Background
The working group 3 (GeoAnalysis) of the UN Open GIS Initiative, co-chaired by Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, UNHQ and MangoSystem, aims to develop open geo-analytic functions for UN operations.
Geospatial analysis is an approach to applying statistical analysis and other analytic techniques to data which has a geographical or spatial aspect (Hemakumara, 2015). The geo-spatial analysis would employ software capable of rendering/visualizing maps, processing spatial data, and applying analytical methods to geospatial datasets (Geospatial, 2012). It provides many advantages to users, for instance, easy to recordkeeping of geographical changes, improvement of communications between organizations as the visualized format is easily understood by all, and easy of managing geographically with knowing what is and will be occurring.
The United Nations also uses geospatial analysis to improve the efficiency of situational awareness, safety and security or monitoring crisis during UN field operations. UN Geospatial Services (UNGIS) provide overall supports in using the geospatial analysis at the UN operations including development of strategies, technologies, professional capacity and etcs (Eom, 2018). Free and open source software for geospatial (FOSS4G) is a geospatial software that freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software (FOSS, 2018). In the past, it was mentioned often disadvantage such as technical support weakness or SW incompleteness relatively in comparison with commercial SWs. However, the SW quality is getting robust and other advantages such as easy to develop/add a new function due to flexibility and scalability of FOSS4G, and easy to share/transfer technologies between UN and host nations due to free-license increased the demands in using FOSS4G at UN operations.
In 2016, UN Open GIS Initiative, led by UNGIS under UN Department of Operational Support (UNDOS, 2019), was established to leverage free and open source-based geospatial technologies in support of UN peace operations. The third technical working group of the UN Open GIS initiative Spiral 3, aims to develop and deliver geo-analytic functions for UN operations.
>> Requirements of Geo-Analysis for UN operations
Current Status
During the 1st phase of the WG3 from 2016 to 2019, members of WG3 developed the JAVA-based Geo-Analytic libraries (hereafter "Processing Toolbox") for GeoServer WPS, uDig and GeoTools which can be downloaded at SourceForge. From the 2nd phase of WG3 in 2020, QGIS embeded GeoAnalytic functions are under development.
Kernal Density: Example of Processing Toolbox
How to use WG3 library "Processing Toolbox" in your desktop?
1. Install uDig* for Windows 64bit >> Download
* uDig is a java-based open source SW for Desktop like QGIS or ArcMap.
2. Copy WG3 library "Processing Toolbox"* plugin under uDigplugins directory.
*WG3 library:
3. Click uDig >> Window >> Show View >> Others >> Processing >> Processing Toolbox.
Future plan
1. Migration open geo-analytic functions in the WG3 library to QGIS.
2. Web-interactive open geo-analytic functions through integrating with WG1- GeoPortal
Demo. Web-interactice geo-analysis expected in the future.