Keywords

1 Application of Spatial Information Technology in Resource Census

1.1 Development Status of Spatial Information Technology

Spatial information technology is an emerging technology rising in the 1960s and developed rapidly in China around the 1970s. The core of spatial information technology includes “3S” technology, namely satellite positioning system, geographic information system and remote sensing technology (Liu et al. 2008). At present, spatial information technology not only includes the traditional “3S” technology, but also organically combined with the Internet of things, mobile Internet, cloud computing, blockchain, BIM, big data, artificial intelligence and other new generation information technologies. It has been widely and deeply applied in the fields of transportation infrastructure life cycle management, infrastructure resource census, intelligent transportation platform construction, transportation planning and management and so on (Ming et al. 2017).

“3S” technology includes remote sensing (RS), global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information system (GIS). It is an important technology that runs through the whole process of spatial information data acquisition, analysis, management and update in the earth observation system. Among them, remote sensing is a means of observing the characteristics of long-range electromagnetic wave, which has the advantages and characteristics of remote detection, dynamic, high-resolution and multi-type sensors. The global positioning system includes GPS of the United States, GLONASS of Russia, Galileo of the European Union and Beidou satellite navigation system independently developed by China; At present, China’s Beidou Positioning System which was developed independly has completed comprehensive networking and officially provided global services in 2020 (Wang et al. 2016). It plays an important role in the fields of land and resources, meteorological observation and prediction, earthquake prediction, transportation and so on. It is now called the world’s four major satellite navigation systems together with the three major systems. Geographic information system is a computer software platform that specially manages and uses geographic information data. Its main feature is to classify, manage, combine, analyze and process geographic information data, and display data in two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms. Its advantage is that the obtained data can be mapped by computer. This technology has been widely used in various businesses in the transportation industry.

At present, the rapid development of emerging technologies represented by the Internet of things, mobile Internet, cloud computing, blockchain, BIM Technology, big data and artificial intelligence is triggering a new round of scientific and technological revolution all over the world (Yao et al. 2021; Yalcinkaya et al. 2015). The application of new generation information technology in the transportation industry will bring revolutionary influence and strongly promote the process of transportation modernization. The development of these emerging technologies has improved the ability of basic data collection, sorting, storage, analysis and sharing of traffic multi-source data and solving complex problems, and gave birth to new business forms for the development of the transportation industry (Hjelseth et al.; KIM et al. 2016).

1.2 Overview of Resource Census in Typical Industries

The first national water conservancy census conducted in 2010 is a full-scale census of basic water conservancy data of the water conservancy industry since the founding of the people’s Republic of China. It is divided into three stages: inventory stage, general census stage, data collection and results display, development and utilization. It involves eight projects, including general census of basic conditions of rivers and lakes, general survey of basic conditions of water conservancy projects, survey of economic and social water use, general survey of development and protection of rivers and lakes, and general survey of water and soil conservation. Spatial information technology has been fully utilized in the three stages and eight projects. In particular, the general census of basic conditions of rivers and lakes and the general census of water and soil conservation mainly rely on spatial information technology and obtain relevant information by means of indoor acquisition and processing. In the aspect of achievement display, development and utilization, taking spatial information technology as the technical support, the “one map” of census results is realized, which intuitively shows the comprehensive and in-depth application of spatial information technology in water conservancy industry.

The national land census is a major census of national conditions and national strength for the purpose of verifying and clarifying land resources. It is the basis for comprehensively investigating the current situation of land resources utilization in China and accurately and comprehensively understanding the basic land data information. It is also the basis for building a modern and information society. It plays an important role in promoting the socialized service of land resources information. Compared with the second national land census, the third national land census puts forward more accurate and precise requirements for the basic land data. The remarkable feature of this task is the “refinement” and “informatization” of land resources, which requires that in the process of completing this work, we must make major technological breakthroughs, using the Internet, remote sensing technology, UAV measurement, global navigation Geographic information and other advanced modern information technology means to realize the accurate investigation of land resources.

2 General Census and Current Situation of Inland Waterway

2.1 Inland Waterway Census

In 2002, the Ministry of Communications issued the notice on carrying out the second National Inland Waterway Census, and carried out the census with the support and cooperation of the National Bureau of statistics (PARK et al. 2016). The general census mainly includes the overview of inland waterways, the current situation of waterways, hubs, river crossing structures, waterway management institutions and maintenance forces, the investigation of riverside facilities, the drawing of the current situation of waterways, etc. Based on the survey results, in 2007, the national development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of communications jointly issued the national inland waterway and port layout plan, which planned the layout of “two horizontal, one vertical, two networks and 18 lines” inland national high-grade waterway, with a total mileage of about 19000 km. Under the guidance of the plan, the state and local governments have successively carried out a series of waterway regulation projects such as the Yangtze River trunk line, the Xijiang River trunk line, the Beijing Hangzhou canal, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. By the end of 2020, the total mileage of high-grade inland waterways in China has reached 14500 km. Compared with 2002, the current situation of high-grade inland waterways in China has changed greatly. At the same time, the national inland waterway and port layout plan is currently being revised, and a new layout of “four horizontal, four vertical and two networks” inland high-grade waterway is planned. The total mileage of the waterway has reached 29000 km, which is nearly 10000 km compared with the previous version of the plan. In view of this, it is urgent for the competent department of transportation to carry out a new round of National Inland Waterway Census and comprehensively find out the current situation of China’s inland waterway.

2.2 Current Situation of Waterway Census Research

In recent years, many provinces and cities across the country have successively carried out the general census of inland waterways. In addition to the traditional offline census, collection, sorting, review and summary, spatial information technologies such as Beidou, Internet, GIS and high-resolution remote sensing images are widely used, and information-based means are fully used to effectively improve the efficiency of the general survey and ensure the quality of the survey results.

In July 2021, the port and shipping census of Hubei Province was officially launched. The census covers all elements of water transportation, including waterway census, port census, ship census, general survey of navigation facilities (hubs, locks and ship lifts), general survey of river crossing channels (bridges and tunnels), general survey of Township ferries, general survey of waterway transportation enterprises, etc. At the same time, based on the census data, the provincial channel and port information system will be developed, mainly including the construction of basic database, platform function and mobile pad function.

In November 2020, the fourth general census of inland waterways in Jiangsu Province was officially launched, covering 3700 km of provincial trunk waterways, 6000 km of municipal trunk waterways and local general waterways. In view of the problems of insufficient coverage and weak applicability of the previous Waterway Census data, the fourth Inland Waterway Census in Jiangsu Province fully combines the construction of inland waterway electronic waterway map under way in Jiangsu Province. The census comprehensively covers the provincial and municipal planned trunk channels and local general channels to retain freight functions. On the basis of traditional attribute information such as channel, ship lock, navigation mark, water service area and bridge, the census objects added new unique attribute information such as tank washing station, gas filling station and ship traffic volume observation station, and established the data production standard of Jiangsu inland river electronic channel map. The census work makes full use of information-based means, and all channel census data collection adopts online system to realize the online input and review of census data, and further realize the query, statistical analysis and visualization of channel census results.

3 Application of Spatial Information Technology in Inland Waterway Census

3.1 Application of Spatial Information Technology in Census Technical Scheme

The general survey of inland waterways includes the general situation of waterways, navigation conditions of waterways, hubs, river crossing structures of navigable rivers, riverside structures of navigable rivers, river blocking structures of navigable rivers, channel management institutions and channel space vector data (Fig. 1 and Tables 1, 2 and 3).

Table 1. List of navigable waterway
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Fig. 1.
figure 1

Waterway space vector data

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Table 2. List of navigation lock
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Table 3. List of river-crossing bridges
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In the technical scheme of general census, the technical methods of each general census content adopt spatial information technology, especially the technical scheme of general census of spatial vector data of waterway, hub and navigation river flowing through river blocking structures, which has obvious characteristics of spatial information. Relying on spatial information and focusing on internal work, through high-resolution remote sensing image, digital elevation model (DEM), Digital Orthophoto Image (DOM) and digital line drawing (DLG), and using geographic information system software to directly obtain relevant census object information, which fully reflects the advantages of high-resolution remote sensing image in inland waterway resources census. Compared with traditional field survey methods, it can effectively reduce labor intensity and economic cost and improve work efficiency.

Waterway overview and waterway space vector data adopt the methods of extracting data and field investigation and review. The basic characteristic parameters of inland waterway are analyzed and extracted by using 1:50000 DEM, DLG and DOM data and image data with resolution of 2.0 m and 0.5 m respectively. The main data sources include DEM, DLG and DOM in the 1:50000 national basic geographic information database, high-resolution satellite image data, 2.0 m high-resolution remote sensing image data covering the whole country and 0.5 m high-resolution remote sensing image data covering the national high-grade waterway.

Inland Waterway Survey is based on spatial information technology and organically integrates the relevant parts of RS, GPS and GIS technology to form a powerful technical system, which can realize the rapid, mobile, accurate and reliable collection, processing and updating of various spatial and environmental information.

3.2 Spatial Information Expression of Census Objects

The spatial data acquisition required for this waterway census includes: waterway space vector, hub space vector, navigation river crossing structure space vector, navigation river riverside structure space vector, navigation river blocking structure space vector, mainly collecting its spatial position and morphological characteristics. The spatial expressions of various census objects are shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Spatial expression of census project
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As shown in Table 4 above, all census objects are expressed in the form of spatial points, lines or surfaces. At the same time, under the condition of spatial expression of census objects, it is necessary to consider the spatial relationship between census objects and truly express the real relationship of census objects in the information system. The spatial relationship is as follows.

  1. (1)

    Attachment Association: there are primary and secondary attachment relationships between different objects (the same life cycle). For example, the hub is attached to the river. When the river does not exist, the hub does not exist.

  2. (2)

    Simple association: there is an association pointing relationship between different objects, such as the relationship between river water body and river sideline. The corresponding sideline can be associated and queried by river water body.

The location-based topological relationship is as follows.

  1. (1)

    Inclusion relationship: in space, one object belongs to a part of another object, such as between an avionics hub and a ship lock or ship lift.

  2. (2)

    Crossing relationship: between water flows, an object crosses over or under another object to form an interchange. There is a crossing relationship between objects, such as between canals and rivers.

  3. (3)

    Gland relationship: the boundary of the line and surface coincides on the point falling line and the bank line of the point falling surface. For example, the water intake and sewage outlet fall on the sideline of the river.

  4. (4)

    Connection relationship: between objects on the same layer, in space, one end of one object is connected with one end of another object, and there is a connection relationship between objects, such as channel and upper and lower channels.

3.3 Application of Spatial Information Technology in the Base Map of General Census

The working base map of waterway census is the basic data guarantee for waterway census. The working base map is applied to the whole working process of waterway census. In the census stage, the role of the working base map is reflected in internal plotting and field census. In the data collection stage, the role of the working base map is reflected in the splicing of cross-border objects to realize the combination of spatial attributes and natural attributes. In the stage of achievement display, the role of working base map is more obvious, and the results of waterway census data will be fully and directly expressed in the form of spatial distribution.

The working base map is a digital composite product composed of national basic scale 1:50000 topographic data, remote sensing digital orthophoto mosaic image data with resolution no less than 2.0 m, administrative division ownership boundary, waterway survey object and other infrastructure.

3.4 Application of Spatial Information Technology in Achievement Display

The results of waterway census data are displayed in space in the form of “one map”, that is, all kinds of objects in the results of waterway census are displayed in space, so as to realize the “classification, stratification and classification” display, comprehensive statistics and data management of waterway census data, realize the integrated management of waterway census spatial data and attribute data, and provide strong intelligent analysis and decision-making support for intuitively mastering the current situation of waterway. Using GIS, RS and virtual simulation technology, establish a “one map” management and service platform for waterway census results; On this basis, the functions of geographic information query, statistics and analysis are developed to realize the unified management, integration, exchange and sharing of spatial information of various waterway resources, and realize the “one-stop” Geographic Information Collaborative Service of waterway basic information. The display system realizes the effective integration and integration of channel basic data, application data and thematic data. The system not only includes national basic scale topographic map, administrative division ownership boundary and high-resolution remote sensing image, but also includes waterway overview, waterway navigation, hub, navigation river crossing buildings, navigation River adjacent buildings, navigation river blocking buildings, waterway management institutions and other census object achievement data, as well as their spatial and business relations. Attribute information is associated with spatial objects to realize the two-way query function of GIS and attribute data. The query results can be displayed in the form of hydrograph, histogram, pie chart and so on.

4 Summary and Prospect

In recent years, with the rapid development of economy and society, giving full play to the advantages of large inland shipping capacity, low energy consumption and low pollution, the construction and development of inland shipping in China has achieved remarkable results. In order to implement the requirements of the construction of a transportation power, carrying out a new round of Inland Waterway Census and comprehensively finding out the “family background” of China’s Waterway resources has become a necessary basis for effectively promoting the high-quality development of China’s inland waterway shipping.

Referring to the experience of resource census in various industries, spatial information technology can efficiently run through the whole workflow of inland waterway census, and will be widely used in the whole process cycle of inventory, census, data collection, achievement display, development and utilization. The application of spatial information technology has changed the traditional working mode of Waterway Census, and has the advantages of reducing labor intensity, accelerating work efficiency and saving economic cost.

At the same time, through the integration and sharing mechanism of waterway census and port census information resources, a standardized, unified and authoritative national water transport industry information platform will be formed, so as to provide reliable water transport industry information support and guarantee for the national economic and social development.