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 (SBA) 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. 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

eHabitat: A Contribution to the Model Web for Habitat Assessments and Ecological Forecasting

In striving to improve the predictive capabilities of ecological forecasting we face three basic choices ¿ develop new models, improve existing ones or increase the connectivity of models so they can work together. The latter approach of chaining different interoperable models is of particular interest, as technical developments have made it increasingly viable to combine models that can answer more questions than the individual models alone, allowing users to address complex questions, often of a multi-disciplinary nature. This concept of a Model Web encourages the setting up of a dynamic network of interoperating models, communicating with each other using standardized web services. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce the potential contribution of e-Habitat to the Model Web. e-Habitat is conceived as a Web Processing Service for computing the likelihood of finding ecosystems with equal properties. By developing e-Habitat according to Model Web principles, end-users can define the thematic layers for input to the model from various sources. These input layers are discovered using standards-based catalogues, which are a fundamental component of Model Web and generic Spatial Data Infrastructures. e-Habitat integrates data ranging from remote sensing data to socio-economical indicators, thus offering a huge potential for multi-disciplinary modelling. We will show that e-Habitat can be used for the identification of habitats that are most vulnerable or of the optimal locations for monitoring stations or, when coupled with climate change model services, for ecological forecasting. As such, it is an excellent example of the Model Web in practice.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin

eHabitat: Large scale modelling of habitats types and similarities for conservation and management of protected areas.

eHabitat, which is one of the services supporting the DOPA, the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas, proposes a habitat replaceability index (HRI) which can be used for characterizing each protected area worldwide. More precisely, eHabitat computes for each protected area a map of probabilities to find areas within the corresponding ecoregion presenting ecological characteristics that are similar to those found in the selected protected area. The HRI is then computed as the ratio between similar areas outside park and the park area itself. We here present an improved version which includes an automatic segmentation of the parks prior to HRI computation. This allows for a discrimination of different habitats types inside of protected areas. By reducing the variability within landscape patches, similarity values can be considered to be more accurate. This approach should also further improve the associated niche modelling tools.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Which service interfaces fit the model web?

Ponència presentada a The Fourth International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems, Applications, and Services, GEOProcessing 2012, celebrat a València del 30 de gener al 4 de febrer de 2012The Model Web has been proposed as a concept for integrating scientific models in an interoperable and collaborative manner. However, four years after the initial idea was formulated, there is still no stable long term solution. Multiple authors propose Web Service based approaches to model publication and chaining, but current implementations are highly case specific and lack flexibility. This paper discusses the Web Service interfaces, which are required for supporting integrated environmental modeling in a sustainable manner. We explore ways to expose environmental models and their components using Web Service interfaces. Our discussions present work in progress for establishing the Web Services technological grounds for simp lifying information publication and exchange within the Model We b. As a main outcome, this contribution identifies challenges in respect to the required geo- processing and relates them to currently available Web Service standards

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

An introduction to the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) and the DOPA Explorer (Beta)

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) is conceived around a set of interacting Critical Biodiversity Informatics Infrastructures (databases, web modelling services, broadcasting services, ...) hosted at different institutions, including the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and BirdLife International. The current services of DOPA provide to a large variety of end-users, ranging from park managers, funding agencies to researchers, with means to assess, monitor and possibly forecast the state and pressure of protected areas at the local, national and global scales. With an introduction to the DOPA, the readers will find here a user manual of the beta version of DOPA Explorer, a first web based assessment tool where information on 9 000 protected areas covering almost 90% of the global protected surface has been processed automatically to generate a set of indicators on ecosystems, climate, phenology, species, ecosystem services and pressures. DOPA Explorer can so help identify the protected areas with most unique ecosystems and species and assess the pressures they are exposed to because of human development. Ecological data derived from and near real-time earth observations are also made available for the African continent. Inversely, DOPA Explorer indirectly highlights the protected areas for which the information is incomplete.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

Assessing habitat diversity and potential areas of similarity across protected areas globally

Biophysical characterization analyses of protected areas (PA) that provide information on their ecological values and potential areas with similar characteristics are needed to make informed PA network planning and management decisions. This study combines and further develops methodologies that use remote sensing and modelling to identify habitat functional types in PAs and map similar areas at the ecoregion level. The study also develops new terrestrial habitat diversity and irreplaceability indices at habitat and PA scale that allow the comparison and ranking of PAs in terms of biophysical gradients and singular environmental conditions. Six PAs were selected to highlight and discuss the results of the proposed methodology. Both individual and composite indices should be considered when trying to compare PAs to understand the overall complexity and ecological values of each PA. Results can inform planning and management of individual and protected area networks as well as identify new areas for conservation. The information provided by the model about similar habitats outside protected areas can also help assess their representativeness and support studies to strengthen ecological connectivity. Besides systematic comparisons, detailed assessments of protected areas can also be performed using medium and high-resolution input variables. This is especially relevant for protected areas in developing countries where undertaking fieldwork is very difficult and the budget devoted to conservation is limited.European Commission European Commission Joint Research CentreBiodi- versity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) programme, an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of StatesMarie Curie Actions CT-EX2020D381533-101Spanish Ministry of Universities and Next Generation European Union fund

Real-Time Water Decision Support Services For Droughts

Through application of computational methods and an integrated information system, real-time data and river modeling systems can help decision makers identify more effective actions for management practice. The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time decision support model to recommend optimal curtailments during water shortages for decision makers. To enable ease of use and re-use, the workflows (i.e., analysis and model steps) of the real-time decision support model are published as Web services delivered through an internet browser, including model inputs, a published workflow service, and visualized outputs. The model consists of two major components: the real-time river flow prediction system and the optimization model. The RAPID model, which is a river routing model developed at University of Texas Austin for parallel computation of river discharge, is applied to predict real-time river flow rates. The workflow of the RAPID model has been built and published as a Web application that allows non-technical users to remotely execute the model and visualize results as a service through a simple Web interface. An optimization model is being developed to provide real-time water withdrawal decision support using the RAPID output and the clustering particle swarm optimization algorithm (CPSO) and genetic algorithm methods. The model is being tested using historical drought data from 2011 in the Upper Guadalupe River Basin in Texas. The objective of the optimization is to assist the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in minimizing the total daily curtailment hours of all permit holders, with constraints on user seniority and ecological river flow. The optimization model workflows is linked to the RAPID model workflow to provide real-time water decision support services. Finally, visualization of the output using Bing-map and WorldWide Telescope helps decision makers predict outcomes from alternative weather or policy scenarios

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) Explorer 1.0

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, information and forecasts so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. Conceived as a set of web based services, DOPA provides a broad set of free and open source tools to assess, monitor and even forecast the state of and pressure on protected areas at local, regional and global scale. DOPA Explorer 1.0 is a web based interface available in four languages (EN, FR, ES, PT) providing simple means to explore the nearly 16,000 protected areas that are at least as large as 100 km2. Distinguishing between terrestrial, marine and mixed protected areas, DOPA Explorer 1.0 can help end users to identify those with most unique ecosystems and species, and assess the pressures they are exposed to because of human development. Recognized by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as a reference information system, DOPA Explorer is based on the best global data sets available and provides means to rank protected areas at the country and ecoregion levels. Inversely, DOPA Explorer indirectly highlights the protected areas for which information is incomplete. We finally invite the end-users of DOPA to engage with us through the proposed communication platforms to help improve our work to support the safeguarding of biodiversity.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) Explorer 1.0

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, information and forecasts so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. Conceived as a set of web based services, DOPA provides a broad set of free and open source tools to assess, monitor and even forecast the state of and pressure on protected areas at local, regional and global scale. DOPA Explorer 1.0 is a web based interface available in four languages (EN, FR, ES, PT) providing simple means to explore the nearly 16,000 protected areas that are at least as large as 100 km2. Distinguishing between terrestrial, marine and mixed protected areas, DOPA Explorer 1.0 can help end users to identify those with most unique ecosystems and species, and assess the pressures they are exposed to because of human development. Recognized by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as a reference information system, DOPA Explorer is based on the best global data sets available and provides means to rank protected areas at the country and ecoregion levels. Inversely, DOPA Explorer indirectly highlights the protected areas for which information is incomplete. We finally invite the end-users of DOPA to engage with us through the proposed communication platforms to help improve our work to support the safeguarding of biodiversity