Interoperable Web-GIS Service for Collecting Meteorological Data: A Case Study in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka provides services pertaining to meteorological data to government agencies, private sector, researchers and the general public in keeping with national interest and international standards. The department is maintaining 20 major meteorological stations in addition to many minor stations scattered throughout the Island. There are different meteorological parameters which are measured in different meteorological stations in different frequencies. Duration of the data availability of different meteorological parameters differ from station to station. If a researcher or a policy maker needs to carry out a study which requires meteorological data, descriptive details about the locational information of the meteorological stations and their data availability is a mandatory requirement for a site selection and feasibility trials. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop an interactive Web-GIS application to locate meteorological stations in Sri Lanka along with its’ complete metadata such as location of the station, station name, available meteorological data and period of data availability. In this paper we proposed a Web-GIS application to locate all meteorological stations in Sri Lanka along with complete metadata of relevant station. Meteorological data can be accessed from the existing database and GPS locations of meteorological stations will be stored in a database along with other collected attributes. Finally, application can use LAMP stack with Google Maps API to present meteorological map on a web browser interactively. Researcher can access this Web-GIS application, search meteorological stations according to user's requirements and view metadata related to the station using a single click. This system will be a valuable tool for policy makers and researchers to find out meteorological data availability for their studies.