Belize Biodiversity Mapping Service

The newly established Belize Biodiversity Mapping Service makes spatially-enabled biodiversity information available via a public website. Students, NGOs and government agencies are the primary users. For financial sustainability, the BBMS was developed using open-source map-server, database and web-scripting technologies.

Whilst scientific investigation strives to improve the extant knowledge base, traditionally the results have been accessible only to an elite group of scientists. The Age of Technology is, however, rapidly democratising information of all types and opening up the world of science to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. But old habits die hard, and there is a lot more information out there than can be easily accessed by the general public. Recognising how critical information is to decision making, international NGOs and funding agencies are increasingly promoting Web-based clearinghouse mechanisms as the way to make vital scientific information available to a wider audience. At first such efforts were focused on non-spatial databases, but attention has now turned to spatially enabling these databases, and map server technologies for the World Wide Web are advancing to meet these needs.

Non-accessible Data
伯利兹是一个中美洲的一个国家，受到墨西哥，危地马拉和北方加勒比海的国家。在2002年进行的一项调查中，Baseline Diagnosis of the State of Biodiversity Research in Belize, 2,354 publications were found that contained scientific information relating to the biodiversity of Belize. Astonishingly, only 20% of those publications (or copies thereof) were found physically to reside somewhere in Belize; of this 20%, approximately half of the document collections in the offices of biodiversity-related organisations are catalogued. This indicates how difficult it is to locate a physical document in Belize. There exists a great need for free, easy access to this information. But Belize is not unique in this situation; the same may be found in many other developing countries.
在2004年的研究中，用户需要评估伯利兹生物多样性清算所机制29日之间进行,政府机构和non-government organisations, a little more than half (55%) of those polled either possessed or had direct access to some sort of GIS equipment and 66% purported to have GIS-trained staff. However, 38% of all agencies interviewed stated their wish to give much higher priority to GIS equipment and staffing procurement, if funding allowed. Regardless of their current or desired equipment and staffing resources, few agencies felt they had adequate access to accurate and current GIS datasets with which to do their jobs effectively.

Prototype Server
In an initial attempt to address both biodiversity and GIS data availability, the Belize Biodiversity Mapping Service (BBMS) was developed as a prototype Internet Mapping Server. Its purpose is to test the applicability of internet-based dissemination of biological data in a geospatial context. This system was based upon the University of Minnesota’s MapServer CGI application and was basically an Internet Mapping Appli-cation. The initial system was moderately successful, allowing access to more than thirty environmental data layers, including some specimen locality information; most layers were produced in-house. User feedback indicated limited usefulness of this solution due to a lack of user interface functionality and biodiversity data. The system needed to allow for the discovery and visualisation of a wide variety of biodiversity information (e.g. specimen localities, publications, statistics, images, associated people, projects) within both spatial (map) and non-spatial (textual) contexts.

Clearing-house
To truly satisfy the national need for large volumes of biodiversity information and to provide easy access to geospatial data, this new system would have to integrate geospatial data features throughout a more conventional, Web-based environmental information system. A new system was created through joint partnership between the Belizean NGO Belize Tropical Forest Studies and a USA-based development firm, TransNatura LLC. The system is based on the concept of an ‘information clearinghouse’, its structure being centred on a relational database that has been spatially enabled (PostgreSQL/PostGIS), where biodiversity and spatial data can be stored together and relationally associated. All data records are geo-referenced, providing a spatial component to all data, regardless of type: specimen, document, person, organisation, ecosystem, protected area etc.

Integrated Approach
此新系统部分地基于MapServer API，并以PHP / MAPScript编写。旧的映射应用程序已被重写，提供各种增强功能。这些包括更好的缩放和测量能力，更好的屏幕层管理和新的视觉搜索技术，允许使用地图接口识别非空间数据。地理数据库允许系统利用标准“映射应用程序”之外的映射技术，包括常规网页中的较小，动态生成的映射（例如物种，保护区域，生态系统的配置文件页面）。该系统还提供有限的动态现场空间覆盖和分析能力，从而消除了大量数据输入和自动化共同分析。这意味着可以获得准确，基于空间数据记录的信息，如人，文档或标本，而无需开始直接使用映射应用。广泛使用书目（都柏林核心），分类学（达尔文核心）和地理空间（CSDGM）元数据标准和分布式通用信息检索（Digir）协议除了MapServer WMS / WFS服务之外，还允许系统无缝共享生物多样性和空间与其他生物多样性相关举措的数据。

未来
TransNatura has opted to spin off the underlying code-base of the new system into a commercial Web application called ‘natureSmith’. But both the Web application system and the BBMS database have been chosen as the foundation for a new Belize
government-supported joint national initiative: the Belize Biodiversity Clearing-House Mechanism (CHM) and the Belize Environmental Information System. This joint initiative will allow the long-term goal of BBMS – the provision of access to quality GIS and biodiversity data - to be maintained and enhanced both at national and regional level.
所有biodiversi的主要生产商ty and natural resources management-related information will become data providers to the CHM, greatly enhancing overall system functionality and usefulness while providing additional data necessary to begin using the new system as a centrally-accessible national data repository. The integration of spatial and non-spatial data will enable the system’s use as a planning and decision-making tool. It is to be launched during the first half of 2005.

Further Reading

• Meerman, J. C., Clabaugh, J., 2004. Belize Biodiversity Clearing-House Mechanism - User Needs Assessment Technical Document, unpublished report to the Forest Department, Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Industry, Belize. 235pp. www.mnrei.gov.bz/dms /dm_browse.asp?pid=39.
  
• Meerman, J. C., 2002, Base line diagnosis on the state of research on biodiversity in Belize, unpublished report to the Mesoamerican Biological project, www.biological-diversity. info biodiversity_stats.htm.