1. Risto Päivinen, Andreas Schuck and Tim Green NEFIS - Network for a European Forest Information Service QLK5-CT-2002-30638 JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005

2. 20.8.20042 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 necessaryly the problem but 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?

3. EFIS study 2000-2002 carried out by EFI consortium for the Joint Research Centre / Space Applications Institute under Contract No. 17186-2000-12 F1ED ISP F. to support EFICS regulation (UE/CEE No. 1615/89). EFICS STUDY 1996-1997

4. A 5th Framework Programme Accompanying Measure of the European Commission (QLK5-CT-2002-30638) 2002-2005 The general objectives are maximising the value of existing data and databases by:  coordinating efforts to create forest information systems and services  supporting development of harmonised standards and procedures for data provision  increasing the usability of available data and databases What is NEFIS?

5. 20.8.20045 NEFIS partnership European Forest Institute 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

6. 20.8.20046 Specific tasks 1)Review the state of the art in the technical development of information services 2)Publish a follow-up version of the currently available EFIS prototype 3)Develop metadata standards and controlled vocabularies 4)Suggest unified and operable methods for communication between different Internet-based forest information service activities 5)Test the EFIS using regional, national and international data sets 6)Evaluate the service from the users’ and data providers’ perspectives 7)Develop strategies for development of the service

7. Project Timetable

8. WP 1: Management Partner 1, 2, 3, 4 Data available from multiple sources on the Internet GFISEFIS WP 3: UML description and establishment of a NEFIS KnowledgeBase Partner: 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 10 Refining the work plan and agreement on data input WP 2: NEFIS Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies Standards Partner 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10, 11, 12, 13 WP 4: Data preparation and provision Partner 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 WP 5: Evaluation of (1) metadata standards, (2) process of data provision and (3) the advanced GFIS/EFIS system Partner: 4, 1, 5, 10 Advanced EFIS WP: 6 Links with Commission Services, dissemination of results and follow-up activities Partner: 2, 1, 3, 4, and 10 Background Provider 1Provider 2Provider 3Provider n

9. Metadata and controlled vocabularies standards (WP2) Objectives  develop forest metadata standards and controlled vocabularies for the data sets provided by the NEFIS partners based on a generic standard  Suggestion for a Forest Markup Language (FML) -  User guidelines and documentation

10. 20.8.200410 NEFIS Metadata schema based on DCMI metadata element set. NEFIS modifications ( )

11. 20.8.200411 Controlled vocabularies NEFIS Themes and NEFIS Terms  Forest inventory (incl. growth and yield)  Forest health  Silviculture (incl. forest nurseries)  Vegetation (or forest or land) types  Non-wood goods and benefits  Forest operations  Forest fires  Forest products and trade flows  Rural development  Forestry institutions  Maps and geo-referenced data  Field experiments Keyword lists developed for 12 themes. The lists were developed further (e.g. to include definitions, equivalents in other languages) for the themes in bold

12. 20.8.200412 Forest Markup Language (FML) The purpose of FML is to provide the forest community with an extensible and flexible rules with which to express its metadata standard; for use in data sharing, analysis and archiving

13. 20.8.200413 UML description of an extended EFIS  UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a notation for modelling information system architecture  Storylines for example use cases were written and use case diagrams developed from these storylines. The storylines are available in the NEFIS KnowledgeBase

14. 20.8.200414 UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a technique for modelling information system architecture

15. 20.8.200415 KnowledgeBase – general http://www.nefis-kb.info/ http://www.nefis-kb.info/ The KnowledgeBase:  Allow hierarchical access to information from general descriptions to implementation details  Information and document handling system for recording: outputs from NEFIS WPs other forest information systems/services development initiatives (e.g. Global Forest Information Service; European Forest Information Service) and other relevant projects relevant software resources and documentation

16. 20.8.200416 KnowledgeBase – Structure and Design The KnowledgeBase: structured repository for deposit, storage and access of information and metadata relevant to forest information systems, with emphasis on NEFIS Main headings are: Data providers, design, forest policy and processes, knowledge representation, markup languages, projects, reference, software

17. 20.8.200417 Data preparation and data provision (WP4) Objectives  to identify the datasets (sub-national, national and 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

18. 20.8.200418 Metadata and data

19. 20.8.200419 Evaluation (WP5) The evaluation addressed the following aspects:  Metadata and metadata guidelines on their operability and applicability for describing datasets  Keyword list and thesaurus (extra topic within the metadata evaluation)  Data rights and data rights management  The information needs and user’s expectations towards potential capabilities of a NEFIS  The extent to which NEFIS can serve as a harmonised electronic information system for periodical data reporting/delivery to the Commission services, national, pan-European and international organisations

20. 20.8.200420 Evaluation The evaluation was undertaken using standardised questionnaires  Metadata and metadata guidelines  data rights and data rights management  user needs and user expectations (VTK) And expert statements  Metadata and metadata guidelines (Prof. Dr. Keith Rennolls (Greenwich), Dr. Jarmo Saarikko (Metla))  Keyword list and thesaurus (Renate Prüller (IUFRO), Gillian Petrokofsky (CAB International))  Data rights and data rights management (Prof. Dr. Risto Päivinen (EFI), Andreas Schuck (EFI), Tim Green (EFI))  Electronic system for periodic reporting (Prof. Dr. Michael Köhl (UHH), Aljoscha Requardt (UHH))

21. 20.8.200421 Links with Commission services, dissemination of results and follow- up activities (WP6) Objectives  to promote awareness amongst forest community and other data users  to ensure NEFIS will evolve in an integrated manner with other Community networks  to demonstrate the system

22. 20.8.200422 Demonstration Package The Demonstration Package consists of:  Resource Discovery (RD) in which the proposed NEFIS metadata schema is implemented  New Visualisation Toolkit (VTK) functionalities, including: 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

23. 20.8.200423 Example visualizations

24. THANK YOU! JRC Ispra - 29 June 2005