https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6879-0553
![Sample our Earth Sciences journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5930/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Earth-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Geoportals have been the primary source of spatial information to researchers in diverse fields. Recent years have seen a growing trend to integrate spatial analysis and geovisual analytics inside Geoportals. Researchers could use the Geoportal to conduct basic analysis without offline processing. In practice, domain-specific analysis often requires researchers to integrate heterogeneous data sources, leverage new statistical models, or build their own customized models. These tasks are increasingly being tackled with open source tools in programming languages such as Python or R. However, it is unrealistic to incorporate the numerous open source tools in a Geoportal platform for data processing and analysis. This work provides an exploratory effort to bridge Geoportals and open source tools through Python scripting. The Geoportal demonstrated in this work is the Urban and Regional Explorer for China studies. A python package is provided to manipulate this platform in the local programming environment. The server side of the Geoportal implements a set of service endpoints that allows the package to upload, transform, and process user data and seamlessly integrate them into the existing datasets. A case study is provided that illustrated the use of this package to conduct integrated analyses of search engine data and baseline census data. This work attempts a new direction in Geoportal development, which could further promote the transformation of Geoportals into online analytical workbenches.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bing She
Bing She receeived PhD in cartography and geographic information engineering from Wuhan Unviersity. His research interests include spatial data integration and CyberGIS.
Tao Hu
Tao Hu receeived PhD in cartography and geographic information engineering from Wuhan Unviersity. His research interests include spatial data anlaysis and innovation studies.
Xinyan Zhu
Xinyan Zhu receeived PhD in photogrammetry and remote sensing from Wuhan Unviersity. His research interests are spatiotemporal data analysis and spatial databases.
Shuming Bao
Shuming Bao receeived PhD in applied economics from Clemson University, United States. His research interests are regional economics and spatial statistics.