Geomatics and Water Policy
Geomatics including remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) is the geospatial technology for gathering, management, analysis, and dissemination of spatially referenced information. Water policy is the governance framework including legislat
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Geomatics and Water Policy Wanhong Yang
Abstract Geomatics including remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) is the geospatial technology for gathering, management, analysis, and dissemination of spatially referenced information. Water policy is the governance framework including legislation/regulation, standard, planning and management of water resources. Water policy involves complex physical, biological, economic, social, and political processes, and manifests at location, subbasin, watershed, regional, national, and international scales. Water policy has an inherently spatial dimension which offers opportunities for Geomatics support. The applications of Geomatics for supporting water management and policy can be classified into three categories: Firstly, Geomatics supports acquisition, storage, management, visualization, and distribution of water and related datasets. Secondly, Geomatics supports spatial analysis of water resources including GIS and water modelling integration. Lastly, Geomatics supports decision making in water policy including the development of water related spatial decision support systems. While Geomatics has a great potential to support water management and policy in Canada, several strategic issues needs to be addressed. A Geomatics framework needs to be developed for water data gathering, analyzing and visualizing. Technology standards need to be developed for integrating Geomatics with water models. Particularly, Geomatics visualization technologies needs to be further developed to improve accessibility of water information for non-technical users. Keywords Remote sensing • GIS • Water policy • Water models • Decision support systems
W. Yang (*) Department of Geography, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd E, N1G 2W1 Guelph, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 S. Renzetti, D.P. Dupont (eds.), Water Policy and Governance in Canada, Global Issues in Water Policy 17, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42806-2_23
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Introduction
Geomatics including remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) is the geospatial technology for gathering, management, analysis, and dissemination of spatially referenced information (Natural Resources Canada 2013). Water policy is the governance framework including legislation/regulation, standard, planning and management of water resources (Dinar 1998). Water policy involves complex physical, biological, economic, social, and political processes, and manifests at location, subbasin, watershed, regional, national, and international scales (Wilson et al. 2000). Water policy has an inherently spatial dimension which offers opportunities for Geomatics support. As an innovative enabling technology, Geomatics has had widespread applications in many fields including water policy. Geomatics applications in water resources range from data gathering, georeferencing, to analyzing complex relationships between water conditions and related drainage area characteristics (Maidment 2002
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