Integrating web-GIS and hydrological model: a case study with google maps and IHACRES in the Oak Ridges Moraine area, Southern Ontario, Canada

The purposes of this paper are to examine the current research about the integration between GIS (Geographic Information System) and hydrological models and to present a system with the integration between Google Maps and IHACRES (Identification of unit Hydrographs And Component flows from Rainfall, Evaporation and Streamflow data) model to predict the streamflow in the Oak Ridge Moraine, Southern Ontario, Canada. Compared with other integrated systems, this system has several advantages. Firstly, this system is independent of platform and does not require the installation of the expensive GIS software. The users only need Web browser to access the whole system. Secondly, compared with the systems integrated with the web-GIS, such as ESRI ArcIMS, this system has another advantage. Because Google Maps can provide crucial spatial information including high resolution images, road network, etc., the developers only need to process part of spatial data, such as basin boundary, stream network and temporal data. This characteristic can significantly decrease the development cost and time. Finally, unlike other integrated systems, this system only needs very limited GIS and hydrology knowledge and the user interface is based on friendly Google Maps. This advantage significantly eliminates the obstacles for the public to access this integrated system.