Abstracts
Wetland Information Network
Santosh Gaikwad, Prasad S.N.* TDWG Annual Meeting 2006 Symposium, Missouri Botanical Garden Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. 15-22 October 2006
There is great need to collect, collate and disseminate wetland data, as it is now globally recognized that the fresh water biodiversity is among the most threatened in the world. According to recent studies (Vijayan et al 2004 and Prasad et al 2004) the situation of the wetlands in India is no different. The main goal of the Wetland Information Network is to promote online access to wetland-related information. This paper presents our experience in this area. The Wetland Information Network is part of the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) created by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Wetlands of India provides a vast collection of spatial data about wetlands available at the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) through static and dynamic mapping tools. Until recently, access to digital wetlands data was limited to simple JPEG or PDF maps. The map portal makes use of DjVu from Lizard tech for simple maps. ALOV map, a free Java Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, is used to provide interactive maps.
DjVu/Document Express is a suite of applications for creating and viewing highly compressed documents. It can be used for geographic image data and document management. DjVu produces small files even for high resolution maps, so sharing data using this format can be very effective. It offers a free, lightweight plug-in / viewer that requires minimal memory from the client. DjVu technology not only helped delivering maps easily on Internet but also helped publishing mangrove atlases and wetlands reports in the same way.
ALOV Map/TM Java is a free, portable Java application for publishing vector and raster maps on the Internet. It supports a complex rendering architecture, unlimited navigation and allows working with multiple layers, thematic maps, hyperlinked features and attribute data. All spatial and non-spatial datasets being used are stored in a MySQL database. Providing GIS functionality and simple map viewing capabilities over the Internet allows an organization to share geospatial data that has been collected over many years.
WordPress blogging software has been used to set up the news section on the Wetlands of India website. Web interfaces to a bibliographic database and a wetland species database were also developed as part of the Wetland Information Network.
Wetland Informatics (WI) is the beginning of a framework of Web based tools. WI provides the general public, administrators, mangers and other stakeholders with a better geographic perspective of the wetlands thus allowing wiser use of this information. It is hoped that this initiative will become an effective tool in providing detailed environmental data about wetlands, important landscape features, and other information that can be helpful with conservation issues.
Keywords: Wetland Informatics, open source GIS, DjVu, ALOV Map, WordPress, Web-Blog.
Poster available at: TDWG 2006 Annual Meeting Symposium
Conservation of Wetlands of India - a review
Prasad S.N., Ramchandra T.V., Ahalya N., Sengupta T., Alok Kumar, Tiwari A.K., Vijayan V.S.
and Lalitha Vijayan. Tropical Ecology 43(1):173-186.2002.
Wetlands of India, estimated to be 58.2 million hectares, are important repositories of
aquatic biodiversity. The diverse ecoclimatic regimes extant in the country resulted in a
variety of wetland systems ranging from high altitude cold desert wetlands to hot and humid
wetlands in coastal zones with diverse flora and fauna. The review deals with the status
and distribution of wetlands and causes and consequences of the wetland losses. It also
provides and overview of the Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools
in flood zonation mapping, in monitoring irrigation and cropping patterns, water quality
analysis and modeling, change analyses and in mapping of surface water bodies and wetlands.
The review provides a methodology and action plan for evolving a nationwide network of
conservation preserves of wetlands. The major elements of this methodology involve use
of IRS LISS III sensors for delineating turbidity, aquatic vegetation and major
geomorphological classes of wetlands. An extensive fieldwork to generate attribute
in formation on biodiversity and socioeconomic themes is a significant component
of the suggested methodology. GIS tools to integrate habitat information with the
filed information are envisaged to be the final component in evolving a conservation
network of wetlands for the entire country.
Keywords:Aquatic vegetation, avifauna, conservation, fishes, geographic information system (GIS),
protected areas, remote sensing, tropical wetlands.
Geographic Resources Decision Support System - an Open source GIS.
Ramchandra T.V.,Uttam Kumar, Vaishnav B., Prasad S.N. Geospatial Today 3(3):52-59. 2004
GRDSS a open source GIS with capabilities such as raster analysis, vector analysis, image processing,
map algebra and other functionalities is comparable to any commercial software available in the market
for various applications including natural resource management. An economical (free ware) with user friendly GUI's,
GRDSS is hoped to penetrate in all sections of decision making and contribute to the sustainable development of
India.
Web Mappers for Delivering Digital Wetlands Content - Role of Free and open source software.
Santosh Gaikwad, Giriraj A., Prasad S.N. 2005. FOSS symposium, GSI, Hyderabad.
SACON's National Wetlands Inventory along with the detailed conservation planning for
Inland wetlands has produced an enormous digital spatial and point data for different
States and Districts in India .As a part of the Environmental Information system (ENVIS)
on wetland Ecosystems of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, GOI, one of the
objectives is to disseminate this data and information over Internet. Therefore,
there is strong need to have a Wetlands Interactive Mapper. Currently, the Internet
connected public can view digital wetlands data, in the form of simple JPEG / PDF maps
only. This paper presents our experience in harnessing two of the FOSS software tools.
We believe this the first attempt in using this tool for environmental application in
India. The first one called DjVu (Lizard tech) and the second one is GeoServer
(SOURCEFORGE.net affiliate with Open GIS consortium).
For developing this interactive mapper, we looked for free open source GIS software,
which allows a web client to access and analyse data through a web interface.
DjVu, a tool for geographic data, document management, and web distribution can be
effectively used for providing a very lightweight plug-in/viewer called DjVu for distributing high-resolution maps, because its wavelet-based continuous tone image compression technology produces small files with very fast progressive display, seamless zooming and panning, and requires minimal memory for the client.
GeoServer an advanced Internet mapping service works fully with transactional Java (J2EE)
implementation of the Open GIS Consortium's Web Feature Server specification, with an
integrated Web Map Server (WMS). It is free public software, available under the GNU/GPL 2.0 license.
It is a web-based, browser-driven system to 1) view digital wetlands data, 2) conduct
basic processing (e.g., zoom, pan, identify, etc.) and 3) print custom maps and acreage
reports. Providing GIS functionality and map viewing capabilities over the Internet allows
an organization to optimize the use of geospatial data that has been collected over the
past several years. Indeed, the Internet and the advent GIS technology as a mainstream
IT component will provide the impetus to collect and distribute geospatial data to a new
generation of users.
The interactive mapper is the beginning of web-based tools to provide the general public,
administrators and mangers and other stakeholders in wise use of wetlands with a better
geographic perspective of the wetlands. It is hoped that this becoming an effective tool
to provide the public with detailed environmental information about wetlands, important
landscape features, and other conservation issues.
Keywords: open source GIS, interactive mapper, wetlands
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