Transcript Name: Presentation

TDWG Annual Conference 2013, Florence
Integrating observation and survey data for
production of the Essential Biodiversity Variables
– the EU BON approach
Hannu Saarenmaa
University of Eastern Finland
Main objective of EU BON
 building a European contribution to GEO BON
A key feature of EU BON
delivery of relevant biodiversity information and analysis – from on-ground / in-situ
observation and remote sensing – to various stakeholders and end users,
ranging from local to global levels
The new, integrative EU BON approach will facilitate (political)
decisions in different sectors concerned with biodiversity for human
well-being at different levels, ranging from local park management to
national governments, and IPBES.
EU BON outputs and products (1)
• gap analysis for available data layers at different scales, mainly
in/for Europe (WP1)
• strategies for targeted data mobilization (WP1)
• new and improved data standards for advancing interoperability
and new generation of data provider tools (WP2)
• new, scalable/customized European Biodiversity Portal (WP2 /
WP8)
• software tools for improved recording / mapping of habitats,
species distributions and patterns (WP3)
• Improved models for impacts of different drivers on abundance &
distribution, applicable at different scales (WP4)
• guidelines for improved, integrated monitoring schemes at
different scales / levels (WP4)
EU BON and GEO BON: Integration of
biodiversity data – across realms
• Collections
• Observations
• Surveys
• Remote sensing
• Statistics
• Biologic / socioeconomic
Essential Biodiversity Variables
Conceived by GEO BON Collaborators (Pereira et.al. (2013) “Essential
Biodiversity Variables”, Science, Vol. 339, 18 Jan 2013)
EBVs facilitate data integration by providing an intermediate abstraction layer
between primary observations and indicators.
EBVs aim to help observation communities harmonise monitoring, by
identifying how variables should be sampled and measured.
EBVs standardise an ontology for biodiversity and harmonise measurements,
observations, and protocols.
Endorsed by Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and in line with the
2020 Aichi Targets
Provide focus for GEO BON and hence for the interoperability thrust within
GEO BON
A Use Case for EU BON to focus on
Is this the reality
in biodiversity
monitoring?
Achillea millefolium
According to GBIF
visualising data gaps…
Coordination of biodiversity observation
CBD Adequacy Report:
EU BON description of work:
Observation systems related to the
state of biodiversity all have
significant global-scale observation
systems, typically with national or
better resolution, already in place.
There are deficiencies in the
evenness of global coverage and
data quality, and some of the
observations are too narrow in
scope, but in the opinion of the
experts, fit-for-purpose adequacy is
technically achievable in all cases if
sufficient resources are made
available.
The fragmentation and heterogeneity of
environmental datasets and biodiversity
observation systems remains a major
challenge ... Data-collection and
observation systems are unbalanced in
terms of geographic, temporal, topical, and
taxonomic coverage. Information currently
available differs across countries and
continents due to their different traditions
in, and societal frameworks for biodiversity
monitoring, and is often heavily biased
towards easily recognizable and high
profile taxa. Terrestrial, freshwater, and
marine environments are studied and
monitored by largely different independent
communities, rarely sharing concepts, data
or infrastructures.
Gap analysis
• EU BON is carrying out a gap analysis
• Data gap is a gap only in context of data use.
• Not same as data quality.
• In Europe there are about 2000 biodiversity
observation networks (643 listed in EUMON)
• There is a massive duplication of effort in
data management, and lack of data sharing
Change the way we are dealing with data
Interdisciplinary
challenges
Data
generator
User
Support
services
Data
infrastructure
Data
generator
User
Data
generators
User
Data
generators
User
Tool
Tool
Tool
Tool
Data
storage
Data
storage
Data
storage
Data
storage
Slide by courtesy
of Wouter Los
Develop trust
Domestic
storage
Bring it to
a Bank
Direct transfer
To a Bank
Slide by courtesy
of Wouter Los
European vision of a collaborative Data Infrastructure
Trust & Curation
Data
Generators
Users
Community Support Services
User functionalities, data
capture and transfer, virtual
research environments
Data discovery & navigation,
workflow generation,
annotation, interpretability
Persistant storage,
identification, authencity,
workflow execution
Slide by courtesy
of Wouter Los
LifeWatch architecture
Virtual laboratories
for scientific cooperation
Select the data, software,
computing power
Integrate resources
Linking to resources (databases,
sensors, software, computing
power)
Slide by courtesy
of Wouter Los
Need to reorganise our data standards
to fit in common data services
Collection or
Experimental Site
(shared, external)
Project or Survey (EML)
-Protocol
Locality (GML,
shared, external)
-UUID
Sampling Event (DC)
-Date Time
-Agents
-Methods
Taxon (DwC, shared
external checklist)
-UUID
Sampling Object – popular fields from DwC, VegCore, O&M which
are not practical to put in MeasurementOrFacts, in classes such as:
-Organism occurrence, vouchered specimen, image
-Plot, subplot, transect
-Instrument, machine
MeasurementOrFact; DwC)
-Attribute (examples: identification,
-Value
(examples: Aus beus,
-Unit
(examples: species,
-Range (examples: certain,
quantity)
1000)
count)
200)
New generation of data sharing tools
• Common data services will be based on
networked data repositories and few
portals.
• Repostories need to support basic
biodiversity data, AND ecological
measurements, AND [what?]
• Based on existing tools
• GBIF IPT: Beyond a fixed ”star
schema” to a flexible relational
model
• Metacat: Start requiring use of
standard terms in data
• Both need to implement
an extended Darwin
Core standard
• EU BON is working on
a review of standards
Thank you very much for your attention
www.eubon.eu