Publicações

Ecometrica has developed a web mapping platform that makes it easy to access, organise, share, query and analyse spatial data on land cover and ecosystem services without requiring GIS or remote sensing expertise on the end user side. The platform is built on spatial cloud technology and brings together relevant data, areas of interest and people. It enables the move away from fragmented, offline and siloed data management to up to date, connected and controlled data curation, allowing improved stewardship of data. Essential functions include viewing and querying spatial data. Summary reports can be downloaded in both pdf and spreadsheet format. Access is secure but mapping applications can also be made publicly available. By providing access and analysis of expert spatial data layers, the platform can be used in various ways e.g. by publishing or sharing research results with peers, and providing practical and insightful advice to non-specialist end users, industry groups and policy makers. Depending on how a mapping application has been customized, end-users can obtain quantitative and qualitative information about resources, measure impacts and opportunities, check compliance to environmental legislation, monitor changes to vegetation, water and other resources. Ecometrica, together with partners in the UK, Mexico and Brazil, have collaborated on a UK Space Agency international partnership space programme (IPSP) project to Advance EO Applications in Forests. The key objective was to reduce deforestation and degradation by improving EO derived information management and forest change detection methods. The Ecometrica Mapping platform was used to establish regional EO Labs within the various partner organisations, e.g. ECOSUR in Mexico, INPE and FUNCATE in Brazil. In Mexico and Brazil the EO Labs enabled collaboration between research organisations and NGOs to develop applications for monitoring forest change in specified study areas and has enabled the compilation of previously unavailable regional EO and other spatial datasets into products that can be used by researchers and state governments. Data on forest loss was linked to dynamic earth system models developed by the University of Edinburgh and INPE, utilising the EO Labs to provide an intuitive and powerful environment in which non-expert end-users can investigate the results from the huge datasets produced by multi-run model simulations. The construction of pre-written queries into each application builds in the expert guidance required to query complex model data, which gives the data some value outside of single research institutions, and enables their application in land use management and planning. The EO Lab facility in ECOSUR, Mexico has enabled the systematic compilation of previously unavailable regional EO and related data assets into products that can be used by researchers and state governments. This paper will demonstrate and discuss various examples of mapping applications created on Ecometrica EO Labs for the project Advancing EO Applications in Forests, showing how cloud technology can enhance the field of forest protection. We will show examples that use EO-derived data for forest conservation and management and we will discuss current developments for collaborative data storage and curation functionality.