Geological Map Harmonization

Authors: Carlo Cipolloni, Marco Pantaloni, Matev Novak and Matjia Krivic (Geological Survey of Italy - ISPRA and Slovenian Geological Survey - GeoZS).

The material is provided under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

This module describes the procedure used to carry out the Geological Map Harmonisation in the border area between Italy and Slovenia needed to produce geo-hazard maps. The main objective of the pilot was the comparison and definition of the geometrically and semantically anomalous contacts between geological polygons in the maps provided by the two countries.

The presentation introduces to the basic concepts of INSPIRE and GeoSciML applied to the Earth science, to the structure of GeoSciML used in the classification of the maps in the pilot, and to the CGI vocabulary used in the project. Then the harmonising procedure is described and the difficulties faced within the geological map harmonization process.

The procedure runs according to the following phases: Collection and analysis of data to appropriate scale of representation; Semantic harmonization of the descriptive content of geological units; Geometric harmonization of geological map along the Italy-Slovenia border.

The harmonized geological map has been applied to the analysis of environmental risk, defined as geo-hazard. Purpose of this analysis is the realization of a Landslide susceptibility map and of a Flood probability map by a semi-automated procedure by means of a specific widget. Then the module describes the geoprocessing used in that maps production, as a basic element to understanding how the widget works, which are the procedures behind the application and how the user can perform an environmental risk analysis using the tool, modifying the parameters and deploying a map in Natural Risk Zone data model compliant to INSPIRE Data Specification.

The first one is related to geological maps data harmonisation using INSPIRE GE and GSML data models, also with available vocabularies.

The second part describes how a geo-hazard map is built highlighting the importance to have a harmonised geological layer in the geoprocessing.

The third and last part explains the geo-hazard widget functionality and how a user can perform an environmental risk analysis or can produce a hazard map based on INSPIRE NRZ data model.

The trainees will understand the problems related to the merging of various geological maps and data sets along cross-border areas, the procedure that can be used for geological data harmonisation and why it is necessary to have a geological harmonised layer to perform geo-hazard analysis. Moreover, the trainees will understand how the geo-hazard widget works and how to use it.

The users need to have basic knowledge of Risk Management, Procedures for Data and Metadata Harmonisation and Geological Data Harmonisation.