Grégoire Dubois

eHabitat, a multi-purpose Web Processing Service for ecological modeling

The number of interoperable research infrastructures has increased significantly with the growing awareness of the efforts made by the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). One of the societal benefit areas that is benefiting most from GEOSS is biodiversity, given the costs of monitoring the environment and managing complex information, from space observations to species records including their genetic characteristics. But GEOSS goes beyond simple data sharing to encourage the publishing and combination of models, an approach which can ease the handling of complex multi-disciplinary questions. It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate these concepts by presenting eHabitat, a basic Web Processing Service (WPS) for computing the likelihood of finding ecosystems with equal properties to those specified by a user. Despite the availability of the agreed WPS standard for Web-based geospatial modeling, few practical implementations exist, making eHabitat a significant addition to the field. On the other hand, the wide uptake of Web access standards for geospatial data has led to a wealth of data sources within GEOSS which can be effectively combined using eHabitat. When chained with other services providing data on climate change, eHabitat can be used for ecological forecasting and becomes a useful tool for decision-makers assessing different strategies when selecting new areas to protect. eHabitat can use virtually any kind of thematic data that can be considered as useful when defining ecosystems and their future persistence under different climatic or development scenarios. The paper will present the architecture and illustrate the concepts through case studies which forecast the impact of climate change on protected areas or on the ecological niche of an African bird.

Open-source mapping and services for Web-based land-cover validation

Monitoring land-cover changes on sites of conservation importance allows environmental problems to be detected, solutions to be developed and the effectiveness of actions to be assessed. However, the remoteness of many sites or a lack of resources means these data are frequently not available. Remote sensing may provide a solution, but large-scale mapping and change detection may not be appropriate, necessitating site-level assessments. These need to be easy to undertake, rapid and cheap. We present an example of a Web-based solution based on free and open-source software and standards (including PostGIS, OpenLayers, Web Map Services, Web Feature Services and GeoServer) to support assessments of land-cover change (and validation of global land-cover maps). Authorised users are provided with means to assess land-cover visually and may optionally provide uncertainty information at various levels: from a general rating of their confidence in an assessment to a quantification of the proportions of land-cover types within a reference area. Versions of this tool have been developed for the TREES-3 initiative (Simonetti, Beuchle and Eva, 2011). This monitors tropical land-cover change through ground-truthing at latitude / longitude degree confluence points, and for monitoring of change within and around Important Bird Areas (IBAs) by Birdlife International and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). In this paper we present results from the second of these applications. We also present further details on the potential use of the land-cover change assessment tool on sites of recognised conservation importance, in combination with NDVI and other time series data from the eStation (a system for receiving, processing and disseminating environmental data). We show how the tool can be used to increase the usability of earth observation data by local stakeholders and experts, and assist in evaluating the impact of protection regimes on land-cover change.

Monitoring land cover changes in African protected areas in the 21st century

Africa is home to some of the most vulnerable natural ecosystems and species on the planet. Around 7000 protected areas seek to safeguard the continents rich biodiversity, but many of them face increasing management challenges. Human disturbances permeating into the parks directly and indirectly affect the ecological functioning and integrity of protected areas. With the envisaged expansion of the protected area network and further expected population and economic growth in the region, the competition between nature conservation and resources demands is likely to increase. The regular monitoring of land cover in and around protected areas can support the early detection of conservation conflicts. In this paper, we evaluate the use of the annual time series of MODIS Land Cover (LC) type product between 2003 and 2009 to monitor land cover changes at continental scale. We use the mean classification confidence and change frequency as indicators to assess the temporal consistency of the MODIS LC classifier for accurately monitoring land cover changes. We discuss the perspectives and issues for an automated monitoring of land cover changes in African protected areas.

Protected areas in the world's ecoregions: how well connected are they?

Graphical abstract

The eStation, an Earth Observation processing service in support to ecological monitoring

Abstract The eStation is a collecting and processing system designed to automatically deal with the reception, processing, analysis and dissemination of key environmental parameters derived from remotely sensed data. Developed mainly at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the eStation has been distributed to 47 sub-Saharan countries in the frame of the AMESD (Africa n Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development) project to provide local institutions with the capacity to easily access a large range of remote sensing products on vegetation, precipitation, fires and oceans. These products, derived from the processing of images coming from various instruments including SPOT-Vegetation, MSG-SEVIRI and MODIS are developed to allow end-users to make local and regional assessments of the state of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The products, dispatched to the users through the EUMETSAT data broadcasting system (EUMETCast) or provided by other Earth Observation (EO) data agencies (e.g. NASA), are further processed by the eStation to allow end-users to generate their own environmental, whether terrestrial or marine, assessments and reports. Initially designed as a stand-alone system using an open source development framework, the eStation has recently been further developed as a web processing service to allow a broader range of end-users to access the data and services over the Internet. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce the readers to the eStation and its products, to share the lessons learnt in deploying these services as well as to discuss its more recent use in chained environmental web based modeling services.

A Model Web approach to modelling climate change in biomes of Important Bird Areas

Abstract Protected Areas (PA) are designated to conserve species and habitats and protect against anthropogenic pressures. Park boundaries, however, offer no protection against climatic change and where boundaries are actual constructions, they may also act as physical barriers to species movements to new suitable habitats. The means for assessing the consequences of climate change on ecosystems and for identifying gaps in PA connectivity are therefore a conservation priority. The complexity of the scientific questions raised requires a multi-disciplinary approach given the variety of the information required. This includes species observations and their theoretical distributions, as well as ecosystem assessments and climate change models. Such complex questions can be more easily dealt with if there is appropriate access to data and models, a strategy endorsed by GEO-BON, the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network. In this paper, we show how data and models recently made available on the World Wide Web can be coupled through interoperable services and used for climate change forecasting in the context of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and how, for any bird species described in the databases, areas can be identified where the species may find a more suitable environment in the future. As presented, this is an example of the Model Web.

Automatic Mapping in Emergency: A Geostatistical Perspective

In the case of a severe nuclear accident, radionuclides may be released into the atmosphere and contaminate large areas. Radiological maps are obtained after converting local measurements into continuous information in space. Ideally, the mapping process should be fully automatic and provide information in real time. This paper is presenting the results obtained from two statistical exercises that addressed the issue of automating the spatial interpolation step both in routine and emergency situations. The first exercise addressed mainly the current state-of-the-art of spatial interpolation and explored the impact of human factors on the results obtained. The second exercise was dealing specifically with the automation issue. To further address the response of these mapping algorithms in emergency situations, simulated data have also been used to explore the impact of extreme values on the process. It is shown that, independently of the choice of algorithms, many obstacles still remain before we can rely on fully automatic mapping systems in emergency situations, especially during the early and critical stages of an accident when measurements on the contamination are sparse.

Integrating multiple spatial datasets to assess protected areas: lessons learnt from the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA)

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been developed to support the European Union’s efforts in strengthening our capacity to mobilize and use biodiversity data so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, researchers and other users. Assessing protected areas for biodiversity conservation at national, regional and international scales implies that methods and tools are in place to evaluate characteristics such as the protected areas’ connectivity, their species assemblages (including the presence of threatened species), the uniqueness of their ecosystems, and the threats these areas are exposed to. Typical requirements for such analyses are data on protected areas, information on species distributions and threat status, and information on ecosystem distributions. By integrating all these global data consistently in metrics and indicators, the DOPA provides the means to allow end-users to evaluate protected areas individually but also to compare protected areas at the country and ecoregion level to, for example, identify potential priorities for further conservation research, action and funding. Since the metrics and indicators are available through web services, the DOPA further allows end-users to develop their own applications without requiring management of large databases and processing capacities. In addition to examples illustrating how the DOPA can be used as an aid to decision making, we discuss the lessons learnt in the development of this global biodiversity information system, and outline planned future developments for further supporting conservation strategies

The Challenge of Real-Time Automatic Mapping for Environmental Monitoring Network Management

The automatic interpolation of environmental monitoring network data such as air quality or radiation levels in real-time setting poses a number of practical and theoretical questions. Among the problems found are (i) dealing and communicating uncertainty of predictions, (ii) automatic (hyper)parameter estimation, (iii) monitoring network heterogeneity, (iv) dealing with outlying extremes, and (v) quality control. In this paper we discuss these issues, in light of the spatial interpolation comparison exercise held in 2004.

Indicators for Assessing Habitat Values and Pressures for Protected Areas—An Integrated Habitat and Land Cover Change Approach for the Udzungwa Mountains National Park in Tanzania

Assessing the status and monitoring the trends of land cover dynamics in and around protected areas is of utmost importance for park managers and decision makers. Moreover, to support the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s Strategic Action Plan including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, such efforts are necessary to set a framework to reach the agreed national, regional or global targets. The integration of land use/cover change (LULCC) data with information on habitats and population density provides the means to assess potential degradation and disturbance resulting from anthropogenic activities such as agriculture and urban area expansion. This study assesses the LULCC over a 20 year (1990–2000–2010) period using freely available Landsat imagery and a dedicated method and toolbox for the Udzungwa Mountains National Park (UMNP) and its surroundings (20 km buffer) in Tanzania. Habitat data gathered from the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA)’s eHabitat+ Web service were used to perform ecological stratification of the study area and to develop similarity maps of the potential presence of comparable habitat types outside the protected area. Finally, integration of the habitat similarity maps with the LULCC data was applied in order to evaluate potential pressures on the different habitats within the national park and on the linking corridors between UMNP and other protected areas in the context of wildlife movement and migration. The results show that the UMNP has not suffered from relevant human activities during the study period. The natural vegetation area has remained stable around 1780 km2. In the surrounding 20 km buffer area and the connecting corridors, however, the anthropogenic impact has been strong. Artificially built up areas increased by 14.24% over the last 20 years and the agriculture area increased from 11% in 1990 to 30% in the year 2010. The habitat functional types and the similarity maps confirmed the importance of the buffer zone and the connecting corridors for wildlife movements, while the similarity maps detected other potential corridors for wildlife.