ملخص الدراسة:

Google Earth provides an open source, easy to access and cost free image data that support map interest community. In this research a questionnaire distributed in several institutions in most of the sectors in the Gaza Strip in order to evaluate the qualification of users, type of data used in Google Earth and sensitivity of that type. The study finds that percentage of about 70% of the population use Google Earth in the field of work and to a certain extent population use the application in spatial data (coordination, distance…etc). However, this popularity of Google Earth is not an indicator of its accuracy. The aim of this research is to estimate the Google Earth horizontal positional accuracy in Khanyounis as a study area to evaluate this free source of data. This was carried out by comparing Google Earth measured coordinates of points with geodetic Global Positional System (GPS) receiver coordinates over sample of 40 check points located in Khanyounis area. Since GPS provides an accurate measurement of coordinates on the same ellipsoid as Google Earth, it was used to check the accuracy of Google Earth. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was computed for horizontal coordinates and was found to be 39.24 m. Which was very critical and disappointed to find such deference in accuracy between Gaza and the other world. So this study recommends that although Google Earth represents a powerful and attractive source of positional data, but it's critical to use it for studies otherwise for limited issues in Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip Google Earth should not be used in measurement of coordinates and when it's needed to use Google Earth in spatial data, it is recommended to use it in investigation and preliminary studies taking into account the scale of error computed in this research.

توثيق المرجعي (APA)