Spatial querying of mineral resources using PostGIS

Abstract

Mineral resources are precious resources with limited reserves. For a reasonable development of national economy, intelligent usage and management of these resources is very important. GIS has been employing specialized softwares and database technology to facilitate the storage and management of spatial data related to mineral resources. Spatial query processing has been gaining great popularity in this regard. Many spatial databases have been designed to allow efficient querying of spatial data. PostGIS is one of the most powerful databases to handle spatial data processing. In this paper, we investigated the competence of PostGIS for spatial querying of data related to mineral resources. The standard spatial querying methods are discussed with their application in PostGIS. The level of support provided by PostGIS in processing spatial mineral resources data is highlighted. The challenges in modeling spatial mineral data in PostGIS are also identified.