An Integrated System for Regional Environmental Monitoring and Management Based on Internet of Things

Climate change and environmental monitoring and management have received much attention recently, and an integrated information system (IIS) is considered highly valuable. This paper introduces a novel IIS that combines Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Geoinformatics [remote sensing (RS), geographical information system (GIS), and global positioning system (GPS)], and e-Science for environmental monitoring and management, with a case study on regional climate change and its ecological effects. Multi-sensors and web services were used to collect data and other information for the perception layer; both public networks and private networks were used to access and transport mass data and other information in the network layer. The key technologies and tools include real-time operational database (RODB); extraction–transformation–loading (ETL); on-line analytical processing (OLAP) and relational OLAP (ROLAP); naming, addressing, and profile server (NAPS); application gateway (AG); application software for different platforms and tasks (APPs); IoT application infrastructure (IoT-AI); GIS and e-Science platforms; and representational state transfer/Java database connectivity (RESTful/JDBC). Application Program Interfaces (APIs) were implemented in the middleware layer of the IIS. The application layer provides the functions of storing, organizing, processing, and sharing of data and other information, as well as the functions of applications in environmental monitoring and management. The results from the case study show that there is a visible increasing trend of the air temperature in Xinjiang over the last 50 years (1962–2011) and an apparent increasing trend of the precipitation since the early 1980s. Furthermore, from the correlation between ecological indicators [gross primary production (GPP), net primary production (NPP), and leaf area index (LAI)] and meteorological elements (air temperature and precipitation), water resource availability is the decisive factor with regard to the terrestrial ecosystem in the area. The study shows that the research work is greatly benefited from such an IIS, not only in data collection supported by IoT, but also in Web services and applications based on cloud computing and e-Science platforms, and the effectiveness of monitoring processes and decision-making can be obviously improved. This paper provides a prototype IIS for environmental monitoring and management, and it also provides a new paradigm for the future research and practice; especially in the era of big data and IoT.