ince the 1970s, environmental monitoring in China has formed a complete web across the country with over 2000 monitoring stations. China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has published an annual report on the State of the Environment in China since 1989. The Chinese government began to inform the public of environmental quality and major pollution incidents through major media since the late 1990s. However, environmental quality data has not been adequately used because of constraints on access and data sharing. The public and interested groups still lack access to environmental data and information. After examining the current air quality reporting systems of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Environment, reviewing current Internet GIS technology and sample websites, this thesis developed an ArcIMS website to publish air quality data and provide background information to the public for the city of Dalian, China. The purpose is to inform the public of daily air quality and health concerns, and to improve public awareness of environmental issues. A better-informed and educated public will be more likely to voluntarily conserve the environment in the long run. The development of this thesis can satisfy most basic expectations. However, due to the limitation of current Internet products like ArcIMS, symbology and connection with outside databases are not adequate. In addition some regular GIS analysis functions are not available to Internet GIS products. This development can be further improved to serve other environmental data to the public with better interactivity through coding. Similar Internet GIS products can be used in other Chinese cities to report their air quality data. For internal data sharing and reporting within the government, an open, interoperable distributed GIService is recommended, which is believed to be the future of Internet GIS.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is about presentinginformation with the map as a base. This is increasingly being used on internetsites and in mobile apps. With a GPS it is possible to see where you are andhow to reach a destination or check if the bus is in time. A question to ask isif this technology is possible to implement in ordinary primary schooleducation. If it is, learning history, geography, religion and so on with a GISlearning tool might be possible. Then, it is interesting to know which thepossibilities and obstacles are for such implementation. This paper presentssome of the possibilities and barriers. A scenario of an idea of a GIS learningtool was made and presented for some teachers and pupils. In the interviewswhere teachers were one by one and the pupils were in groups they could tellwhat they thought about the idea. This study shows that one of the possibilitieswith implementing a GIS in primary school education is that it is seen as apedagogical tool which creates an interaction with the tool and the the way themap creates context. It was also seen as an important learning tool for pupilwith reading and writing difficulties because it allows learning using multiplesenses. Futhermore this study identifies som barriers in the form of lacking internetconnections, and computers that do not work in a proper way, and it can take along time to get support. Other things that were mentioned was that allteachers do not have an interest in IT and the risk that pupils would ratherplay computergames than do school work. In sum, this study show that GIS havethe potential of being the pedagogical learning tools that teachers aresearching for.

ästerbottens färgrika stenskatter - Spatiala presentationer och analyser av skifferfynd i Västerbottens län (The colorful stone treasures of Västerbotten – Spatial presentations and analysis of slate artefacts in Västerbotten County) This essay pertains to the spatial distributions and analysis of slate artefacts in Västerbotten County, Sweden. The authors aim is to give answers the issues of what the distribution patterns of slate artefacts can tell us about the prehistoric humans in this area. By using GIS software and geospatial analysis the author strengthens the theories about separate interior and coastal economies, as well as the theory that the main share of production of slate artifacts are linked in the interior of the County, the author also refers to earlier research, both domestic and international. The theories of non-pragmatic preferences by the late Mesolithic and Neolithic people for red colored slate are also added to. Finally the author suggests a usage of slate daggers as tools for the preparation of felled, larger animals, rather than the daggers being primarily a weapon or of symbolic value.

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Previous understanding of the winter ice regime in Hudson Bay was limited. This investigation demonstrates the existence of a large coastal polynya in northwestern Hudson Bay. Measuring approximately 600 km long by 60 km wide, this polynya is typically opened and maintained by surface winds for periods of one to five days. Closing mechanisms result from decline in wind maintenance and apparent thermodynamic ice formation. Open water is present on the northwest coast at some size for up to 70% of the winter between ice formation and breakup. Observation of this open water during the period of the winter ice pack indicates that the ‘ice factory’, modelled previously, in northwest Hudson Bay exists. This furthers understanding of the freshwater budgets, stratification, and atmosphere-ocean interactions while presenting new questions about climate change and the future of the Hudson Bay physical system.

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The aim of the research contained in this thesis was to develop a model of long-term upland catchment runoff that can be used for ungauged catchments. This is a problem due to the complex spatial and temporal nature of runoff and the main contributing processes, precipitation (P) and evapotranspiration (Et). It is also a problem due to the lack of suitable data on which to base and test models of these processes, particularly in remote upland areas such as the north-west of England, the study area of this research. Long-term runoff is important since it represents the maximum rate at which water is available for human use and management, for assessment of water resource yield and for prediction of extreme events that are particularly important in respect to climate change. Methods currently in use by water companies in the UK, such as North West Water Limited (NWW), are inadequate since they fail to account for the spatial and temporal nature of runoff. New more reliable methods are therefore required which will equip water managers with flexible and responsive runoff modelling tools based upon routinely available data and that are sensitive to the complex physical nature of the processes involved. A physically based distributed runoff model was developed using GIS technology and spatial data to interpolate and extrapolate available point-based hydrometeorological data. The strategy required the development of models to derive areal representations of P and Et. For the P modelling several interpolation techniques and artificial neural network models were investigated. The results were evaluated against an independent data set. The results showed that a geostatistical interpolation technique, detrended Kriging, which uses pointbased precipitation and spatial elevation data provided the most accurate estimates when compared to other methods. The models of Et involved extrapolation of point-based Et values derived from the Penman-Monteith formula (Monteith, 1965), using spatial land cover data. A point-based temperature function model (Wright and Harding, 1993) that reduces the Penman estimates of Et for upland sites was spatially implemented using spatial temperature and elevation data. No independent data were available for model evaluation but first estimates of errors were gained through comparison of errors of runoff and precipitation estimates. Overall it was found that the most accurate E, model results were derived when the temperature function model was not implemented. Evidence of whether or not a lumped or heterogeneous land cover representation provided the more accurate results was unclear. Error evaluation and sensitivity analysis of the modelled runoff was carried out using measured runoff records and the results were compared to those produced using the North West Water model. It was found that the GIS-based model provided improved estimates of long-term average annual runoff for upland catchments. The largest component of the errors of the GIS-based method were associated with the Et estimates. This was principally a result of poor quality and limited availability of data for the study area. The research highlights many wider issues related to the use of GIS and spatial data for hydrological modelling.

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