Sander Mücher

IIASA, Wednesday 18th of January 2012

WP9 ‘BIODIVERSITY’CitIzense Proposal Meeting

About Alterra

Alterra is the environmental research institute of the Wageningen University and Research Centre (8000 people).

Scientific research in a multitude of disciplines related to the green world around us sustainable use of our living environment.

Examples expertise: Flora, fauna, soil, water, geo-information and remote sensing, landscape and spatial planning, man and society

Centre for Geo-Information has approximately 100 people is one of the 4 Centres of Alterra

CGI Mission: Spatial Competences for a Sustainable World

Overview of the WP & partners

WP9 Biodiversity (Pilot Study 4) aims at enhancing community-based monitoring of biological resources using innovative and earth observation techniques. Task 9.1 Identification of invasive species (Alterra). Task 9.2 Counting of plant and animal species (SOVON, Alterra) Task 9.3 Natura 2000 Hotsport Alert System (Alterra,

Wageningen University, IIASA) Task 9.4 Monitoring of biodiversity in tropical rainforests (VU-

IVM, SOVON, Alterra) Other potential partners: WAAG Society, Evolaris, Pachube,

Sensaris, CNR, Aarhus University ?

Current progress

SOVON (Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology) joined as a new partner

A lot of expertise available by partners, which Enabled definition and activities already within

each task. Fine-tuning is necessary. Additional competences WAAG and others Deliverables needs to be defined

Outstanding Work

Since 1946, Alterra runs a nation-wide network of volunteers for observing insect pests on trees.

Will be working with open standards and aims at platform independent mobile applications (e.g. HTML5)

Determinator – a generic DSS for hazard identification of substances or species is available (www.determinator.nl) Option of 7 different methods of identification (i.e. mobile, desktop):

Match, Tree, Browse, Compare, Filter, Select and Search.

Outstanding Work: Mobile applications

Time series analysis & HANTS Expertise on analyses of RS time-series focuses on techniques for

cleaning, filtering and information extraction from time-series of RS data. HANTS = Harmonic Analysis of Numerical Time Series HANTS calculates per pixel the annual behaviour of the NDVI by

combining different cosine functions In a iterative process erroneous values (clouds, missing pixels) are

eliminated The results of the HANTS approach is an amplitude and phase for each

sine frequency (average, annual and six-months period) The HANTS results quantify the vegetation dynamics (start/peak/end of

growing season)

decade 1 decade 362 3 4

Annual NDVI Images

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0 9 18 27 36

Decade (1996)

ND

VI (

-)frequency = 0 (average)frequency = 1 (annual cycle)frequency = 2 (6 months cycle)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36

Decade (1996)

ND

VI (

-)

measuredrejectedHANTS

Hot-spot detection in the Netherlands

Average NDVI

Naaldbos ==> Heide (Veluwe)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1 7 13 19

HANTS fitted time series

ND

VI

2003

2007

Heide vergrassing (Veluwe)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1 7 13 19

HANTS fitted time series

ND

VI

2003

2007

Plaggen heide (Veluwe)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1 7 13 19

HANTS fitted time series

ND

VI

2003

2007

Innovative

to create a generic data repository to exchange biodiversity data collected by volunteers.

To stimulate use of mobile devices for biodiversity monitoring

To improve the identification of difficult species groups (e.g. invasive insects)

Inform Citizens about anomalies in Natura 2000 sites using EO data

Explore the possibilities of crowd sourcing by indigenous communities in tropical rainforests.

Innovative

Thank you for your attention !