Advancing Interactive Web Cartography through Designing and Developing an Open-Source, Data-Driven Framework for Accessible Geovisualization of Geospatial (Big) Data

The growth of geospatial big data has intensified the demand for open-source, accessible tools for interactive spatial exploration. This dissertation introduces a modular web mapping framework and details its design, extension, and evaluation to advance geovisualization through user-centered, transferable design. The first study presents the original framework, named dciWebMapper, establishing foundational cartographic and information visualization principles, with a focus on modularity and extensibility. The second study extends dciWebMapper with advanced capabilities—such as diverse map types, bivariate visualizations, temporal filtering, spatial querying, and hotspot analysis—and demonstrates its broad transferability across domains. The third study offers a structured usability evaluation of a web map application built with the original and expanded dciWebMapper, focused on visualizing climate justice, food access, and social vulnerability. Results confirm the framework’s effectiveness and identify areas for refinement. Collectively, these studies lay an extensible foundation for data-rich web mapping that advances evidence-based decision-making and fosters open-source innovation in geospatial data science.