SIT-REM: An Interoperable and Interactive Web Geographic Information System for Fauna, Flora and Plant Landscape Data Management

Abstract

Abstract:The main goal of the SIT-REM project is the design and the development of an interoperable web-GIS environment for the information retrieval and data editing/updating of the geobotanical and wildlife map of Marche Region. The vegetation, plant landscape and faunistic analysis allow the realization of a regional information system forwildlife-geobotanical data. A main characteristic of the SIT-REM is its flexibility and interoperability, in particular, its ability to be easily updated with the insertion of new types of environmental, faunal or socio-economic data and to generate analyses at any geographical (from regional to local) or quantitative level of detail. Different query levels obtain the latter: spatial queries, hybrid query builder and WMSs usable by means of a GIS. SIT-REM has been available online for more than a year and its use over this period has produced extensive data about users' experiences.

Mapping Mediterranean Forest Plant Associations and Habitats with Functional Principal Component Analysis Using Landsat 8 NDVI Time Series

“…Bedrock is mainly limestone and the vegetation cover is predominantly made by woods. To carry out analyses, we have masked non-forest areas (grasslands, shrublands and garrigues) using ancillary layers [7]. The forest plant associations known for the study area, according to Biondi et al, [23][24][25], are: (i) the Cyclamino hederifolii-Quercetum ilicis-an evergreen forest association dominated by Quercus ilex, with a high occurrence of Mediterranean species (e.g., Smilax aspera, Pistacia lentiscus, Phillyrea latifolia, Juniperus oxycedrus, Osyris alba, and Rosa sempervirens).…”

“…Nevertheless, because of the "traditional" mapping approach adopted and the complex spatial organization of the plant associations determined by the joint action of the topographic variability with biotic (e.g., dynamic vegetation processes) and anthropic factors, the production of vegetation maps has been irregular and discontinuous to date. The latest "traditional" plant association-based habitat map was carried out in the 2005 and was made available by the "Web Geographic Information System for Fauna, Flora, and Plant Landscape Data Management of Marche region" (http://sitbiodiversità.ambiente.marche.it/sitrem/) [7]. For all these reasons, the study area is suitable to test the proposed mapping approach.…”

“…In green are the Mount Conero (Marche, Central Italy) forests investigated. The distribution is derived from the "Web Geographic Information System of Marche region" [7]. Red points are the reference data (field survey and photo-interpretation).…”

“…According to the Directive, each European member state is obliged to survey, monitor, and report about habitats, their distribution, and status of conservation every 6 years. The phytosociological maps (e.g., plant associations map) can adequately represent the distribution of the habitats and, if updated and repeated, would be helpful in evaluating and monitoring the status of conservation of the habitats [6][7][8]. These activities, to be performed every 6 years, require a lot of resources (i.e., field survey, photo-interpretation) that is constraint making the update of habitat maps particularly difficult due to costs and required time.…”

Whistland: An Augmented Reality Crowd-Mapping System for Civil Protection and Emergency Management

“…Recent work has exploited the use of WSN for disaster management [17,18], enhancing context awareness with pervasive and continuous streaming of raw information. Our research group has a background in sensor networks [19][20][21] and has already reported on the advantages of updating knowledge bases through user-driven data collection [22].…”