Abstract ID: 248

A Generic Spatial Repository for Biodiversity Inventories Data

Environmental management is often not conducted to promote sustainability due to the lack of solid and trustable data. The open access to biodiversity information is one of the main tools to understand biological and socioeconomic processes, and to support political decision making. We describe the design of a generic information system that accommodates data collected in biological inventories: ecological, environmental, geographic and specimen data not necessarily related to physical testimonies registered in scientific collections. A few characteristics of our approach to the database management system make biological inventories documentation warranted: our repository is spatially enabled, which means that inventory observations of whatever kind are geographically referenced; is truly generic, designed in such a way that it accommodates data of any kind of inventory, even future ones for which the design still has to be established; and accommodates easily the support of external users, such as scientists that conduct inventories, as well as future users of the data. A beta version of the system was tested at INPA, in collaboration with LBA project, to accommodate part of the PPBio biological inventory data. The system was able to accommodate data in its original format, as well as to allow the user to access it. The full implementation of the system in its open access and the establishment of new partnerships is a valuable initiative to promote exchange of scientific information.

Session:  Biodiversity - Data/metadata integration and information dissemination: PPBio challenges and solutions.

Presentation Type:  Oral