DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A GEOSPATIAL WEB-BASED SYSTEM FOR MONITORING LOGGING ACTIVITIES

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1 DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A GEOSPATIAL WEB-BASED SYSTEM FOR MONITORING LOGGING ACTIVITIES M.K.A. Musa, A. W. Azzam, S. Syalini and K.A Mahmood Research Officer, Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency, No. 13 Jalan Tun Ismail, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Tel: (60) ; Fax: (60) ; kamal@remotesensing.gov.my KEY WORDS: Forest Monitoring, Remote Sensing, GIS, WebGIS, Open-Source Technologies ABSTRACT: Nowadays, Internet is popular tool and is widely used not only in data and information exchange, but it also has been gaining popularity as an efficient method for monitoring of natural resources as well. This paper discussed an internet application using web- GIS system that has been developed and built for forest management and monitoring in Peninsular Malaysia. The system was designed for Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia (FDPM). The purpose of the system is to provide assistance in managing and monitoring forest activities. The system was developed based on open-source technologies that include Apache Web Server, PHP scripting, and Oracle database management system. It uses two types of data models: raster and vector data model. The system has been developed and designed in an understandable format to the end users mainly foresters. Analytical results demonstrate that, the system is able to efficiently provide timely and accurate information. The system is also found to be suitable to be used as a monitoring tool which, when combined with other technique, such as field surveillance, will improve monitoring forest activity. Finally, this paper illustrates and highlights the benefits and advantages of using the system for monitoring, and reducing forest area encroachment. 1. INTRODUCTION Monitoring activities in forest area is very important to ensure that any activities done in the forest is in accordance with regulatory requirements. Neglect in monitoring forest areas will lead to deforestation which is a threat to forest ecosystem. In Peninsular Malaysia, forests still cover an area of approximately 5.9 million hectares or 44.7 % of the total land area (MTIB, 2009). This is a tropical rain forest with dipterocarp as dominant species. These forests are valuable economic asset, fulfilling vital environmental functions, binding carbons in biomass and soils (Dong et al, 2003). However, increasing encroachment of forest areas in Peninsular Malaysia has raised concerns about the long-term sustainability and the intactness of this ecosystem. The environmental damage caused by illegal logging and deforestation has been brought to decision maker attention in the recent past, underlining the need an efficient way for an efficient forest monitoring system. A forest monitoring system is important for keeping track on deforestation, reforestation, and natural expansion of forests. It will also assist in managing licensed logging area and protected areas. It acts as tool which observe and control logging activities and indirectly giving support to law enforcement. In a bid to safeguard forests, monitoring system is overwhelming as the demand for information has never been greater. Remote sensing integrated with other disciplines such as GIS and computer, seen very useful and highly effective techniques to support the needs in forest monitoring activities.

2 Based on that, the authors, project team members from Software Development Section of Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (Malaysian Remote Sensing) and Geoinformation unit from Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia (FDPM), have collaboratively developed a geospatial web-based system for forest monitoring in Peninsular Malaysia. The desire is to assist FDPM in monitoring both licensed and protected areas, to detect compliance with regulations as well as high potential areas for illegal land clearing. The system was known as Forest Monitoring Using Remote Sensing System (FMRS). This paper discusses the FMRS using Web GIS technology. 2. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY Nowadays, Web GIS is a prospective application direction in Geographic Information System (GIS) and represents an important advancement over the traditional desktop GIS. The internets with its gateways are mostly available anywhere making information sharing easier. Internet enables the GIS users to easily access GIS data from data supply sources and process in ways that are interoperable. This shows that internet enables the popularity of the results of GIS analysis and spatial information to users at an amount larger than traditional GIS. Furthermore, respective user may set up an online browse or raising online analysis of spatial subjects at free of charge and without any investment for any GIS Software. With these capabilities, Web GIS can revolutionise the current forest monitoring methods that are often time-consuming, expensive, complicated and difficult to use in remote area. The developed system will transform the monitoring program to be more focused, enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness exponentially. As an added advantage, the Web system can be used to estimate containment of forest encroachments, reducing the need for on-the-ground monitoring, and can be used as a more proactive monitoring approach. Lastly, several issues associated with monitoring on the carriage roads can be minimised. The development of the system consisted of three phases: i)database design, ii)gis customisation, and iii) GIS-web server integration. The conceptual design of the database was based on the Entity-Relation Model. The entity-relationship was developed as the requirements for the FMRS database. In this step, Oracle was chosen for the management and integration of the data input pertaining both geographical and alphanumeric data. The second phase was GIS customisation by using MapGuide Open Source. MapGuide Open Source is a web base platform used to develop and deploy user requirement application with easy and simple graphic interface to the end user. Through this web base platform, simple operations such feature selection, property inspection, map tips, and operations such as buffer, select within, and measure can be easily implemented (MapGuide, 2010). The last phase was on integration between GIS and web server. This was built using HTML, Java script and PHP script. 2.1 System Architecture The system consists of a database, a server, a web application, and the user, as shown in Fig. 1. The user accesses this information through internet using a web browser. Queries for information can be performed by the user through a set of appropriately designed web pages at the portal.

3 Fig. 1: The Forest Monitoring Using Remote Sensing System consists of components that run in three tiers. Queries can be in alphanumeric (usually in a tabular format) or maps. The code that allows execution of the alphanumeric and map queries is written in PHP. Java Script are executed on the client site when the files are invoked, generating a map or a table that is inserted as an object in an HTML page, which is sent to the browser that requested it. If the user selects a map display, the PHP execution invokes WebMap objects, the map is generated and then inserted as an object in the HTML page. WebMap provides objects to the PHP and Java Script to execute a Fig. 2. Screenshot of the FMRS website

4 large variety of actions, such as obtaining the geometry of map entities, displaying images, controlling the visualization format, or programming the map actions. If the user selects alphanumeric information, then the PHP file is connected to the database through ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs), and builds an HTML page containing a table with the required information. The information supplied by the developed website is in Active Computer Graphics Metafile (ACGM) format. By clicking the displayed data (ACGM map) will execute an SQL query. For example, the map shown in Fig. 2 was obtained by querying Merbok Permanent Forest Reserved. It is a clickable map so that when clicking on a compartment, it shows an information with its relevant parameters for the specified compartment, as well as additional information about other properties. This tabular information is generated by supplying the compartment code (obtained through a WebMap object when clicking on the compartment) as a parameter of the corresponding SQL instruction in an ADO connection. A similar mechanism is used to navigate through the maps: when clicking on a map entity, its code is obtained from the database and PHP file is executed to generate the new information by introducing that code as a parameter in the query that selects the entities that will be displayed in the map. Depending on their authorization, the users will be either from FDPM headquarters or FDPM state department. The authorisation, which is controlled with usernames and passwords, determines the permitted access of the user to particular pieces of information as well as the type of operation that the user is allowed to perform with this information. In general, users are allowed to search, view and print the information. 2.2 The Database Web-based central database is used in the system to enable effective data collecting, maintaining and upgrading. It is the core component for the FMRS System. This concept enables the fast storage and retrieval of large amounts of data. The interface that is used to insert, manipulate, and extract data is called the Structured Query Language (SQL). In case of the FMRS system, the Oracle database server has been used to manage the attribute data and image files. This is very practical for this project, which used two types of data models: vector data model and raster data model. The vector data models include forest district, forest compartment, town, river, road and state boundary. Meanwhile, raster data added to the system is from satellite image. The use of satellite images allows visualizing areas and processes of monitoring of huge area easier. The images come from Malaysian Remote Sensing. The images were captured by SPOT (Systeme Probatoire D'Observation de la Terre) satellite. The images are composed by either a panchromatic or a multispectral mode. Based on the need for active observation of the forest area at repetitive intervals, the images were processed and transform to Procedure Natural Colour with 2.5 meter spatial resolution. 2.3 Web Integration Besides the login page and the home page, it contains a set of web pages for each entity type of the database. The login page checks the authorization level of end users by matching the username and password with the corresponding information in the database. The authorization provides access to the database, and determines the actions that the user can perform on particular data parts. The search page facilitates a database search based on appropriate search

5 parameters. Submitting the search information redirects the user to the results page, where only records satisfying the search criteria are shown. Security issues have also been addressed during the implementation phase. The web application is accessible through Virtual Private Network (VPN) between FDPM and Remote Sensing Malaysia only. Besides that, Kerio Firewall has been implemented too. 3. OPERATIONALIZATION The implementation of this system, involved a considerable expense to the FDPM, both economic (hardware and software), and of organization. Costs can be kept low, starting with the use of open source software. Existing hardware can be use by the system. The choice of remote sensing images of broad coverage and anticipated low cost, leads to the use of SPOT data. The system is design a such that the maintenance can be done with minimal resources. The initial testing of the system has demonstrated that is compensated by the reduction of the time used by the FDPM officer. The information offered by the system is useful and easy to manage and analysed, making the monitoring easier, and improving the services offered. Concepts used in the developed system were proved to be a good way to divulge just-in-time information from the FDPM officer to the geographically scattered forest area. The system also have a module allowing visualizing the usage of the system, which are linked to a file containing information on user, and other data which can be accessed by managers at the headquarters. This is one method used to monitor the effectiveness of FMRS and to prevent unauthorised entries. 4. BENEFITS The development of the system aimed to achieve an acceptable level of flexibility and simplicity. As new database can be continuously added and replace and new web pages can replace older ones, the system can be considered adequately flexible and extensible. The system is also simple to use since end users interact with it through web browsers, which many people nowadays are well acquainted. With that, the FMRS system would not only present a costeffective solution but also allow data and information sharing. This could act as the centralised data storage, helps centralised management, and access to data for officials used. The system is most useful in improving decision-making by giving officers instant access to latest and up to date data. Instant information is provided on places that require more observations in suppressing illegal forest encroachments. This is achieved by combining the map of forest information with satellite images. A quicker decision process regarding the various activities is another benefit of the FMRS. Using an in-built search engine and the layering function of GIS, the decision makers can get detailed visual representations of the various condition of the forest. This information will inform the FDPM of the actions to be performed which would prevent illegal activities in the forest. 5. CONCLUSIONS Experience so far with this system has demonstrated that it is capable of meeting the needs of FDPM. It is easily adapted in a distributed database environment. The system provides basic components for generation and delivery of spatial information at very affordable costs and

6 would be greatly beneficial to organizations that do not have the range of expertise needed to implement proprietary solutions. Such efforts will help coordinate better strategies for monitoring and forest resource evaluation. This was proved by a dramatic reduction in illegal logging cases (as reported by FDPM). This has shown the effectiveness of the developed system in halting illegal logging and monitoring the forest area. On the other hand, interviews made with foresters indicated that the web-based application had a good acceptance. The application was reported to be user friendly. The simplicity in information access and query makes it an efficient tool to be used as decision support for planning different aspects of forest management. Furthermore, developing and implementing FMRS is low cost solution with enterprise level GIS technology to help decision maker and long-term persistence of Malaysian forest. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors are grateful for the support provided by Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency and Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia in the course of this project. Acknowledgement is also made to all other co-researchers of the project. REFERENCES J. Dong, R.K. Kaufmann, R.B. Myneni, C.J. Tucker, P.E. Kauppi and J. Liski (2003). Remote sensing estimates of boreal and temperate forest woody biomass: Carbon pools, sources, and sink. Remote Sensing of Environment 84 : Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB) (2009). National Timber Industry Policy Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities. KL MapGuide (2010). Your Open Sources Compass. 5 Mei 2010