Technological platform to support the monitoring and the actions of safeguard and enhancement of forest genetic resources of Umbria Region.
The platform realized by GisAction for Umbraflor, the largest nursery production company in Umbria, allows to store forest monitoring data associating them to map elements. The system facilitates the work of forestry operators because it represents a unique environment in which carry out multiple operations such as census, report generation, visualization, evaluation of changes over time.
Needs: a system to facilitate and optimize some priority interventions
The Submeasure 15.2 of the PSR 2014-2020, in implementation of what is reported in the Regional Forestry Plan 2008/2017, promotes interventions for improving and enhancing the activity of identification and selection of forest propagation material. The goal is to ensure the conservation of forest biodiversity and consequently the stability and genetic complexity of forest ecosystems, as well as to make available suitable materials of local origin for afforestation and planting of agroforestry systems.
In this context Umbraflor needed a system that would allow to carry out some interventions identified as a priority:
- In situ actions to conserve genetic material and restore viable tree species populations in their natural habitats: identification of collection areas and selection of seed woods and plus plants;
- Tree seed collection campaigns to establish ex-situ plantings;
- Ex situ actions for the conservation of genetic material of tree species outside the natural habitat through the planting of first generation arboretums aimed at the production of selected material;
- Compilation of web-based inventories of both in situ conserved genetic resources and ex situ collections.
Solution: a platform for Umbraflor
To meet the needs of forest resource census, a platform with functional modules was designed to:
- Conduct in situ census, census of forest tree species in natural habitat;
- Conduct ex situ census, which is the census of plants that are restored to areas outside of natural habitat for the purpose of conserving genetic material.
- Process entered census data to obtain 8 types of downloadable reports such as graphs or tables useful for forest species assessment.
Functionally, the platform is of the “Progressive Web App” type, a web application that behaves like a native application when used on a mobile device. The latter possibility is fundamental for census work in the field and also supports offline work in case of lack of network.
The platform is also multi-user with the ability to set the role of each user based on tasks within the project.
Benefits
The platform allows the drawing on a map of geographical elements such as forest areas, areas by species, tree plants and the insertion of monitoring data for each element. The system to support forestry operators allows to perform multiple operations in a single environment: census, reporting, visualization and evaluation of changes over time.
The tool has been designed for the validation, by the operators, of the input elements with the possibility to report errors or inconsistencies.
The platform works on mobile devices even in disconnected mode, very useful in case of forest censuses, and synchronizes data when the network is restored.
Who we worked with
Umbraflor is the largest nursery production company in Umbria and one of the most important in Italy in the service of economic development, promotion of the environment and protection of biodiversity.
