Spatial On-Line Analytical Processing (SOLAP): A Tool the to Analyze the Emission of Pollutants in Industrial Installations

This paper presents a category of on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tool intended to explore data related to space i.e. spatial data. The tool, designated SOLAP, integrates concepts from two different worlds, namely, geographic information systems (GIS) and OLAP. OLAP systems are developed for interactive and rapid analysis of large amounts of data. The integration of spatial data in OLAP systems raises some questions because spatial data has a specific and complex nature since it can be in the form of text, numbers, vectors or images. For example, is necessary to introduce spatial data types and spatial operations in the data layer, execute slices, drill-ups or drill-downs with spatial data, display spatial data in a human readable manner or plan ways for acceptable response times during the execution of OLAP operations with spatial data. We develop a SOLAP system that makes use of spatial packages in object relational database management systems (ORDBMS) in order enable navigation through spatial data. In the scope of this work we implement a prototype and apply it to a case of study that consists in analyzing the emission of pollutants in Portuguese industrial installations