A Multi-project Strategic Research Program on Spatial-temporal Decision Support System for Dynamic Monitoring and Management of the Environment

Principal Investigator:
Leung, Yee

Co-investigator(s):
Chau, Kwai Cheong
Fung, Tung
Lam, Kin Che
Lin, Hui
Neller, Ron. J.

Summary:
Rapid economic developemnt in South China has brought about abrupt changes in the environment. Surrounding and within the urban centres, new infrastructures such as new roads, rails, communication networks and power plants are under construction anticipating that a provision of enhanced investment environment can induce economic growth. As growth poles, urban centres have expanded rapidly very much at the expense of the nearby prime agricultural land. Urban development has also exerted tremendous pressure on the environment in terms of industrial pollution. Rural industrialization and changes in production systems meanwhile have also been changing the rural landscape. To better manage and monitor the changes in the environment, a good decision support system must be devised which can efficiently update our knowledge of the changes so that effective and sound measures can be devised and implemented.

The development of this decision support system involves basic and applied research in different levels. At the basic level, data must be collected and updated to provide a fundamental picture of the environment. Archived data and in situ investigations must be integrated with data collected synoptically by remote sensors in space. This requires the building up of a spatial/temporal database which incorporates and integrates multi-platform, multi-scale and muli-source data. At the advanced level, the spatial/temporal database must be integrated to intelligent expert systems to devise options under different schematic scenarios and generate optimal solutions for sound planning and management of the environment. It should be able to handle continuously changing events such as land use changes , water quality monitoring, as well as catastrophic events such as flooding or fire.

The objective of this strategic research program is to focus the resources, both human, hardware and software, of the Department of Geography on the research and development of spatial/temporal decision support systems for monitoring the dynamic environment in South China and Hong Kong. It integrates expertise of geographic information systems, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, environmental studies, geomorphology, hydrology, soil science, biogeography, urban and regional planning for the pursuit of designing and building common databases, i.e. South China as a region and Hong Kong as a city, from which various applied research projects can capitalize on.