Going Deeper: Leading Digital Underground into 3.0
Prof. Martin Raubal heads the Digital Underground project in its new phase, leading the team to look deeper to develop sustainable workflows for more reliable data.
In a Q&A with the new principal investigator of Digital Underground at the Singapore-ETH Centre, who is also Professor for Geoinformation Engineering at ETH Zurich, we get to know him and understand what is needed for data reliability and sustained impact.
Almost any problem to be solved has a spatial componentProfessor Martin Raubal
1. Before you became a professor, you actually had hands-on surveying experience, which not many professors working on geospatial technologies may have. What insights did you glean from this stint?
When I was a Masters student studying surveying engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, I was indeed employed in part-time surveying jobs at the Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying and a private company. Through surveying, I know through first-hand experience that high-quality position data is very important for utilities, infrastructure, and navigation, to name a few application domains.
In the course of my studies, GIS opened a new world for me. I had a very supportive professor, Andrew Frank (who later became my PhD supervisor), who provided the possibility for me to go to the US for another master’s degree in Spatial Information Science and Engineering at the University of Maine. There I realised that the relevance of GIS is growing, and can help in solving many problems of our society by representing and analysing spatial information.
In the end, almost any problem to be solved has a spatial component.
2. What kinds of “problems” can geospatial information technologies solve?
Geoinformation and location-based data are pivotal in the mobile information society for the safety and well-being of its citizens. This applies to areas such as public transport, environmental protection, planning, disaster management, agriculture and forestry.
In my Geoinformation Engineering research group at ETH Zurich, in particular, we are interested in how spatial information can support decision-making for more sustainable outcomes. We have been finding ways to make people’s mobility more sustainable, based on mobility analysis and prediction, by using geospatial technologies such as location-based services. We also investigate the individual’s spatial decision-making processes through mobile eye-tracking and gaze-based interaction, with applications ranging from wayfinding to a pilot’s decision-making in a cockpit.
Here, in Singapore, I’m also leading a research cluster under the Future Resilient Systems programme at the Singapore-ETH Centre, where we view spatio-temporal information through the lens of resilience. We investigate ways to detect weak signals to identify disruptions in the transportation system and how best to communicate these to decision-makers.
In the case of the underground, we must have accurate and reliable information on the location of subsurface utilities. This is essential for the planning, development, and administration of space. Due to the limited space in Singapore, the underground is becoming more and more important and inaccurate information can lead to sup-optimal decision making and costly mistakes. Just imagine having to undertake excavation work for subsurface utilities where you don’t really know where to start!
3. Are there lessons from your recent project on integrating underground cables in planning electric power systems in Switzerland that you bring to the Digital Underground project?
This recently concluded project was funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and partners such as Swissgrid – the Swiss transmission grid operator. In this project with real-world application, we developed an integrative approach to model overhead lines and underground cables, considering the geological, infrastructural, ecological, as well as socio-economic aspects.
While existing approaches to electric power systems are mostly limited to overhead lines, it is clear that the underground plays a very important role too. The challenge lies in identifying the route with the least impact on the environment, which is where our system comes in – to provide optimal solutions. We then integrated the algorithm into a 3D web-GIS-platform.
Underground cables come with different challenges and higher cost, and with this comes the need for high-quality underground data for evaluation, planning and implementation.
In reality, the quality of data is typically an unknownProfessor Martin Raubal
4. The objective of this new phase of Digital Underground is to establish “workflows for reliable data quality”. What does this entail?
The Digital Underground (DU) project started in 2018 and has laid a strong foundation for the current phase. In this third phase, we will advance the recommendations developed in the first two phases towards viable implementation in real-world data capture and collection processes. We will propose new data integration solutions for the reconciliation of legacy data, in order to effectively use available data in spite of varying quality. We are also planning a living lab approach through collaboration with intended end users of the workflows and by leveraging data from on-going utility development projects.
In a nutshell, the overall goal of DU3 is to develop a workflow for data capture, data submission, and quality control. While in development, the workflow will be tested and refined with relevant stakeholders (e.g., water, power and gas, telecommunication sectors) in operational environments, to ensure that it can be readily implemented in real-world settings.
More concretely, we will deliver a set of recommendations, in the form of workflows for the capture, submission, quality control, consolidation, improvement, and visualisation of subsurface utility data and subsurface utility data quality. These will support our partner and primary stakeholder – the Singapore Land Authority’s efforts in developing a reliable map of subsurface utilities. At the same time, both the public and private sectors will be able to harness the value of high-quality geospatial data on subsurface utilities.
5. In Singapore, you are obviously not starting with a clean slate, and like you mentioned, there is the challenge of “legacy data”. With existing underground utilities and new utilities being installed every day, how do you bridge the current state and future possibilities for improved data quality?
This is indeed a big challenge, but is probably not unique to Singapore. Legacy data, including presence, location and type of existing underground utilities, are available for professionals in urban planning, infrastructure planning, civil engineering, and land administration. However, such information may be inaccurate, not up-to-date or incomplete, and therefore unreliable. In reality, the quality of the data is typically an unknown.
All of these may increase the risk of safety hazards and service disruptions. Digital Underground will therefore investigate how data quality may be improved through the integration of heterogeneous data sources, and also how varying levels of data quality can be visualised and communicated to data users.
Firstly, we will establish a comprehensive quality model for subsurface utility data, and then identify quality improvement scenarios. Such improvement may involve increasing spatial accuracy by using novel measurement technologies to update existing information.
6. Is the engineering solution of developing workflows the silver bullet? Are there “soft” factors that are essential to sustained impact in ensuring data quality?
People and communication are extremely important. Therefore, we will continue to engage stakeholders such as contractors, surveyors and technology providers through the DU Community of Practice and will further establish a sustainable industry engagement platform. Ultimately, a network of engaged stakeholders who share knowledge and best practices is vital to the successful implementation and improvement of utility data workflows.