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Development of a spatial database and web-GIS for the climate of Greece

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Abstract

Climate information is important for scientific research and decision making. Nowadays web-based cartography technologies provide the means for wide dissemination of such information. This paper describes the design and implementation of a spatial database and a web-GIS application that allow the management, visualization and analysis of data that are directly or indirectly related to climate and its future projections in Greece. Emphasis is given to the design decisions made in order to fulfill the requirements of flexible data querying and reporting, and of maintenance cost minimization. Cartographic layers for climatic and other parameters are dynamically produced through database views and geographic web services. The web-GIS provides user-friendly cartographic operations for visualizing and manipulating thematic maps, as well as reporting services for selecting, displaying and downloading climatic values for selected areas.

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Notes

  1. prism.oregonstate.edu

  2. www.cefa.dri.edu/Westmap

  3. www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate

  4. www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/maps.shtml

  5. grims.sr.unh.edu

  6. www.climatewizard.org

  7. www.climatewna.com

  8. uniatmos.atmosfera.unam.mx/ACDM/servmapas

  9. www.carpatclim-eu.org/pages/atlas/

  10. geoclima.aegean.gr

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Acknowledgments

This research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) and Greek national funds, through the Operational Program “Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) – Research Funding Program COOPERATION 2009 (no 09SYN-31-1094, Title “Development of a Geographic Climate Information System”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, University Hill, GR-811 00, Mytilene, Greece

    Michail Vaitis, Vasilis Kopsachilis, Nikoletta Koukourouvli & Dimitris Simos

  2. School of Geology, Department of Meteorology and Climatology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Haralambos Feidas

  3. Geospatial Enabling Technologies S.A., Thessaloniki, Greece

    Panagiotis Symeonidis & Symeon Taskaris

  4. UBITECH Ltd, Athens, Greece

    Dimitris Dalaperas

Authors
  1. Michail Vaitis
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  2. Haralambos Feidas
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  3. Panagiotis Symeonidis
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  4. Vasilis Kopsachilis
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  5. Dimitris Dalaperas
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  6. Nikoletta Koukourouvli
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  7. Dimitris Simos
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  8. Symeon Taskaris
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michail Vaitis.

Additional information

Communicated by: H. A. Babaie

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 8
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a The main interface of the web-GIS application displaying the map of the mean air temperature for the period 1975–2004. b The main interface of the web-GIS application displaying the map of the temperature change at 2 m between the period 2021–2050 and 1961–1990 derived by the RegCM3 climate model, scenario A1B

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Identification utility for a point of interest

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The Select utility highlights cells of a layer that meet certain conditions

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Station report table

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Station report charts

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Simple report table and charts

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Multi data report table

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User report table

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Fig. 16
figure 16

Climate model report table for the RegCM model

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Vaitis, M., Feidas, H., Symeonidis, P. et al. Development of a spatial database and web-GIS for the climate of Greece. Earth Sci Inform 12, 97–115 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-018-0351-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-018-0351-9

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