Introduction The pairing of the Geographic Information System (GIS), an established geospatial technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT), an emerging technology, is like pairing Tony Bennett with a new rising star to do a Duets III album—seems unlikely at first, but once they get together, sparks fly.
IoT consists of sensors that collect different types of data, connectivity (networking), data storage, algorithms to analyze data to reach decisions, and a user interface. IoT already has a wide range of applications, such as consumer electronics, security, healthcare, autonomous vehicles, retail, factory automation, logistics, supply chain, oil and gas exploration, defense and aerospace, and farming. The field of IoT has been undergoing explosive growth in the past five years; the upward growth trend of IoT is likely to continue.
IoT devices can be installed on stationary or mobile assets, such as buildings or cars, respectively, to collect information about the operation of the machine or the surrounding environment. While IoT is useful in continuously collecting and analyzing the data on each location or asset and describing the dynamics of a scenario, it is often ineffective in visualizing data or informing on the big picture.
On the other hand, GIS is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data. Primarily used in urban planning, municipal management, and asset management, GIS can also be used to study land use and the location of farms, towns, and forests with maps and aerial photographs. In other words, 2
GIS is very good at visualizing data and telling a story, but it does not inform on the fluidity of the situation or the granular details.
IoT and GIS Collaborating
GIS and IoT are almost like the missing half the other has been looking for. GIS can provide the big picture that IoT often misses, and IoT can provide the granular and dynamic details that GIS often lacks.
By combining GIS and IoT, the stakeholders could get a complete and granular picture of individual assets or locations and all assets as a whole.
There are many applications of GIS and IoT, such as in smart cities, facility management, transit development, disaster response, and grid management.
To create smarter cities, we need more data to make smarter planning decisions. IoT sensors installed on cars, roads, highways, and buildings can collect lots of real-time information for analytics. This way, city planners can be alerted of the occurrence and location of emergency events, such as fire, flooding, or disease outbreaks, at a city scale. Also, this data can help government agencies monitor and improve the level of air and noise pollution in the city. In addition, city planners can develop a heat map of 3
cycling routes for better planning. Moreover, the analytics can shed light on urban traffic and help optimize public transportation routes. Lastly, up-to-date information on lane closure or road construction will help planners design and maintain roads in the future.
Hundreds of thousands of water lines break every year in the U.S., costing close to three billion dollars annually. Municipal governments can achieve significant savings by monitoring water lines and dealing with breaks as soon as possible.
For example, in Florida, the sprawling Miami-Dade County parks system was losing millions of dollars and more than 300 million gallons of water in its aging water infrastructure. With a solution that interfaces with sensors and intelligent meters, county employees can remotely monitor water consumption and detect leaks via smart devices, laptops, and office computers. As a result, the parks department estimates a 20-percent reduction in water use annually with a cost reduction of $860,000 annually.
Another example is the Canadian town of Olds, which was in a water supply crisis because it was losing close to 40% of its water supply due to leaky pipes. The city deployed a system of strategically placed acoustic leakage detection sensors in service pipes. By analyzing sound data patterns from the pipes with an algorithm, the city was able to detect new leaks quickly. By reducing water loss, the city was able to save money as well as increase capacity.
Case Study: Smart Buildings
With IoT sensors installed on the exterior of buildings, managers can analyze the amount of sunlight received and the wind speed on different faces of a building. With IoT sensors installed inside buildings, managers can monitor the temperature and relative humidity, lighting, noise level, ergonomics, and traffic in the building. With these data, they can project the level of energy consumption during different times of the day and devise strategies to optimize energy use.
Using this strategy, planners can make old buildings more energy-efficient. For example, Tokyo is using such data to renovate old buildings with modern technologies in terms of isolation, lighting, cooling, and heating to reduce energy consumption by as much as 20%. Furthermore, the municipal government is using thermal environmental data to create microclimates, such as breeze corridors between buildings, so that the residents can decrease energy use inside of the buildings.
Lastly, IoT and GIS can also be used to design evacuation systems that enable building residents to evacuate quickly. 4
Case study: Natural Disasters
Municipalities can use GIS and IoT data to simulate and analyze the potential impact of natural disasters, such as flooding, on cities. For example, river line and coastal flood simulations can help city planners determine the preliminary flood risk assessments in urban floodplains and coastal areas to make appropriate design decisions.
In response to the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, North Carolina
established the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program to better identify, communicate, and manage the risks from flood hazards. This program has since been used by the State Emergency Operations Center during storms to monitor flooding conditions, assess potential impacts of flooding based on weather forecasts, and target the deployment of emergency response personnel and resources.
Needs and Challenges in Combining IoT and GIS
While there is excellent potential in combining IoT and GIS, there are significant challenges, such as hardware ruggedization, data integration, data storage, and data security.
Because the IoT sensors will be installed in the field to collect data, they need to be ruggedized to be able to withstand extreme temperatures, significant temperate swings, and shock and vibrations.
Data integration will also be an issue, since IoT datasets come in different formats, such as texts, images, sounds, and videos.
Data storage presents several unique challenges in the combination of IoT and GIS. First, much of GIS data are aerial photographs, which are large files; therefore, storage capacity has to keep pace with the amount of data acquired. Second, while storing geospatial data is feasible in the desktop environment, it is preferable, albeit challenging, to store them in the cloud.
Lastly, datasets accumulated in IoT devices are already quite attractive to hackers. Layering GIS data on top of them will make it even harder to keep hackers away. Therefore, maintaining data security and privacy will be a critical piece of the puzzle.
