Virtual geographic environments for water pollution control

Abstract

Due to extensive water pollution in Chinese rivers and lakes, large efforts have to be made to improve the quality of drinking water and manage the sewage water treatment process. We propose a general workflow for integrating a large number of heterogeneous data sets relating to various hydrological compartments into a Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE). This allows both researchers and stakeholders to easily access complex data collections in a unified context, find interrelations or inconsistencies between data sets and evaluate simulation results with respect to other observations or simulations in the same region. A prototype of such a VGE has been set up for the region around Chao Lake, containing more than 20 spatial data sets and collections as well as first simulation result. The prototype has been successfully presented to researchers and stakeholders from China and Germany.