| START Conference Manager |
(Submission #106)
Nowadays, it is possible to record species data with a variety of mobile apps and web portals which are being offered by many nature conservation organisations. Therefore Open Source Software of the Geospatial Web and database management systems are used to record and to visualize observations via map clients. Public authorities that are responsible for nature conservation only receive few of these data. There are substantiated concerns regarding the quality of Citizen Science data. Other challenges are heterogeneous data models, specifications and parameter values. In particular, the integration of Citizen Science data is important since many states only provide occurrences of a few species. For Lower Saxony only hamsters are mentioned in the INSPIRE Monitoring portal. Thus it is noticeable that the number of species recorded by NGOs is significantly higher than those actively collected by the authorities. Only two authorities offer apps, collaborations with NGOs are rare. Because the traditional German NGOs are struggling with a decrease in skilled volunteers, it is important to provide modern tools for young people as an alternative to analogue methods. The approach was to deploy Open Source Software in the development of the Geographical Content Management System HotSpot which enables a modular administration of environmental monitoring projects for Citizens, a quality control and transformation of data into the INSPIRE application schema Species Distribution. The preparation of apps and web-based surveys is provided via forms and predefined data. Validations of the records are carried out through Web Processing Services covering a validation via species distribution modeling routines by means of GBIF and BioClim data included by web services, comparisons with integrated reference data about known occurrences and temporal distributions as well as reviews by the crowd and experts. Aggregation and transformation of data are performed by a semi-automated process which covers the application scheme including the extension. Main results are a WMS and GML datasets for selected species and distribution units for QGIS as well as fully INSPIRE-conform. Access to raw data is provided via Sensor Observation Services. Methods like Open Access and Data accelerate standardised flows of data in a "bottom-up" process from NGOs to responsible authorities enabling them to react quickly on changes of the environment or to detect these even before they occur. Thus, the data basis for assessments of the environmental status used for reporting commitments could be significantly improved.
Topic Area: [2.7] Citizen science/crowd sourcing Abstract Type: Oral Presentation
Comments: VGI, Validation, Monitoring, Species, Distribution, Modeling, App, Citizen Science
START Conference Manager (V2.61.0 - Rev. 4195)