A Study of Geographic Problem Solving Environment in Cooperative Distributed Design

To adapt well to modern distributed and heterogeneous network environment, geographic information systems (GIS) should be able to create, manage and optimize spatial analyses. Building up spatial analyses using pre-existing spatial data and geographic models, which are from different regions and belong to different institutes, can lead to higher efficiency in solving complex geographic problems. Cooperative distributed geographic problem solving environment (CDGPSE) offers an interactive, efficient, and feasible environment through which geographically separated geographers can conduct collaborative work. In this paper, resources layer, service layer, integration layer and application layer are tightly coupled to develop a CDGPSE system. Using Web Services-based architecture is efficient to integrate and share distributed resources as well as modelling procedures built on different platforms. Finally, a prototype system is implemented for collaboration on geographic problem solving on the groundwater. The experimental results show that the architecture developed in this paper is efficient and feasible.