Risto Päivinen, Andreas Schuck and Tim Green NEFIS - Network for a European Forest Information Service QLK5-CT-2002-30638 JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005
Mar 31, 2015
Risto Päivinen, Andreas Schuck and Tim Green
NEFIS - Network for a European Forest Information Service
QLK5-CT-2002-30638
JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005
20.8.20042
About data and information
Is more data needed or have we reached information overload? • Is some important data/information missing or of too low accuracy?
Are current resources/information fully utilised and used efficiently?• Lack of data/information is not necessaryly the problem but their use and
application
Do we know where to find what information/data?• Users incl. decision makers are often not aware of existing information or do not
use it
How accessible is existing information really? In which way should information and data be made available?
20.8.2004
• EFIS study 2000-2002
carried out by EFI consortium for the
Joint Research Centre / Space Applications Institute under Contract No. 17186-2000-12 F1ED ISP F.
to support EFICS regulation (UE/CEE No. 1615/89).
• EFICS STUDY 1996-1997
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A 5th Framework Programme Accompanying Measure of the
European Commission (QLK5-CT-2002-30638) 2002-2005
The general objectives are maximising the value of existing data and databases by:
coordinating efforts to create forest information systems and services
supporting development of harmonised standards and procedures for data provision
increasing the usability of available data and databases
What is NEFIS?
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NEFIS partnership
• European Forest Institute• European Commission, DG JRC, Institute for
Environment and Sustainability – Land Management Unit
• International Union of Forest Research Organisations
• Dresden University of Technology – Forest Biometrics and Computer Sciences
• Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
• Finnish Forest Research Institute• Inventaire Forestier National• Danish Forest and Landscape Research
Institute – Dept. of Forestry• Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet – Dept. of
Forest Resource Management and Geomatics • University of Greenwich – School of
Computing and Mathematical Sciences• Regione Dell’Umbria – Servizio
Programmazione Forestale• Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali • Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya –
Forest Policy and Rural Development Dept• Hungarian State Forest Service (SFS)• Federal Research Centre for Forestry and
Forest Products, BFH
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Specific tasks
1) Review the state of the art in the technical development of information services
2) Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS prototype
3) Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies
4) Suggest unified and operable methods for communication between different Internet-based forest information service activities
5) Test the EFIS using regional, national and international data sets
6) Evaluate the service from the users’ and data providers’ perspectives
7) Develop strategies for development of the service
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Project Timetable
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WP
1: M
ana g
e men
tP
artn
er 1
, 2, 3
, 4Data available from multiple
sources on the InternetGFIS EFIS
WP
3:
UM
L d
escr
ipti
on
an
d
esta
bli
shm
ent
of
a N
EF
IS
Kn
ow
led
geB
ase
Par
tner
: 3
, 1,
4,
5, 6
, 10
Refining the work plan and agreement on data input
WP 2: NEFIS Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies StandardsPartner 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10, 11, 12, 13
WP 4: Data preparation and provision Partner 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13
WP 5: Evaluation of (1) metadata standards, (2) process of data provision and (3) the advanced GFIS/EFIS system
Partner: 4, 1, 5, 10
Advanced EFIS
WP: 6 Links with Commission Services, dissemination of results and follow-up activitiesPartner: 2, 1, 3, 4, and 10
Background
Provider 1 Provider 2 Provider 3 Provider n
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Metadata and controlled vocabularies standards (WP2)
Objectives develop forest metadata standards and controlled
vocabularies for the data sets provided by the NEFIS partners
based on a generic standard Suggestion for a Forest Markup Language (FML) - User guidelines and documentation
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NEFIS Metadata schema based on DCMI metadata element set. NEFIS modifications ()
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Controlled vocabulariesNEFIS Themes and NEFIS Terms
Forest inventory (incl. growth and yield)
Forest health
Silviculture (incl. forest nurseries)
Vegetation (or forest or land) types
Non-wood goods and benefits
Forest operations
Forest fires
Forest products and trade flows
Rural development
Forestry institutions
Maps and geo-referenced data
Field experiments
Keyword lists developed for 12 themes. The lists were developed further (e.g. to include definitions, equivalents in other languages) for the themes in bold
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Forest Markup Language (FML)
The purpose of FML is to provide the forest community with an extensible and flexible rules with which to express its metadata standard; for use in data sharing, analysis and archiving
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UML description of an extended EFIS
UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a notation for
modelling information system architectureStorylines for example use cases were written and use case
diagrams developed from these storylines. The storylines are
available in the NEFIS KnowledgeBase
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UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a technique for modelling information system architecture
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KnowledgeBase – generalhttp://www.nefis-kb.info/
The KnowledgeBase: Allow hierarchical access to information from general descriptions to implementation details
Information and document handling system for recording:• outputs from NEFIS WPs• other forest information systems/services development initiatives (e.g.
Global Forest Information Service; European Forest Information Service) and other relevant projects
• relevant software resources and documentation
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KnowledgeBase – Structure and Design
The KnowledgeBase:structured repository for deposit, storage and access of information and metadata relevant to forest information systems, with emphasis on NEFIS
Main headings are:Data providers, design, forest policy and processes, knowledge representation, markup languages, projects, reference, software
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Data preparation and data provision (WP4)
Objectivesto identify the datasets (sub-national, national and
international) for input to the EFISto prepare metadata records using the proposed
metadata schemato provide and prepare sample datasets available
through the EFIS system
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Metadata and data
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Evaluation (WP5)
The evaluation addressed the following aspects:Metadata and metadata guidelines on their operability and applicability for
describing datasetsKeyword list and thesaurus (extra topic within the metadata evaluation)Data rights and data rights managementThe information needs and user’s expectations towards potential capabilities
of a NEFISThe extent to which NEFIS can serve as a harmonised electronic information
system for periodical data reporting/delivery to the Commission services,
national, pan-European and international organisations
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Evaluation
The evaluation was undertaken using standardised questionnairesMetadata and metadata guidelinesdata rights and data rights managementuser needs and user expectations (VTK)
And expert statementsMetadata and metadata guidelines (Prof. Dr. Keith Rennolls (Greenwich), Dr. Jarmo
Saarikko (Metla))Keyword list and thesaurus (Renate Prüller (IUFRO), Gillian Petrokofsky (CAB
International))Data rights and data rights management (Prof. Dr. Risto Päivinen (EFI), Andreas
Schuck (EFI), Tim Green (EFI))Electronic system for periodic reporting (Prof. Dr. Michael Köhl (UHH), Aljoscha
Requardt (UHH))
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Links with Commission services, dissemination of results and follow-up activities (WP6)
Objectivesto promote awareness amongst forest community and other
data usersto ensure NEFIS will evolve in an integrated manner with
other Community networksto demonstrate the system
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Demonstration Package
The Demonstration Package consists of:Resource Discovery (RD) in which the proposed NEFIS metadata
schema is implementedNew Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) functionalities, including:
• support of spatial time series data;• tools for dynamic aggregation of grid (raster) data;• some new visualisation techniques
Data retrieval: Implementation of simple system for retrieval of data
from data tables from distributed and remote sites, collation of the data,
and processing into a format that can be used by the VTK
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Example visualizations
THANK YOU!
JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005