DEVELOPMENT OF A VALLEY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR GIS AND REMOTE SENSING EDUCATION

College GIS and remote sensing education usually consists of commercial software packages implementations in the classroom. Computer programming is quite important when college graduates work in private or public sectors relevant with GIS and remote sensing implementations. The objective of this paper was to develop a valley management system which implements GIS and remote sensing as the key components for education. The Valley Authority is entitled with water resource protection for sustainable drinking water supply of the second largest city in Taiwan. The test area consists of three different government agencies, Forest Service, EPA, and Water Resource Agency. Materials were provided by the Valley Authority in ArcGIS file format. MapObjects have made the GIS development process much easier. Remote sensing with image manipulation functions were provided by computer programming with Visual Baisc.NET and Visual C#.NET. Attributes inquiry are performed by these two computer languages as well. ArcGIS and ArcPad are also used for simple GIS manipulations of the test area. Comparison between DIY and commercial GIS can be made by college students. Functions provided by the developed valley management system depending on how many map layers have been used and what types of MapObjects components have been used. Computer programming experience is not essential but can be helpful for a college student. The whole process is a step-by-step sequence which college students can modify to depict their capability in GIS and remote sensing. The development process has gone through one semester, three hours every week in 18 weeks. College students enrolled in this class entitled with GIS showed remarkable progresses both in GIS and remote sensing.