograph of the entire earth’s surface every two weeks. It has been operating for nearly 20 years. Yet more than 95 percent if those images, which might be invaluable to farmers, educators, environmental scientists, geologists and city planners, have never been seen by human eyes. With the development of remote sensing sensors, high resolution of 1-meter remote sensing images will be available in the near future. With the development of the technology, the speed of next generation Internet will increase 100 to 1,000 times. This has lead to the development and application of WebGIS.

A critical question for China GIS circles now is that it needs to build more databases and develop basic systems. ARC/CHINA, a 1:1 million-map database has been completed and ready to be published for the market and 1X1km meteorological satellite images have been included in the database of World Meteorology Organization (WMO). In Hong Kong and Shanghai and other major municipalities, Information Ports are under construction. These moves will surely lead to develop more database meeting the demands of the society.

Geographical Models and Dynamical Modeling:

Presently the development of GIS in China is still in the stage of databases building to meet the general management and data retrieving. The urgent thing needed to do is make the data mining into information that people can understand and use. It is a comprehensive process to attract information from data, and then to knowledge. Data in a GIS are complicated as those are related to the earth that is an open system. In order to solve the problems of population and resources we faced today, it needs to study all linear or non-linear problems on the earth system, find out the laws of those phenomena. Remote sensing provides a powerful earth observation tool that can monitor the changes of land and marine environments. Analysis, understanding of the mechanism of the above problems and modeling are very important to GIS, as it should be used to solve the problems. Chinese scientists are making their efforts on see level change modeling, urban flood disaster modeling, agricultural output estimation modeling, earthquake prediction, trying to build a system for social-economy prediction. On this situation, besides the general software system, practical application models and specialized GIS software should be developed and make GIS more intelligent.

(2) Cyberspace and “Virtual Communication”

With the development of computer science and communication technology, whatever of literature, arts, and building or crafts designs, even a war can be depicted in computer by a virtual way. Probably this is a new way of thinking and doing things in the 21st century. In a classic fission named “Red Chamber ”, it depicts “virtual scenery ” for the characters and story of the whole book and predicts the development in the first chapter. Cyberspace is a special space for people to visit through computer display and network. Then people can use “Virtual Communication” for communication, trade, and research. Cyberspace like a standing wave existing in the network is interactive and can interacted with people’s thinking. Cyberspace, the fourth media after the oral language, writings, television, and broadcasting, integrates computer, digital media, network and virtual reality. This has provided a new challenge to GIS and it is a new base for application applications.

China’s GIS circle should not only work on the operational system buildings but should follow the trend of the new development of IT in the outside world. To meet the demand of the knowledge based economy we should face the country’s reality and make more efforts to open up a new way for developing GIS both in the technology and application.

References

The Starting on Remote Sensing and Geo-information system in China, Chen Shupeng, China Science and Technology Press, 1993.

Basic Research n Geographic Information System- Geoinformatics, Chen Shhupen, Cheng Jicheng and he Jianbang. Proceedings of IEAS’97 and IWGIS’97, August 18-22, 1997, Beijing China.

Urbanization Problems and Urban GIS in China: an Overview, Chen Shupeng, Proceedings of Geoinformatics’98 Conference, Beijing, June 17-19,1998, pp.1-3

Li, R and P. Gong, 1994, New Challenges in GIS: An International Perspective. Proceedings of CPGIS’94, Calgary. Alberta, Canada, June 13-15, 1994, pp.160
 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
相关文章
Keyime Citizens Call for Potable Water(2003-9-15 )
ICRC Provides Drinking Water for 15,000 Residents of Uvira(2003-9-15 )
$23 million water storage plan gets chilly reception(2003-9-14 )
California water deal again in trouble(2003-9-14 )
Community pursues Green Bay water deal alone(2003-9-12 )
Water-sharing deal to be debated by CA lawmakers(2003-9-12 )
Iraqi city without water after sabotage explosion(2003-9-11 )
EPA forms new Water Security Division to safeguard systems(2003-9-11 )