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Frontiers in Forest Information: NEFIS Network

NEFIS is a project enhancing forest information systems in Europe by coordinating efforts, developing standards, and maximizing data usability for citizens. Explore NEFIS partnership and tasks, results, challenges, and technical reviews.

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Frontiers in Forest Information: NEFIS Network

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  1. Network for a European Forest Information Service NEFIS Alex Fedorec, Greenwich University, UK Jarmo Saarikko, METLA, FI Risto Päivinen,Andreas Schuck & Tim Green,European Forest Institute, FI Frontiers in Forest Information The Impact of Changing Technologies Oxford Dec 2005

  2. What is NEFIS? Network for a European Forest Information Service Accompanying Measure in the EU 5th Framework Programme2002-2005 (Contract No.QLK5-CT-2002-30638) General objectives were to build on and continue activities initiated in the ‘European Forest Information System (EFIS)’ project and to maximise the value of existing data and databases by: • coordinating ongoing efforts to create forest information systems and services • supporting development of harmonised standards and procedures for data provision by data providers at regional, country and international levels • increasing the usability of available data and databases by the European citizens.

  3. NEFIS Partnership • European Commission, DG JRC, Institute for Environment and Sustainability – Land Management Unit • International Union of Forest Research Organisations • Dresden University of Technology – Forest Biometrics and Computer Sciences • Frauenhoffer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. • Finnish Forest Research Institute • Inventaire Forestier National • Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute – Dept. of Forestry • Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet – Dept. of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics • University of Greenwich – School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences • Regione Dell’Umbria – Servizio Programmazione Forestale • Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali • Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya – Forest Policy and Rural Development Dept • Hungarian State Forest Service (SFS) • Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products, BFH

  4. About Data and Information • Is more data needed or have we reached information overload? • Is some important data/information missing or of too low accuracy? • Are current resources/information fully utilised and used efficiently? • Lack of data/information is not necessarily the problembut their use and application • Do we know where to find what information/data? • Users incl. decision makers are often not aware of existing information or do not use it • How accessible is existing information really? • In which way should information and data be made available?

  5. Specific Tasks • Review the state of the art in the technical development of information services • Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies • Suggest unified and operable methods for communication between different Internet-based forest information service activities • Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS prototype • Test the EFIS using regional, national and international data sets • Evaluate the service from the users’ and data providers’ perspectives • Develop strategies for development of the service

  6. Some Results of NEFIS • Metadata schema (based on Dublin Core) • Suggestion for a Forest Markup Language (FML) • Controlled vocabularies 12 themes, 4 developed further • Prepared sample datasets and metadata available through the EFIS system • Technical review and UML description of an extended EFIS • Demonstration package: Resource Discovery and Visualization Toolkits • KnowledgeBase http://nkb.efi.fi/ • Utilisation by the European Commission: EFICP, INFORS

  7. Consultants, Modellers,Researchers, Education Commercial, financial,Forest/timber industry International/national Gov. agencies, NGOs Land use planners, Mgrs, Sylviculturalists News media, Public sector Databases Files XLS X Docs HTML Scope and Challenges of NEFIS

  8. Side Notes Published result of one task becomes input dataset for another.“One person’s output is another person’s input” National Inventory → JQ report → Eurostat DB → FRA → MCPFE Report (Similarly one person’s data is another's metadata) Much information held in weakly structured documents. Lack metastructure to fully exploit explicit (codified) knowledge or extract tactic (unarticulated) knowledge. Crucial issue: Why would someone want to use this system? • Resource user? • Information provider?

  9. Technical Review – UML Modelling UML – The Unified Modelling Language (ISO/IEC 19501) Objectives • “Produce a consultative UML review of EFIS model and extend it to incorporate new information types, relationships and processes, • Build on outputs of other projects such as EFIS, GFIS and results from other work packages of the AM. • Develop understanding of O-O paradigm applicability to European forest information • Identify system and user requirements • Scope technical possibilities and infrastructure”

  10. Local Domain Theory Is disjoint subclass of with transitivity property Conceptual Model Is subclass of Thesaurus Has narrower meaning than Taxonomy Is subclassification of Why UML? - UML in the Ontology Spectrum Daconta, M.C., et.al., 2003 Strong semantics Minimal hierarchic knowledge to rich consistent and meaningful knowledge Modal Logic OCL – The UML Object Constraint Language First Order Logic DAML+OIL, OWL UML – The Unified Modelling Language RDF/S XTM Extended ER ER Schema RelationalModel Weak semantics

  11. UML Modelling Cont’d Approach • Identify and partition key user groups and application domains • Elicit sample use cases and story lines from example applications, e.g. UN-ECE/FAO Global Forest Resource Assessment & TBFRA 2000 (Regional FRA) MCPFE Criteria & Indicators for Sustainable Forest Mgt Forest Products Production and Trade Flows Land Use & Land Cover Change for UNFCCC • Commonalities factored to identify generic use cases, desired features, kernel classes, packages etc.

  12. Example Use Case 1

  13. NEFIS Generic Use Case

  14. Identification of Key Elements • Metadata management: Not just resource discovery - Normalisation and control of ontology database required to ensure semantic interoperability at all levels • Content management central to dynamic control and delivery • Task and role choreography and support, facilitate and enhance usability (success predicated on high quality publish & subscribe tools) • Maintenance of tool and standard component repository Note technical review revealed each of these elements is enabled by web services and service-oriented-architecture

  15. Technical Review - Changing Technology Within the short life of the NEFIS project we have seen the rapid growth of: • new pattern and model driven techniques for analysis and architecting complex or large scale information systems • open-system standards, exploitation of metadata and middleware protocols to support resource location and interoperability in highly distributed heterogeneous systems • component-oriented and web-service tools and technologies to implement these systems • RAD tools for sophisticated GUI development We are also seeing emerging • grid and autonomic infrastructures to optimise execution • agile methods to manage the development process

  16. « WWW » CLIENT NEFIS SERVER PROVIDER SERVER Resource Browser Resource Locator & Vortal Services Publication Tools * * «internet» «internet» Visualisation, Analysis &Reporting Toolkits Harmonisation Tools UDDI API/Registry Published Services Task & RoleManagement. Access & Authorisation Mgt ContentManagement Central Services * Metadata DB /Domain Ontology Provider Systems MetadataManagement «intranet» Central Resource & Document DB Raw Databases and Information Tool Repository &Forest ModelArchive Archiving and Hosting Services NEFIS Service-Oriented Deployment

  17. Suggested FML provides an XML schema reflecting this NEFIS Metadata Based on DCMI Element Set. NEFIS extensions and modifications ()

  18. Facilitate cataloguing and accessing of NEFIS metadata records and underlying datasets Developed from data sets provided by the NEFIS partners Based on a generic standard and existing recognized vocabularies:CABI thesaurus, AgroVoc, NALKeyword lists developed for 12 themes: Forest inventory (incl. growth & yield) Forest fires Forest products and trade flows Forest health Silviculture (incl. forest nurseries) Rural development Vegetation (or forest or land) types Forestry institutions Non-wood goods and benefits Forest operations Maps and geo-referenced dataField experiments Lists further developed further for the themes in bold (e.g. to include definitions, equivalents in other languages etc) Controlled Vocabularies: Themes and Terms

  19. Data Preparation and Data Provision Objectives • to identify the datasets (sub-national, national & international) for input to the EFIS • to prepare metadata records using the proposed metadata schema • to provide and prepare sample datasets available through the EFIS system

  20. Demonstration Package Consists of: • Resource Discovery (RD) • in which the proposed NEFIS metadata schema is implemented • New Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) functionalities, • support of spatial time series data; • tools for dynamic aggregation of grid (raster) data; • some new visualisation techniques • Data retrieval: • Implementation of simple system for retrieval of data from data tables from distributed and remote sites, collation of the data, and processing into a format that can be used by the VTK

  21. Demonstrator Package Search Metadata Utilise Data

  22. Example VTK Visualisations

  23. Structured repository for deposit, storage and access of information and metadata relevant to forest information systems, with emphasis on NEFIS recording: outputs from NEFIS WPs other forest IS/services development initiatives (e.g. GFIS, EFIS) and other relevant projects relevant software resources and documentation NEFIS KnowledgeBasehttp://nkb.efi.fi/

  24. Summary & Conclusion pan-European FISs have vast and expanding volumes of distributed information, are heterogeneous, highly changeable, have huge range of potential user types and applications. The changing technology discussed in NEFIS potentiates • Wrapping and support of legacy systems • Interoperability and transparency of information • Provision of futureproofed scalable architectures More importantly it enables • Location and retrieval of (just) the right data and information • Provision of the information in the right form for the task Challenges are • Provision of quality publish/subscribe tools • Ontology not only for resource discovery but semantic interoperability

  25. Thank You! further information:www.efi.fi/projects/nefis

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