GIS AS A SOLUTION FOR PERSIAN GULF RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 
Ali Asghar Alesheikh *, Ali Aien ** Ehsan Mohammadi ^, AbdolReza Meshkini " 
* PHD in Geo-Spatial Information Systems, Dept. of GIS Engineering, Alesheikh@kntu.ac.ir 
? M.Sc. Student in Geo-Spatial Information Systems, Dept. of GIS Engineering, ali_aien@yahoo.com 
* M.Sc. Student in Geo-Spatial Information Systems, Dept. of GIS Engineering,mohammadiehsan(a yahoo.com 
? B.Sc. Student in Geo-Spatial Information Systems, Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, reza_m304@yahoo.com 
254 Eaculty of Geodesy and Geomatics Eng., K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Vali asr St, Tehran, Iran, P.C. 1996715433 
Tel: +98 21 8789337, Fax: +98 21 877 9476 
KEY WORDS: GIS, resources, management, pollution, disaster, analysis, decision support. 
ABSTRACT: 
Recently bioenvironmental damages are being happened by occurrence of wars and also pollutions due to construct 
manufactures and huge power stations on the natural environment. On the other hand, the maintenance of valuable resources and 
also recognition of pollution resources are included in the main responsible of the relevant organizations. Meanwhile, using of 
modern and advanced technologies and facilities cause increasing speed and accurate in their investigations and analysis. GIS is a 
sort of theses modern technologies with a high capabilities and functionalities in the context of spatial and statistical analysis and 
also resource management. The evaluation project of bioenvironmental damages has been done to assess and analyze the density 
of pollutions in Persian Gulf by GIS functions. 
1. INTRODUCTON 
The decrease of biological and non-biological resources will 
face the world with a sudden disaster in few next years. The 
reasons for the decreases vary from growth of population to 
irregular usage of energy to global events like wars and 
immigrations. 
Thus resource management becomes more and more important 
to prevent human beings from falling in the darkness of poverty 
and lack of energy. 
GIS as a powerful system with its versatile capabilities such as 
spatial analysis, visualization, and spatial database management 
helps managers with support for making best decisions about 
natural resources and management of these resources (C. J. 
Data, 1999). 
Persian Gulf as a vital resource in the region contains a large 
number of substances, materials and also a great deal of food. 
Besides there are a lot of oil wells in Persian Gulf that makes 
the gulf a strategic arca. 
Due to occurrence of many war disasters around Persian Gulf 
in recent decades, it seems sensible to study about the effects of 
wars on the pollution of the gulf and also elimination of 
resources. 
In order to reach the aim many studies about the situation of 
living creatures have been made and a lot of observations about 
materials and substances have been collected. 
Data about living creatures like fishes and planktons, and 
materials like carbonates and sulfates have been gathered in 
forty five stations. 
Collected data were categorized into biological and non- 
biological terms. These collections have been repeated for four 
seasons of year and for each station sixteen layers of data have 
been observed. 
Capabilities of Geospatial Information Systems give a powerful 
hand for analyzing each data layer and displaying results as 
charts, diagrams, and maps. 
294 
Consequently, the decreases in resources of any kind were 
obvious through results, thanks to GIS statistical and spatial 
analysis. 
2. SPATIAL ANALYSIS 
Even where nongraphic data has been computerized, the 
researcher may still have to comb through sheets of computer 
printouts while visually comparing the data with the maps. A 
GIS provides the researchers with powerful automated tools to 
answer these questions. These tools make it much easier to 
analyze the data for special studies and reports. In fact, new 
types of analysis that were not feasible before are now possible. 
The GIS can quickly search through map data, looking for 
features with certain characteristics, or inspecting spatial 
relationships among features. Moreover, graphic data and 
attribute data are explicitly linked. Thus, the GIS user can 
search for map data using attribute data as a creation, and vice 
versa (George, 2001). 
The GIS can automatically and quickly answer requested 
questions, but with traditional maps, these questions would 
require a search through real files, follow by a visual review of 
other maps, and also spatial analysis which is one of GIS 
capabilities can be done on digital maps. 
The spatial analysis is a tool for helping researchers discover 
and understand spatial relationships in their data. This discovery 
and understanding can be as simple as viewing and querying 
their data or as complex as creating an integrated custom 
application. 
The main component of the spatial analysis is the grid theme. 
The grid theme is the raster equivalent of the feature theme. The 
Spatial Analysis also presents generic spatial analysis 
functionality on grid and feature themes that is added to special 
software. 
With the spatial analysis, following functions will be able to 
perform in GIS software: interpolate grid, find distance, assign 
proximity, calculate density, reclassify, create contour, derive 
slope, and derive aspect. Much more functionality is accessible 
Interna: 
via Sp: 
geometr 
Interpol: 
pollutior 
phase, € 
emphasi 
After se 
have be 
These s 
(GPS) f 
greatly c 
topograp 
Distribut 
31N 
30N 
29N 
26N 
25N 
24N 
Regards 
stations 
different 
Data gat 
biologice 
different 
These d 
chemical 
Row dat: 
Is an es 
Processit 
should b 
methods. 
And at la 
biologica 
have bee 
emphasiz 
previous 
research, 
To make 
they can 
various 
concentre 
Gulf, hav