Bridging research and dissemination in the CoViD-19 era: a WebGIS dashboard for the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy)

The paper presents an ongoing project devoted to the study, the analysis and the representation of epidemiological data related to CoViD-19 spread in the territory of the Province of Trento (Italy), both for scientific and communication purposes. In this broader context, the construction of a digital cartography tool as a WebGIS to allow local communities understanding of epidemiological spread is presented. Data have been supplied by the local Provincial Health Authority; statistic have been processed in order to develop municipality scale vector polygonal coropleth and point maps in order to show affected, health and death rate distribution. A timeline allows the representation of changes and dynamics from Spring 2020 to the current date. The database provides “on-the-fly” data to the production scripts of maps and time charts. These scripts querying the database produce a geographic file in the geojson standard interchange format. This file is read by the javascript scripts based on the leaflet libraries for the production of the final maps. In a similar process, scripts based on the chart.js library produce the graph of the data temporal variation, automatically reading dates and interval time of analysis. A custom procedure was developed to allow the periodic update of the dataset. New information is added to the database by uploading an external spreadsheet. The study presents the methodology to develop and assess the WebGIS for managing, visualize and analyse Coronavirus diffusion. Future implementation of the WebGIS will expand the used data and allow the comparison with social and environmental factors

FOSS tools and applications for education in geospatial sciences

While the theory and implementation of geographic information systems (GIS) have a history of more than 50 years, the development of dedicated educational tools and applications in this field is more recent. This paper presents a free and open source software (FOSS) approach for education in the geospatial disciplines, which has been used over the last 20 years at two Italian universities. The motivations behind the choice of FOSS are discussed with respect to software availability and development, as well as educational material licensing. Following this philosophy, a wide range of educational tools have been developed, covering topics from numerical cartography and GIS principles to the specifics regarding different systems for the management and analysis of spatial data. Various courses have been implemented for diverse recipients, ranging from professional training workshops to PhD courses. Feedback from the students of those courses provides an invaluable assessment of the effectiveness of the approach, supplying at the same time directions for further improvement. Finally, lessons learned after 20 years are discussed, highlighting how the management of educational materials can be difficult even with a very open approach to licensing. Overall, the use of free and open source software for geospatial (FOSS4G) science provides a clear advantage over other approaches, not only simplifying software and data management, but also ensuring that all of the information related to system design and implementation is available

Relevance of the cell neighborhood size in landscape metrics evaluation and free or open source software implementations

Landscape metrics constitute one of the main tools for the study of the changes of the landscape and of the ecological structure of a region. The most popular software for landscape metrics evaluation is FRAGSTATS, which is free to use but does not have free or open source software (FOSS). Therefore, FOSS implementations, such as QGIS’s LecoS plugin and GRASS’ r.li modules suite, were developed. While metrics are defined in the same way, the “cell neighborhood” parameter, specifying the configuration of the moving window used for the analysis, is managed differently: FRAGSTATS can use values of 4 or 8 (8 is default), LecoS uses 8 and r.li 4. Tests were performed to evaluate the landscape metrics variability depending on the “cell neighborhood” values: some metrics, such as “edge density” and “landscape shape index”, do not change, other, for example “patch number”, “patch density”, and “mean patch area”, vary up to 100% for real maps and 500% for maps built to highlight this variation. A review of the scientific literature was carried out to check how often the value of the “cell neighborhood” parameter is explicitly declared. A method based on the “aggregation index” is proposed to estimate the effect of the uncertainty on the “cell neighborhood” parameter on landscape metrics for different map

Development of a measurement platformon a light airplane and analysis of airborne measurementsin the atmospheric boundary layer

In the present paper we provide an overview of a long term research project aimed at setting up a suitable platform for measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer on a light airplane along with some preliminary results obtained from fi eld campaigns at selected sites. Measurements of air pressure, temperature and relative humidity have been performed in various Alpine valleys up to a height of about 2500 m a.m.s.l. By means of GPS resources and specifi c post-processing procedures careful positioning of measurement points within the explored domain has been achieved. The analysis of collected data allowed detailed investigation of atmospheric vertical structures and dynamics typical of valley environment, such as morning transition from ground based inversion to fully developed well mixed convective boundary layer. Based on data collected along fl ights, 3D fi elds of the explored variables have been detected and identifi ed through application of geostatistical techniques (Kriging). The adopted procedures allowed evaluation of the intrinsic statistical structure of the spatial distribution of measured quantities and the estimate of the values of the same variable at unexplored locations by suitable weighted average of data recorded at close locations. Results thus obtained are presented and discussed

Fruit availability for migratory birds: a GIS approach

Bird migration is a widely studied phenomenon, however many factors that influence migratory flows remain unknown or poorly understood. Food availability en route is particularly important for many species and can affect their migration success, pattern and timing but this relationship has not been addressed at a wide scale due to the lack of spatial models of food availability on the terrain. This work presents a GIS-database approach that combines spatial and non-spatial ecological information in order to map fruit availability from vegetation over time in the SE Alps, an important node of European migratory routes. We created a unique database that contains information on the presence and periods of fructification of 52 wild plants carrying berries and a series of original cartographic themes. The presence and coverage of the plant species was modelled with the geo-statistical method of the Gaussian Kernel, which was validated against the ground truth of field sampling data with a correct classification power above 80% in most cases. The highest fruit availability in the study area during September and October co-occurs with the peak of captures of berry eating birds. The maps created and distributed along this work can be useful to address more detailed studies about stopover sites as well as the spatial ecology of other fruit eating animals

The 1936 Italian Kingdom Forest Map reviewed: a dataset for landscape and ecological research

The recovery of the 1936 Italian Kingdom Forest Map (IKFM) (276 sheets 1:100,000) is described. It is a unique document that describes the forest extent and species composition for the whole of Italy. The original document is available in paper format using a datum and a map projection no longer in use, therefore it is not suitable for analysis using current digital tools. Therefore, this map has been firstly converted to a digital image, georeferenced and reprojected as a raster map in the official Italian datum; secondly, has been digitalized in vector format. This map provides historical, ecological and landscape information and fills a great temporal gap in those portions of Italy where landscape maps are available for some earlier periods. Its importance is extended to parts of Croatia, Slovenia and France. The technical problems faced in the recovery and transformation of the cartography into a usable format are described and discussed. A first data overview and analysis based on a test study, and comparisons with current national forest inventory data aimed to highlight potential and limits of IKFM are presented. The map is available on-line through a WebGIS at the address carta1936.dicam.unitn.i