Efficient and sustainable exploitation of water resources requires the adoption of innovative and contemporary management techniques, a need that becomes even more demanding due to climate change and increasing pressures coming from anthropogenic activities. An important outcome of this reality is the qualitative and quantitative degradation of groundwater, which clearly indicates the need to exploit surface runoff. This study presents an integrated Geographic Information System (GIS)-based methodological framework for revealing and selecting suitable locations to build small-scale reservoirs and exploit surface runoff. In this framework, the SWAT model was used to quantify surface runoff, followed by the simulation of reservoir scenarios through reservoir simulation software. Andros Island (located in Cyclades Prefecture), Greece was selected as the study area. The obtained results indicated the most suitable location for creating a reservoir for maximizing exploitation of surface runoff, based on the specific water demands of the nearby areas and the existing meteorological, hydrological, and geological background potential. Thus, two selected dam locations are analyzed by using the proposed framework. The findings showed that the first dam site is inappropriate for creating a reservoir, as it cannot meet the demand for large water extraction volumes. In addition, the outcomes confirmed the efficiency of the proposed methodology in optimum selection of locations to construct small-scale water exploitation works. This research presents a contemporary methodological framework that highlights the capability of GIS, SWAT modeling, and reservoir simulation coupling in detecting optimal locations for constructing small reservoirs.

Extraction and dissemination of historical geospatial data from early maps are major goals of historical geographic information systems (HGISs) in the context of the spatial humanities. This paper illustrates the process of interpreting, georeferencing, organizing, and visualizing the content of a historical map of Cyprus in the context of GISs and highlights the development of a national-scale spatial database of the island in the 19th century. This method was applied to Lord Kitchener’s historical map of Cyprus (published in 1885), which is considered the product of the first scientific topographic survey of Cyprus, is rich in geographic information about the area, and covers the entire island at a scale of 1:63,360. Previous attempts to create historical geodatabases have either focused on small areas or, when conducted on a national scale, have been thematically focused. The positional accuracy of the map was found to be 1.08 mm in map units, which was equivalent to 68.76 m on the ground. Accordingly, the main categories of geographic content (land cover, administrative units, settlements, transportation/communication networks, stream networks/water bodies, points of interest, annotations) were digitized from the georeferenced historical map. The Web-based application developed in this study supported the visualization of the historical geographic content of the map and its comparison with modern basemaps. The creation of the geodatabase presented in the study provides a template for similar studies and a basis for further development of the historical geodatabase of Cyprus.