A GIS support system for declaration and verification

Full text: The timely detection of a diversion of a significant amount of nuclear material from the civil cycle represents a complex activity that requires the use of powerful support systems. In this field the authors developed SIT (Safeguards Inspection Tool), an integrated platform for collecting, managing and analysing data from a variety of sources to support declarations and verification activities. Information dealt with is that requested by both INFCIRC/153 and INFCIRC/540 protocols. SIT is based on a low-cost Geographic Information System platform and extensive use is made of commercial software to reduce maintenance costs. The system has been developed using ARCVIEW GIS for Windows NT platforms. SIT is conceived as an integrator of multimedia information stored into local and remote databases; efforts have been focused on the automation of several tasks in order to produce a user-friendly system. Main characteristics of SIT are: Capability to deal with multimedia data, e.g. text, images, video, using user-selected COTS; Easy access to external databases, e.g. Oracle, Informix, Sybase, MS-Access, directly from the site map; Selected access to open source information via Internet; Capability to easily geo-reference site maps, to generate thematic layers of interest and to perform spatial analysis; Capability of performing aerial and satellite image analysis operations, e.g. rectification, change detection, feature extraction; Capability to easily add and run external models for e.g. material data accounting, completeness check, air dispersion models, material flow graph generation and to describe results in graphical form; Capability to use a Geo-positioning systems (GPS) with a portable computer, SIT is at an advanced stage of development and will be very soon interfaced with VERITY, a powerful Web search engine in order to allow open source information retrieval from geographical maps. The paper will describe the main features of SIT and the advantages of using it for declaration and verification activities; future developments aid some sample applications concerning the additional protocol declaration, the use of GPS and satellite images will also be described. (author)