GeoWorlds: Integrating GIS and digital libraries for situation understanding and management

Abstract

Helping organizations to marshal, analyze, discuss, and act on all of the available information about a situation playing out over space and time is a critical problem. GeoWorlds (http://www.isi.edu/geoworlds) is a component-based information management system that addresses this issue. It brings together information analysis, retrieval and collaboration tools and integrates digital library, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensor data management technologies. It provides three key services: 1) rapidly assembling a custom repository of geographic information about a region, 2) bi-directionally linking it to collections of document-based information from the World-Wide Web, and 3) monitoring real-time sensor data for information that might change conclusions or decisions formed on the basis of this rich information set. GeoWorlds framework enables synchronous and asynchronous collaboration over finding, filtering, organizing and visualizing the needed information.