A Study on Data Processing Services for the Operation of Geo‐Analysis Models in the Open Web Environment

With the development of network technology, integrated modeling frameworks based on web services are becoming a key topic with regard to solving complex geographic problems. Currently, large numbers of geo‐analysis models and massive data resources are available on the open web. Accessing, acquiring or invoking individual resources transparently is relatively straightforward; but combining these models and data resources for comprehensive simulations remains challenging due to their heterogeneity and diversity. Data resources are the driving force of model execution and can serve as an intermediate linkage medium for model integration, yet in most cases, the data resources cannot be directly used to drive or link models. Data processing services that can prepare and process data are urgently needed in the web environment to enable the convenient coupling of models and data resources through the web, thus reducing the difficulty of preparing data and avoiding repetitive data processing work. Three types of data processing methods that can achieve mapping, refactoring, and visualization are designed in this article based on the proposed Universal Data eXchange (UDX) model. These methods can be published as data processing services to facilitate the operation of geo‐analysis models through the web environment. The applicability of the proposed data processing services is examined through two cases: the processing service is applied in model integration through the web in the first case, and data preparation with processing services for the Taihu Water Pollution Diffusion Model (TWPDM) is carried out in the second case. The results demonstrate that the proposed processing services can bridge the gap between geo‐analysis models and data resources hosted on networks.