the design and implementation of environmental data atlas (eda) by geographic information system (gis) and remote sensing (rs)

environmental monitoring and rest or at ion requires efficient access to large amounts of spatial information. the geographic information system (gis) and remotely sensed data are related to both physical and man-mad e features. in order to handle this task, the environmental scienc es section (ess) created the environmental data atlas (eda) that uses spatial keys to link all data sources to a common geog raphical data base. furthermore, it is important that all of the data he readily accessible o n the desktop of scientists, regardless of the type of computer platform they used. this paper describes the creation of a comprehensive computing environment that utilizes a geographical data browsing system as the core for meeting these requirements. it also describes how bibliographic search and aerial photography browsing functions were incorporated into the system. finally, it describes a sophisticated modeling system that has been integrated into the system to support site selection activities. by taking advantage of the latest advancements in geographical data browsing systems, fourth generation procedural programming languages, and network communications, the integrated system represents an important step in the evolution of gis.