Development of a web-based Forestry Information System using Open Source software

Transcription

1 Development of a web-based Forestry Information System using Open Source software Dr. Markus U. Müller 1 1 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Indonesia Abstract Forestry has seen rising interest during the last years due to the role of forests as carbon stores and their respective role in climate change mitigation as well as adaption. There is a strong international interest now in tropical forests, as these, especially primary forest store enormous amounts of carbon and are constantly threatened by conversion to other land usages and non-sustainable logging practices. A prerequisite for forest conservation and sustainable forest management is the availability of data about forests to the people who are responsible for managing them but also to the general public, potental international donor organisations and potential investors in carbon stock. Forestry data is to a high degree spatial data, so the usage of GIS plays an important role in its management. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is supporting the forestry service of the province of West Kalimantan in Indonesia since the beginning of 2009 with capacity building in regard to GIS and remote sensing as well as the setup of a Forestry Information System (FIS). With the regulation P.02/Menhut-II/2010 by the Ministry of Forestry on forestry information systems a standardised database model is available for such systems that should be implemented by all forestry departments in Indonesia. The FIS that was developed by the province of West-Kalimantan implements this standard using open source software. The system can be considered a web publishing system as it combines a database (mysql), a Content Management System (Joomla) as well as a Web-GIS (Geoserver). Experiences with this software stack are very promising, especially since the setup and management of the system is easy to learn. For the future it is planned to develop Forest Management Information Systems for the district level. These will combine a geodatabase with a forest growth 1

2 model and support sustainable forest management. The FIS developed so far could be coupled with this FMIS and become its reporting component. Introduction About 20 percent of the global emissions of greenhouse gases are resulting from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. It can therefore be stated that these activities are an important driver of current climate change. In spite of this fact these emissions are not yet included under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or its Kyoto Protocol. In order to avoid the most serious impacts of climate change, humans will have to significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions including those that result from the reduction of forests. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) describes a mechanism for supporting this aim. It is likely that REDD+ will be included in one way or another in future international climate change agreements, but the details will yet have to be decided upon. The basic idea of REDD+ is to reward individuals, communities, projects and countries that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from forests. The key elements of REDD+ will undoubtedly be carbon accounting, baselines, emission reduction strategies, monitoring/verification and sale of avoided carbon emissions. It is very obvious that a number of these key elements can only be handled using geographic information technology and remote sensing data. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH started in the beginning of 2009 to support the province of West-Kalimantan in its preparation for REDD+. A major part of this program is aimed at capacity building in regard to spatial information technologies and setup of forestry information systems. These information systems are expected to not only be able to fufil needs of a future REDD+ scheme, but also improve efficiency and transparency in a more general way. There are number of requirements for such a system. It should be able to handle spatial as well as tabular data, take existing government regulations into account, support internal reporting as well as publish information to the general public and last but not least forestry service staff should be able maintain it by themselves. The used software has therefore to be sufficiently easy to install and configure. 2

3 Forestry Information Systems Information systems for the forest sector are instrumental for effective management and planning of forest resources. Besides supporting internal processes of forestry agencies, they can also serve the information needs of the broader public thus supporting transparency and accountability. For sustainable management of forests a wide variety of data is needed, for example classical inventory data, supplementary data about physiogeographical factors like soil and climate, socioeconmic data and administrative information. The greater part of information in forestry is spatial data in the sense that it has a spatial reference, be it direct (using a geometry) or indirect (using a geographic identifier). It is therefore not surprising that many Forestry Information Systems (FIS) us a Geographic Information System (GIS) as its base or at least include a GIS as one component. In this regard FIS are not different from other Environmental Information Systems (EIS) that are often comprised of a GIS, a reporting system, a meta information system (MIS) and specific analysis applications (Müller, Augstein, Bock, Glowinski 2003). GIS and reporting systems seem crucial to FIS, but specific MIS are only needed if the number of managed datasets is big enough to make it necessary to support the search for specific datasets. Reporting systems in this context can work offline e.g. supporting the preparation of reports (documents, usually printed and signed) that are then distributed manually to specific recipients, or online e.g. support the dissemination of information to a wider audience via the World Wide Web. In comparison to general EIS, the task of a FIS is often not only to monitor and report about the conditions of resources, but also to manage them with an economical aim in mind. Forests are used for biodiversity conservation and protection of other environmental resources (water, air, soil), but also to produce timber- and non-timber forest products. The sustainable management of forests for production purposes needs information about the future conditions of forest stands and also coupling of this information with market data. FIS that especially focus on this management function are often called Forest Management Information Systems (FMIS). In the Context of the discussion about the REDD+ scheme, a number of new tasks have to be tackled by FIS in the future (The World Bank 2008). The implementation of REDD+ needs detailed information not only about forest cover, but also of about stored carbon that can be estimated using field surveys that are combined with remote sensing analyses. The carbon stock has then to be 3

4 monitored periodically and the results then form the basis of a Reporting, Monitoring and Verification (MRV) system (Angelsen 2008). Regulation P.02 about Forestry Information Systems in Indonesia Regulation P.02/Menhut-II/2010 that was issued by the Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia defines a general data model for different administration levels: national, provincial, district and forest management unit (FMU). An FMU is an operational unit of manage- and controllable size predominantly covered by forests. For each level of administration there are more than 40 tables defined. These tables encompass data about: Forest area and its potential Forestry Industry Trade of forest products Rehabilitation of critically endangered areas Empowerment of the local population and Forest governance. The tables are given in a simple format, without any information about used data types or relations between the tables. An example is given in the following table on the potential (harvestable volume) of timber forest products for a province 4

5 Fig. 1: Example table from P.02/Menhut-II/2010 All tables have an id column (No) and almost all have an indirect spatial reference. Indirect in this context means that there are no coordinates given but references to administrative boundaries (in the example case the corresponding districts, Kabupaten/Kota). Then the potential is given (these include all trees with a diameter of more than 20 cm) with information about all types (Semua Jenis) and those that are tradable (Jenis Perdagangan). Finally a row for additional remarks and explanations is given (Keterangan). As can be seen especially well by the final row that defines a sum (Jumlah), this is not a directly implementable data model, but a standardised table for reporting purposes that is created by accumulation of data from different sources. Taking also into account that almost all tables use a spatial identifier we can further conclude that most of the information defined by P.02/Menhut-II/2010 is aggregated from spatial information for reporting purposes. An underlying GIS would be able to support the creation of this kind of information that subsequently can be published. Concept of the FIS The FIS developed for the provincial forestry service of West-Kalimantan focusses on the reporting task that is one aspect or component of a Forestry Information System. In its current state, it allows the import of tabular data into a database that can then be published via the WWW or used to create reports. A 5

6 simple Web-GIS is also part of the system. The components of the system are therefore: Database management system, Content Management System (CMS) and Web-GIS. A central requirement for the CMS was, that it should be able to publish tabular data directly out of a database. An additional requirement was that the system should be easily configurable using graphical user interfaces. Implementation using Open Source Software After some evaluation Joomla was chosen as CMS, mysql as database management system and geoserver as map server with a special Joomla extension as Web Map interface. The resulting architecture is show in Figure 2. 6

7 Fig. 2: Architecture of the System Using mysql and its graphical user interface phpmyadmin a database model according to P.02/Menhut-II/2010 was created. The data model was slighlty modified from the original standard as some of the available data did not match with the required structure. It was also necessary to translate the tables from the standard into an implementable relational form. Data entry is possible using two ways: the first one, and the one so far used, is to import existing statistical data into the database in Excel sheet (.xls) format. It is also possible to use OpenOffice base as a data entry tool. OpenOffice base can be connected to mysql using a special connector without the need to create an 7

8 ODBC connection. Using OpenOffice base reports in various formats can be created. Joomla is used as CMS, structural information about the website and also published articles are stored in a mysql database. The web-interface of the website can be seen in Figure 3. Fig. 3: Web-Interface of the FIS A Joomla extension named Table JX is used for accessing tabular data in the database and displaying it in the website. It offers a variety of configuration options to access data stored in mysql. An example display of tabular data can be seen in Figure 4. 8

9 Fig. 4: Display of tabular data in the website The next component of the system is the Web-GIS. It consists of two parts, the map server and a corresponding client that is integrated in the website. As mapserver the geoserver software was chosen because of its widespread use and as it is distributed and recommended by the national mapping agency of Indonesia Bakosurtanal. A number of map clients are available for Joomla and after an evaluation phase it was decided to use WisRoGIS because it is to date the most flexible and versatile one. The communication between WiSroGIS and Geoserver uses the standardised Web Map Service (WMS) protocol. As background map Google Maps can be used as can be seen in Figure 5. 9

10 Fig. 5: Simple Web-GIS All of the used components are Free Software/Open Source with the exception of the Joomla Extension Table JX and WiSROGIS that are commercial, although the costs for buying them are comparably low. Outlook The implementation of the described FIS with the mentioned components was comparatively easy and the technology was adopted by the staff of the foresty department of West-Kalimantan in a short time. An important factor was the availability of graphical user interfaces for their installation and configuration that not required knowledge of programming. It has to be mentioned though that basic knowledge of HTML and SQL are sometimes useful when working with these systems. The major hurdle in regard do the implementation and configuration of the overall system is the transfer and definition of map stylings. Most geospatial data in the provincial forest service is handled using Esri ArcGIS. Its styling information is therefore stored in ArcView Legend Files or ArcGIS Layer Files. Geoserver on the other hand uses the Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) standard for this purpose. 10

11 There exist only few solutions to the transfer of styling information from ArcGIS SLD and none of them can be considered easy to use and sufficiently reliable. In the future it is planned to couple the system to a geodatabase. The first step in this endeavour is to develop a standardised data model for geospatial data so that the aggregated data that is needed for reporting can automatically or at least semi-automatically be extracted. This geodatabase will most likely be an structured collection of Shapfiles with standardised file names and attribute definitions. The FORCLIME Programme of GIZ ( supports three pilot districts in West- and East Kalimantan in regard to Sustainable Forest Management. The FIS developed so far on provincial level will become the base of the reporting part of the Forest Management Information Systems (FMIS) for these districts. The setup with a standardised geodatabase is a crucial aspect of these systems. Additionally it is planned to couple the geodatabase with a forest growth model, a module to calculate carbon stock from forest inventories and an data exchange mechanism between forest management units and district forestry departments. The greater aim of these future FMIS is to have data and information available as a base for planning and sustainable management of forest resources including support for REDD mechanisms. Literature Angelsen, A. (ed.) 2008: Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications. Müller, M., Augstein, B., Bock, M. And Glowinski, R. (2003) : Development of an Environmental Data Infrastructure for Hamburg. In: The Information Society and Enlargement of the European Union (Part 1), 17th International Conference Informatics for Environmental Protection Cottbus, Pp The World Bank 2008: Monitoring and Information Systems for Forest Management. In: Forests Sourcebook. Practical Guidance for Sustaining Forests in Development Cooperation. Pp Ch07.pdf 11