Requardt, 2004 NEFIS NEFIS – Network for a European Forest Information Service

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Why a European Forest Information Service Support to pan-European forest strategies The development of an operational system for information accessibility and exchange supports to the pan-European forestry strategies at the EU level to respond to the implementation of international commitments. A fundamental pillar of meeting such commitments is the accessibility to, and the exchange of, forestry, and forestry-related information and/or datasets. Agenda 21, Chapter 40 (UNCED, 1992): Emphasis on strengthening existing national and international mechanisms for information processing and exchange to ensure effective and equitable availability of information The Intergovernmental Panel on Forests: re-emphasised the importance of gaining access to forestry information (IPF, 1997) NEFIS – Network for a European Forest Information Service

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS aims to contribute directly to the EFICS (European Forest Information and Communication System) Regulation (established in 1998 by Council Regulation EEC No. 1615/89) Project time: March 2003 – August Partners 6 Workpackes NEFIS – Network for a European Forest Information Service will build on and continue the activities initiated in the project "European Forest Information System (EFIS)" carried out for EC-JRC ( ) will contribute to the activities of the IUFRO Special Programme: Global Forest Information Service (GFIS).- EFIS the European node of GFIS NEFIS:

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Partners are: 1. EFI (Project Coordinator) 2. EU, JRC IES 3. IUFRO 4. University of Hamburg 5. Fraunhofer - FhG/AIS 6. METLA 7. IFN France 8. KVL Denmark 9. SLU Sweden 10. University of Greenwich, UK 11. Regione Dell‘Umbria, Italy 12. AISF, Italy 13. CTFC Catalonia, Spain 14. BFH - PCC of ICP Forests 15. State Forest Service, Hungary NEFIS – Network for a European Forest Information Service Management Committee Sub-Contractor other Partners within the project

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS WP1: Project management WP2: NEFIS Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies Standards WP3: UML Description of an extended European Forest Information Service and Establishment of a NEFIS KnowledgeBase WP4: Data preparation and data provision WP5: Evaluation WP6: Links with Commission services, dissemination of results and follow-up activities Workpackages NEFIS – Network for a European Forest Information Service

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Main objectives of NEFIS are to: Objectives  present to data providers options of an EFIS by utilising harmonised methods and procedures of metadata provision and data linkage  demonstrate possibilities of increasing the usability of available data and databases to data providers and users  coordinate with ongoing efforts to create forest information systems and services

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Specific objectives of NEFIS are:  Review the state of the art in the technical development of information services using the Internet as dissemination vehicle  Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies for different forestry and forestry-related topics  Suggest unified and operable methods for communication between different Internet based forest information service activities  Test the forest information service utilising regional, national and international data sets provided by the consortium for the project  Develop strategies for development of the service in the framework of the new EFICS regulation and international commitments Objectives  Evaluate the service from the user’s and data providers perspective  Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS prototype with features enabling European data providers and users to utilise the service

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Options for the development of the European Forestry Information and Communication System EFICS, (EC, 1997) Basic principle for developing an EFIS (A1-B1-C3) EFIS Principle

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS  Voluntary contributions  Labelling the data with metadata  User designed analysis EFIS Principles  Utilising the existing data sources  Use of Internet  Distributed databases – the data will stay with the provider

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Application  Land use planners (EU, pan-European, National and sub- national level)  Trans-national environmentalists and conservationists  Timber industry and timber trade  Forest and environment researchers  Local forest manager  Local authorities  Educational users  Individual personal user Demand Supply  National Forest Inventory data  Geospatial data  Socio Economical data  other forest related Environmental data Data User Data Provider Service Various linked Data Sets Reporting Tool Decision support system Tool for research and education at international, national, and regional levels

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Application Information Resource Discovery A system for Data Analysis & Visualisation

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Application Data ProviderData User

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Application & Framework

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Resource Discovery The first hurdle that an information seeker faces is to identify whether data/information exists corresponding to her/his needs from the extensive electronic supply on the Internet.

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS  Metadata is defined as “data about other data”  Metadata describes information or data of information resources (data set, database, publication, website, etc.) Give data seekers assistance through reliable standardised search procedures for the identification of information and data. Metadata Resource Discovery

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Metadata system for discovering forest information resources  based upon internationally accepted metadata standards (DCMI, ISO geospatial standards, INSPIRE)  DC open to qualification and specification e.g. qualifiers for forest information  principle of simplicity  implementation environment: Java programming and related technologies (JSP; XML) Resource Discovery

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS NEFIS Metadata Schema  Investigating the need to extend the basic DCMI elements structure Tasks within NEFIS:  Preparation of a metadata standard based on Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)  Test and improve NEFIS metadata schema and its usability to prepare metadata for the agreed NEFIS data sets  Evaluate through questionnaires its applicability to the NEFIS data sets

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS (Part 1) NEFIS Metadata Schema

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Metadata Schema (Part 2)

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS NEFIS Metadata Schema Keyword list Controlled keyword lists represent one of the most important search elements for a user seeking desired information. Therefore the project will focus on developing these lists with help of experts in different forestry fields. This task is based on thesaurus activities like: CAB-Thesaurus; Multilingual Forestry Thesaurus

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS NEFIS Metadata Schema Keyword list inventory health vegetation types non-wood goods and benefits operations fire trade and production rural development developed for eight themes identified as of importance in describing the NEFIS data sets: Lists are quite variable in the level of detail and their scope.

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Metadata Element 1. Title 2. Creator 3. Subject 4. Description 5. Publisher 6. Contributor 7. Date 8. Type 9. Format 10. Identifier 11. Source 12. Language 13. Relation 14. Coverage 15. Rights 16. Audience Metadata Schema = without problems ? = problems (hot spots) ? = with some problems ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Evaluation - Resume

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS DatasetProvider NFI data Forestry experimental data Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute Forestry statistics NFI data additional data (NFI time series data) Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Forestry statistics NFI round wood price (stumpage and delivery) statistics Finnish Forest Research Institute IFN maps database IFN– photographs database NFI data Inventaire Forestier National ICP-Forest data: Level 1 crown condition soil data foliage ( ICP/BFH Forest Research Capacities Database (updated) Forest products trade flow DB (updated) EU socio-economic data (updated) Long-term forest resources assessment database (updated) EFI UN-ECE/FAO: TBFRA 2000 University Hamburg/ Dresden Provided and linked Datasets

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS DatasetProvider European forest map Seasonal burnt-area map Daily Fire risk maps European country polygons NUTS 0/1/2 JRC Unemployment Age structure (population) Agrarian Surface Distribution Land use classification in Catalonia Land Cover Map of Catalonia Rural development and land use data The Forest Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) Aggregated NFI data Trade in secondary wooden products Removals and production Hungarian State Forest Service Forestry statistics forest map Forest inventory data Interventions financed by Reg. (CE) n. 2080/92 fire risk Sub regional limits (mountain areas; protected areas, Natura 2000) Umbria (Italy) Provided and linked Datasets

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS DatasetProvider Implementation of rural development measures in Italy Forest type map (of Abruzzo region) Monthly climatic (temperature and rainfall) maps of Italy CORINE 4th thematic level (Forest map of Italy) 1st National Forest Inventory DEM (75 m) Accademia Italiana Di Scienze Forestali (AISF) Provided and linked Datasets all datasets are described by the NEFIS metadata schema all datasets are linked to the Visualisation Toolkit

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Discovery & Visualise

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Visualisation Toolkit  is accessible throughout the Internet  allows data access to any JDBC/ODBC-compliant database, including Oracle.  is able to handle various data formats e.g. SHP (shape files), GML (Geography Markup Language, OpenGIS consortium), GIF and JPG formats and CSV formats (Comma Separated Value)  incorporates automated map design. This implies that expert knowledge on cartography or GIS is not required  outputs are available as data tables and thematic maps with different techniques for selected geographical area  it allows production of statistical graphics (box plots, dot plots, scatter plots, etc.) that are dynamically linked to maps  the produced maps are interactive, including traditional GIS interactivity and visual manipulations  is based on CommonGIS – CommonGIS is a Java based GIS (developed by Fraunhofer AIS, see at:

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS  Tabular statistics Visualisation Toolkit Data Types  Spatial data : vector and raster (grid) data

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS thematic mapping choropleth mapping chart mapping visualisation and exploring data over time dynamic classification non-cartographical data displays multiple display and display linking (like: plots or parallel coordinates) dynamic query propagation of object classes table view and table lens exploring data regarding their spatial distribution analysis of grid (raster) data multi criteria decision making etc. Visualisation Toolkit Individual Data Analysis and Data Visualisation by:

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Visualisation Toolkit NEFIS Workshop 2004

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Functionality is distributed between client and server (components are implemented in Java). The server only runs on demand: If the client needs a set of data a new copy of the server software is started, and the full context information is passed on. Respectively, the server sends back data only for specified regions and topics. Implementation of the System Organisation of mapping services through the Internet client-server architecture with the server starting on demand

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Data Rights Management The original idea : A distributed system Implementation of the System What about a system based on a Central Data Server?  data should reside on data providers server  data provider should be able to do own updates of both metadata and actual data at any point in time  data provider should be able to block access to data at any time;  the overall system should be maintained by a designated unit who guarantees that the system is running continuously and properly

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Which form of data storage do you prefer for your data set? Data Rights Management

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS the original data provider is the best option, as this organisation knows the datasets best. …the authorised body who maintenance the server – like for moving, freshening of the provided data set, but without modifying of the data itself. If data a stored on a central server (e.g. NEFIS Server), who is the custodian of … Data Rights Management

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS If data are hosted on a centralised database, do you foresee problems with: Data Rights Management

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS NEFIS KB is a knowledge resource on forest information systems, it is not conceived to be a forest information system itself and therefore does not contain information on, for example, forest statistics. NEFIS KnowledgeBase The purpose of the NEFIS KB is to establish an online repository for the storage and structured organisation of pertinent information that may otherwise be either difficult to find, inaccessible or simply lost.

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS UML of an Extended European Forest Information System Use Cases are based on story lines which scope typical forest information processes at the European level. Purpose of this work package component is to attempt to model the European Forest Information framework to better understand what the forest information requirements are from a policy perspective. This task necessitates the identification of both information users and functional processes within the context of policy frameworks by developing a set of representative forest Use Cases. The modelling is being undertaken using the Unified Modelling Language (UML).

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS UML of an Extended European Forest Information System

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS  Temperate & Boreal Forest Resources Assessment (TBFRA)  Forest Products Production and Trade Flows  Forest Certification  Criteria & Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management  Land Use & Land Cover Change component of the IPCC relating to forests  Forest Focus UML of an Extended European Forest Information System The set of Use Cases developed to date is as follows:

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Focus of evaluation on “five aspects” :  metadata and metadata guidelines  keyword lists and thesaurus  levels of access – data rights management in NEFIS  information needs and user’s expectations  electronic information system for periodical data reporting The evaluation is going to focus more on the contextual aspects within NEFIS rather than on the technical ones. WP5 – Evaluation

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Two ways of approach: a)Standardized questionnaire b) Validation by Experts Questionnaires will collect responses regarding: metadata records and metadata guidelines data preparation and data rights performances, user friendliness of the system capability to satisfy information needs - user expectations Validation by Experts will give theoretical appraisements and statements regarding: metadata and metadata guidelines levels of access – data rights management in NEFIS keyword lists and thesaurus electronic system for periodical reporting UseCases and Storylines Evaluation Report (April 2005) WP5 – Evaluation

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS EFIS : an electronic system for periodical reporting ? ! Future - Perspectives and Challenge  constant data flow – periodical updating of information  common interpretation and aggregation of information – “harmonised data”  problem of misinterpretation of visualised & analysed data – aspect: subjectivity; user friendliness and applicability of the VTK  clear identification of user requirements and technical possibilities – What can/ What has to reported in certain periods? – Aspect: regular/ irregular needs Aspects of concern are:  reliability and comparability of aggregated/ harmonised data

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS Discussion ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ! ? !

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS A standardised information/data reporting and transfer service will contribute to harmonising multiple data collection initiatives. Such improved tools will allow the improvement of communication between different organisations and stakeholders in the field of forestry and rural development at the regional, national, EU, and pan-European and international level. The tools will contribute to a reduction in time input for preparing and transferring data/information to official data collection and dissemination organisations. Electronic System for periodical reporting Community forestry measures need improved tools for their analysis and evaluation, and communication !

Requardt, 2004 NEFIS