The Enhanced functionality and capability of web-based information systems is critical for enhancing climate, environment and water governance. Particularly, flexibility in various options for spatial and temporal selection of information is of high importance. Tropical cyclones are the most destructive weather systems that impact on Australia and countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Historically tropical cyclones have had major impacts on agriculture, water supplies, safety and economic well being, and in extreme cases threatened the sustainability of countries. Improved data availability for historical cyclones through the Tropical Cyclone Data Portal with enhanced functionality and capability to display historical cyclone information in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including the Australian region is undertaken in the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning program (PACCSAP). Through a collaborative project between the Bureau of Meteorology and the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University we have improved functionality of the tropical cyclone data portal with the ability to draw any region of interest on the map and search for cyclones within that region, whilst focusing on maintaining a consistent and intuitive user interface.

1. New Information system for enhancing climate and water governance:
enhanced functionality and capability of web-based service
R. de Wit a, ♣
, J. Lam b
, W. Jeon b
, C. Pranoto b
, R. Ramesh Chithra b
, D-L. Joseph b
, A. Charles a
, A. Bauers b
and Y. Kuleshov a, b
a
National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia
b
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Melbourne, Australia
♣
Corresponding author address: Roald de Wit, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia.
E-mail: R.deWit@bom.gov.au
Abstract
The Enhanced functionality and capability of web-based information systems is critical for enhancing
climate, environment and water governance. Particularly, flexibility in various options for spatial and
temporal selection of information is of high importance. Tropical cyclones are the most destructive weather
systems that impact on Australia and countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Historically tropical
cyclones have had major impacts on agriculture, water supplies, safety and economic well being, and in
extreme cases threatened the sustainability of countries. Improved data availability for historical cyclones
through the Tropical Cyclone Data Portal with enhanced functionality and capability to display historical
cyclone information in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including the Australian region is undertaken in the
Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning program (PACCSAP). Through a
collaborative project between the Bureau of Meteorology and the School of Computer Science and
Information Technology at RMIT University we have improved functionality of the tropical cyclone data
portal with the ability to draw any region of interest on the map and search for cyclones within that region,
whilst focusing on maintaining a consistent and intuitive user interface.
Keywords: Tropical Cyclones, web-based information service
Drawing can be done by subsequently clicking in different parts of the map as described in Figure 5. A
user can create as many points as desired. Once the desired contour is created, the user can end the
drawing mode by either double clicking the last point on the map or, even simpler, hitting the <Esc> key to
complete the drawing process (Figure 6). The research discussed in this paper was conducted with the support of the Pacific Climate Change Science Program
(PCCSP), which is supported by the Australia Agency for International Development, in collaboration with the Department
of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, and delivered by the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Authors are thankful to colleagues from the National Meteorological
Services of 14 Pacific Island countries and Timor Leste for their useful comments and suggestions on the development of
the portal’s features provided during the PCCSP training workshops and in-country visits.
Enhanced functionality and capability of web-based information systems is critical for enhancing climate,
environment and water governance. Particularly, flexibility in various options for spatial and temporal
selection of information is of high importance. Through a collaborative project between the Bureau of
Meteorology (BoM) and the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University
we have improved functionality of the tropical cyclone data portal with the ability to draw any region of
interest on the map and search for cyclones within that region, whilst focusing on maintaining a consistent
and intuitive user interface. As part of the Pacific Climate Change Science Program (PCCSP), the Bureau
of Meteorology (BoM) has developed a Tropical Cyclone Historical Data Portal (Figure 1) available from
the Bureau’s web site http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/tracks/ (Kuleshov et al., 2012b) that aims to
improve the understanding of tropical cyclones.
Under the supervision of the BoM, a team of students from the Department of Computer Science and
Information Technology at the RMIT University (Figure 2) have participated in a project called “Advanced
Spatial Searches for Tropical Cyclone Tracks in a Web Based Environment” to further advance and
extend the portal’s functionality.
After the area of interest has been drawn and the user has clicked on the ‘Show Tracks’ button, the
tracks that cross the selected area will be retrieved and can subsequently be analysed as shown in
Figure 9.
Acknowledgement
Figure 1: Initial view of the Pacific Tropical Cyclone Data
Portal.
Introduction
Main features of the enhanced spatial selection - continued
Main features of the enhanced spatial selection
Flexibility in spatial selection is implemented in the portal through various options for drawing of area of
interest. A user can select a location and find cyclone tracks within a certain radius from that location. The
newly added option allows the user to draw a contour of any shape, modify it and then apply spatial
analysis.
Creating a drawing is as simple as selecting the ‘Filter by Drawing’ option (Figure 3) and starting to draw
on the map.
The main improvement has been the addition of functionality where the user can draw a region of interest
and find and analyse past tropical cyclone tracks within that region. Users can select specific area of
interest (any area of a regular or irregular shape) and analyse tropical cyclone data over the selected
number of seasons. This capability in enhanced spatial selection of information opens up new possibilities
for interactive web-based applications for data visualisation and analysis, delivering forecasts and other
products to users of the Bureau's climate and water services.
Flexibility in spatial selection is implemented in the portal through various options for drawing of area of
interest. A user can select a location and find cyclone tracks within a certain radius from that location. The
newly added option allows the user to draw a contour of any shape, modify it and then apply spatial
analysis.
After a drawing has been completed, adjustments and refinements can be made. In Figure 7, an example
of the changed user interface for a drawing that can be changed is given. The circles with a solid outline
depict the current endpoints of the vertices. They can be dragged in any direction to adjust the drawing in
order to achieve the desirable modification. The more transparent circles allow for the creation of new
vertices, adding more detail to the drawing.
Technically it is possible to add features like moving, resizing or rotating the drawing – these options may
be considered for possible implementation of drawing the area of interest in subsequent projects.
The developed application allows for a more fine-grained spatial analysis: the user can enable a free-hand
drawing mode to create a contour (Figure 8). This can be achieved by keeping the <Shift>-key and left
mouse button pressed whilst dragging the mouse over the map. This option for spatial selection is
particularly useful for examining tropical cyclone occurrences in territorial waters of Partner Courtiers – in
their Exclusive Economic Zones.
Figure 3: Selection of “Filter
by Drawing: option
Figure 2. The RMIT Tropical Cyclone
project team.
Figure 4: Helpful suggestions
are displayed when drawing
Figure 5: Drawing in
process
Figure 6: Complete
drawing
Figure 7: A drawing
that can be modified
Figure 8: Example
of freehand drawing
The focus of the project was on the developing advanced functionality for spatial selection of tropical
cyclones as described above. In addition, the team put significant efforts to make the portal user friendly.
Great care has been taken into keeping the user interface and workings of the portal intuitive and easy to
use. Different user interface options have been explored and trialled with volunteers. These range from
experiments with using help popup windows to notifications in the map area to the final context
dependent help information in the side column.
Possible interactions between different options needed to be investigated and solved as well. What to do
when the user switches from the drawing option to the ‘Filter by Location’ option and back? Should the
drawing disappear and subsequently reappear? What if the drawing is out of sight? In the latter case, the
application will automatically show an option to bring the drawing back into view.
The technical implementation of the enhanced spatial selection functionality was based on the most up
to date software developments. The application makes use of open geospatial standards for querying the
tropical cyclone data service. The main protocol that is being used is called OGC Web Feature Service
(WFS). It allows for creating requests that limit the results by certain attribute values (like ‘season’) as
well as spatial filters where only results that are contained by the drawn region will be returned.
The application itself is mostly written in JavaScript and runs in every modern browser without the need
of any plugins. For the mapping component we have used OpenLayers library. This powerful JavaScript
library allows for combining different spatial data sources into a dynamic map interface where the user
can pan and zoom intuitively and quickly.
As the result of this project, significant advancement in the tropical cyclone portal’s functionality has been
achieved. The free hand drawing concept of spatial selection was discussed at the workshop conducted
in Vanuatu in September 2011 and was approved by participants from the Pacific Partner Countries.
Further suggestions about improved functionality in terms of flexible temporal selection were obtained
from the participants. The BoM-RMIT team is planning to work on their development in 2012-13 under
the PACCSAP program.
Figure 9: Example
of analysis of
selected track