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

20.8.2004

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:

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L d

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on

an

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esta

bli

shm

ent

of

a N

EF

IS

Kn

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led

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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

20.8.200413

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