A Study on Methods for Quality Control of Spatial Data in the Poyang Lake Area

The Poyang Lake is the largest fresh water lake in China, of which the vast area is about 39955 km. The Poyang Lake Area, on the other hand, is the place where floods often occur. In order to reduce the impact and damage of floods on the lives and properties of people living in the Poyang Lake Area, the authors have developed a Geographical Information System for preventing and controlling floods in the Poyang Lake Area with the strong assist of the Science and Technology Office and the Water Conservancy Office in Jiangxi province. The system blended various techniques to obtain, transmit and process spatial data. Various techniques produced a large quantity of spatial data, which provided abundant and thorough information support for the fast and accurate decision on preventing and controlling floods, but a higher request to control the quality of spatial data was brought forward to us at the same time. Therefore, the authors studied the problem of quality control of spatial data while developing the Geographical Information System for preventing and controlling floods in the Poyang Lake Area. According to the occurring sequence of quality problems of spatial data, the authors classified these problems, analyzed their reasons and proposed the control methods of them. This paper depicts and discusses the whole process of the study, at five stages of obtaining, storage, processing, transition and application of spatial data.