1.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SYSTEM AND REMOTE SENSING
APPLICATIONS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

SARFRAZ MUNIR
[email protected]
Office: S5

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Course Objective
• To provide both a theoretical understanding and a comprehensive
practical introduction to the application of Geographic Information
System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies for the design,
analysis and solution of civil engineering systems.
• The course is designed for undergraduate civil engineering
programmes providing planning, designing and management
perspectives.

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Course Contents
• Introduction to geographic information systems and remote sensing technologies
• Coordinate Systems, Data structures, Geodatabase
• Cartography and Map projections
• Digitization
• Spatial analysis, Terrain analysis, Area and volume calculations
• Network and transport modelling
• Introduction to Remote Sensing
• Remote Sensing Process, Satellites and Sensors
• Image acquisition and Image Analysis and Classification
• Presentation of modelling results, Analysis to generate new information and knowledge,
GIS as a decision support tool.

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Study Material
• Recommended Book(s)
• Principles of geographical information systems by P. A. Burrough, R. A. McDonnell. Oxford University
Press. 2011
• Concepts and Techniques of Geographic Information System (2nd Ed.) by C. P. Lo, A. K. W. Yeung.
Pearson Prentice Hall. 2007
• Principles of Geographic Information System. ITC Education Textbook Series 1. 2001
• Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop 5th Edition by Michael Law and Amy Collins. ESRI Press. 2018
• Geographic Information Systems in Water Resources Engineering by Lynn E. Johnson. Taylor and
Francis Group, 2009.
• GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques in Land- and Water-management by A. van Dijk, Marinus G.Bos
(2001) Springer Publications.
• Introduction to Environmental Remote Sensing by David P. Lusch and William D. Hudson. BSRSI,
Michigan State University, 1999.
• Remote Sensing of Environment - Integrated Approaches. Edited by Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis. InTech
Publishers, 2011.

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Teaching Strategy
• 2 Lectures per week (Theory + Lab)
• Tutorials on ArcGIS 10.6
• Basics of ArcGIS 10.6
• How to use ArcCatalogue and ArcMap,
• Mapping and map projections
• Editing Map Features
• Preparation of thematic maps
• Map overlays
• Geo Referencing
• Digitization
• Generating Digital Elevation Model
• Catchment delineation and stream network
• Network modelling
• Interpolations
• Some practical problems of GIS applications in Civil Engineering

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Assessment Criteria
• Two Quizzes – 5%
• Assignments – 25%
• Mid Term Exam – 20% (2 hour)
• Final Term Exam – 50% (2 hour)

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1. Role of GIS in Civil Engineering
(Source: www.esri.com/engineering)

• Civil engineering discipline

mainly deals with planning,
design, development,
operation and maintenance
of the infrastructure
(infrastructure means
physical structure and
facilities)

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• Civil engineers deal with large amount of spatio-temporal data from
different sources to plan, design, develop and maintain infrastructure
• (spatial means data distributed over space/geographic area and
temporal means distributed over time)
• GIS provides tools for creation, management, analysis, and
visualization and sharing of spatial data
• Therefore GIS is involved in all phases of infrastructure life cycle.

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Spatial distribution of mean annual rainfall in Kurdistan Region – satellite based
measurements (mm)

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Digital Elevation of
Kurdistan Region
(elevations in meters)

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2. GIS and Infrastructure Life Cycle
• GIS technologies are involved throughout infrastructure’s life cycle,
including:
1. Planning
2. Data collection
3. Spatial analysis
4. Environmental analysis
5. Design
6. Construction
7. Operation and maintenance

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• 1. Planning
• Planning functions include
feasibility analysis, site
suitability analysis, alternative
siting analysis, economic
analysis, regulatory permitting,
planning facilities, what-if
scenarios, cost-benefit analysis,
etc.

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• 2. Data Collection
• Data collection includes field
survey, topographic analysis,
soils classification, geology,
traffic, photogrammetry,
sensitive areas identification,
wetlands, hydrology, and other
site specific design-grade data.

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• 3. Spatial Analysis
• Spatial analysis is a process in which
geographically distributed data is analyzed
and information are derived
• GIS helps in faster data analysis, visualization,
making faster decisions, optimizing network
and resource allocation

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• 4. Environmental Analysis
• GIS technologies help in environmental impact analysis, soil load
analysis, slope stability, hydrologic investigations, volume calculations,
traffic capacity, runoff estimation, erosion control, and air emissions.

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• 5. Design
• GIS allows to perform design calculations, calculations of grading,
contouring, specifications, cross sections, mass haul plans,
environmental mitigation plans, and equipment staging.

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• 6. Construction
• GIS provides mechanics and management for building new
infrastructure including earth movement, machine control; volume
and material calculations, payment calculations; materials tracking;
logistics; schedules; and traffic management.

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• 7. Operations and Maintenance
• Spatial selection and display tools allow to visualize scheduled work, ongoing
activities, recurring maintenance problems, and historical information.

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GIS and
Infrastructure
Life Cycle

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3. Modeling in GIS
• In GIS we can perform modelling as follows:
• Overlay models to assess site suitability, capacity, sensitivity and risk
• Evaluation models for comparing alternatives
• Growth models to assess future conditions (for example expansion of
cities in future)
• Statistical models to assess trends and generate surfaces

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4. Data Integration in GIS
• GIS has the capability to combines
data from different formats
• It provides integration of satellite
images, CAD drawings, and
property boundary maps to
develop a visual overview
• It accepts CAD data without
conversion and includes it as a
layer in a geodatabase.

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5. Site Analysis
• GIS incorporates and
analyzes many types of
information and images for
site analysis.
• For example it provide
information about land use,
topography, road network,
soil types, etc. which helps
in analyzing a site for
specific project

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6. Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Civil Engineers are generally responsible for the safety of infrastructure
• They need a comprehensive decision-making tool for emergency
assessment, preparation of response, and recovery activities.
• GIS technology provides a situational awareness tool for combining
information, from flood elevation and evacuation routes to a bridge’s
structural specifications and inspection results.
• With critical infrastructure information stored in a geodatabase, you can
display that information in real time on a Web-based map.
• You can add current traffic and weather data, draw buffer protection
zones, and share new changes in real time.
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7. Some maps prepared in GIS
• Next slide presents a map of Tigris-Euphrates River Basin and its
tributaries along with international boundary, prepared in GIS.
• It provides information about gauging stations in the Tigris and
Euphrates System of Rivers

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Tigris Euphrates
System of Rivers

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District
boundaries in
Kurdistan
Region

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River network in
Kurdistan Region

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GIS defined
• GIS is a computerized system that is used to capture, store, retrieve,
analyze, and display spatial data (Clarke 1995)
• GIS is “an information system that is designed to work with data
referenced by spatial or geographical coordinates” (Star and Estes
1990)
• GIS “manipulates data about points, lines, and areas to retrieve data
for ad hoc queries and analyses” (Duecker 1987)
• GIS consists of five basic elements: “data, hardware, software,
procedure and people” (Dangermond 1988).

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GIS Pyramid
• GIS pyramid emphasizes on importance of well
planned, designed and developed database
• GIS Pyramid illustrates that GIS is built on a
foundation of spatial and attribute data

• Users can access the database to perform

analyses and generate visualizations of data and
analyses.

• Volume of the pyramid devoted to the database

is indicative of the time and effort required to Johnson, 2009
build a successful GIS.
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General applications of GIS
• GIS is applied in almost every disciplined concerned with spatial data, like:
• Civil engineering
• Surveying
• Geodesy
• Geography
• Photogrammetry
• Remote sensing
• Statistics
• Computer science,
• Operations research
• Demography, and many other branches of engineering and the natural and social
sciences
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GIS Planning and Implementation
• In order to implement GIS, we need to consider the role and scope of
an organization
• We need to perform a Need Assessment survey, before planning and
implementation of GIS
• Following are some main factors which play important role in GIS
implementation:
• 1. Organizational function and goal (for example planning and development,
traffic control, land and water management)
• 2. Sources of data available as input to the GIS system (within the
organization or from external sources)

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• 3. GIS hardware/software/databases and products that are required
• 4. Management approaches that will guide the GIS program
• 5. Costs of implementation
• 6. Benefits of implementation, both tangible and intangible
• 7. Quality assurance/quality control procedures (QA/QC) and data standards
• 8. End-user interactions/training—consider how the GIS group will
communicate with its “clients”
• 9. Evaluation/assessment procedures to be used to review the GIS
implementation
• 10. Legal issues pertaining to data distribution and ownership .

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GIS Management
• Implementation and management of a GIS involves more issues than just
technical
• The information is the primary product of any organization, so it brings in
organizational factors and concerns
• The information is important and therefore can be sensitive.
• Not everybody in an organization is authorized to share/disseminate
information to other users, groups or communities
• Staff who work with GIS, produce information and share with the management.
• Then management of the organization has mandate to share/dissemination
information with the relevant stakeholders, community or general public

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GIS SOFTWARE
• A large number of GIS software options are available as open-source
or commercial/Proprietary products.
• Open source software: whose source code is available for modification or
enhancement by anyone. For example ModFlow is an open source software
• Source code
• part of software that most computer users do not see
• It is the code computer programmers can use to change how a piece of software works.
• Programmers who have access to a computer program's source code can improve that
program by adding features to it or fixing parts that don't always work correctly.

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• Proprietary Software
• Source code that cannot be modified by anyone but the person, team, or
organization who created it and maintains exclusive control over it.
• This kind of software is called "proprietary software" or "closed source"
software, because its source code is the property of its original authors, who
are the only ones legally allowed to copy or modify it.
• For example Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint are all proprietary softwares.
• In order to use proprietary software, computer users must agree (usually by
signing a license displayed the first time they run this software) that they will
not do anything with the software that the software's authors have not
expressly permitted.

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SOME MAJOR GIS SOFTWARES
• List of some popular GIS Softwares
• ArcGIS (which we will learn in this class)
• ERDAS IMAGINE
• IDRISI
• MAPINFO
• MICROSTATION
• GRASS
• QGIS

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ArcGIS®
• ArcGIS is the name of a suite of GIS software products, produced by
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) (http://www.esri.com/)
• ArcGIS Interface
• ArcGIS interface is made up of a graphical user interface (GUI) including several main
applications.
• Each application can be housed in a separate window, and some of these applications
can be "docked" within each other
• Three main applications we will use in our course on GIS
• ArcMap (for display and query of geographic information)
• ArcCatalog (for management of geospatial data), and
• ArcToolbox (for spatio-temporal analysis).
• ArcGIS has a series of versions and the latest one is ArcGIS Pro 2.3
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 ArcMap: ArcMap displays geographical data. This is the module we interact
with the most frequently

Toolbars

Table of
contents Data frame

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ArcCatalog displays drives, database connections, and folders on the
left-hand pane. Individual files can be displayed on the right-hand pane

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ArcToolbox: ArcToolbox contains toolboxes for various geoprocessing functions. These range from
things as simple as converting data type to things as complex as multivariate statistical analysis in
multidimensional space.

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ArcToolbox docked in ArcMap

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ERDAS IMAGINE®
• ERDAS IMAGINE is a remote sensing and image analysis software
• It is developed by Intergarph Inc.
• Aimed primarily at geospatial raster data processing that allows the
user to display and enhance digital images.
• A toolbox allowing the user to perform numerous operations on an
image and generate an answer to specific geographical questions.

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ERDAS IMAGINE SOFTWARE

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IDRISI®
• IDRISI Andes is an integrated GIS and image-processing software
• IDRISI: GIS developed by Clark Labs
(http://www.clarklabs.org/products/) at Clark University,
Massachusetts.
• There are over 250 modules for spatial analysis and display.
• Originally developed under United Nations sponsorship, the IDRISI is
widely used worldwide.

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MAPINFO®
• MapInfo is a GIS software (http://www.mapinfo.com/)
• MapInfo products include
• desktop GIS software,
• MapInfo Professional,
• MapXtreme 2005, and
• MapXtreme Java for Webbased and desktop client mapping, as well as
developer tools such as MapBasic.

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MAPINFO SOFTWARE

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OTHER SOFTWARES
• MicroStation®: MicroStation is a suite of CAD/GIS software products
for 2-D and 3-D design and drafting, developed by Bentley Systems (
http://www.bentley.com/)
• Microstation is used by engineering designers for transportation and
for water and wastewater utilities.
• Bentley developed GIS-based water resources modeling software for
water, sewer, and stormwater systems (SewerCAD, WaterCAD,
StormCAD).

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Open Source GIS
• GRASS: (Geographic Resource Analysis Support System)
• GRASS is a public-domain open-source raster GIS developed as a general-
purpose spatial modeling and analysis package
• GRASS is a raster/vector GIS, image processing system, and graphics
production system
• GRASS contains over 350 programs and tools to render maps and images on
monitor and paper; manipulate raster, vector, and sites data; process
multispectral image data; and create, manage, and store spatial data
• GRASS uses both an intuitive Windows interface as well as command-line
syntax for ease of operation.

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QGIS
• QGIS is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System
(GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License.
• QGIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
(OSGeo).
• It runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, Windows and Android and supports
numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities

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Interface of QGIS

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