| Scenario |
With a unique natural geographic environment, there is rich flora and fauna in Taiwan and the abundant species and high density are renowned over the world. Influenced by long geographical isolation, the proportion of endemic species has increased. For example, there are currently around 4200 different vascular plant species recorded in Taiwan, 27% of which are endemic species, and around 18,500 wild animal species (including mammals, birds, Amphibias, Reptilias, fresh water fish, butterflies and other insects) have also been recorded, of them over 60% are endemic species. Whether for academic research, resource conservation and utilization or even international tourism, the abundant animal and plant resources as well as the high ratio of endemic species are all of very high value.
"Taiwan endemic species" refers to the species that are bred or distributed in the local area only. Endemic species compose the most important part of Taiwan’s natural and cultural sceneries and also flora and fauna resources, even its existence and growth is closely bounded to the ecosystem integrity of Taiwan. For a long time, we have had insufficient basic survey and research about the native creature, which might have caused a serious effect on studying flora and fauna distribution, group volume, living pressure, rehabilitation and native ecology education of Taiwan’s endemic and rare species. As a result, to systemically build up a survey database and an effective educational guidance, this project was drawn up by the Endemic Species Research Institute Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan. |
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| Challenges |
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The Taiwan Wildlife Survey Database Query System interface |
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The goal is to engage the system with international biological information webs or databases, to match future biological information application trends, and enhance data exchange and application researches among related databases of the Council of Agriculture, related research institutes or schools. |
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| Goals |
| The project expects to effectively and accurately attain the local flora and fauna data and systematically create an Internet geographic database with surveyed samples and distribution data of wild flora and fauna through back-end data processing, so that it can satisfy the need of filing |
| management and achieve the goal of integrating wild flora and fauna data. This project can make a solid foundation for the Endemic Species Research Institute’s data storage center and can benefit the institute’s future constructions, planning and managements. |
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| Solutions |
The most crucial task to meet the goal mentioned above is to definitely control the spatial data. Under the drawing of this project, the animal and plant surveying databases are completely planned out, collaborated with the internet map server software- SuperWebGIS, integrated with program design, and a complete information management system is then created. Therefore, the surveyed spatial attributes for a great number of species were built into the system and with the application of SuperWebGIS, the online services of the system were enhanced, allowing the general users to quickly query the spatial attributes of species through the Internet.
The system contents contain the introduction to the website, query functions and relevant links. Moreover, combining with the Internet GIS technology, the website can reveal real distribution of species on electronic maps. In addition, the back-end interface allows users to perform related statistical operations based on the species data and web management data.
The operating platform and developing tools for this project include：
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Server OS：Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. |
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Internet server software：Microsoft Internet Information Server(IIS) 6.0 |
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Database management software：SQL Server 2000 |
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Internet map server and spatial data editing software： SuperWebGIS 2.1 |
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System developing tools：ASP, VB, VBA, VBScript and JavaScript. |
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OS for users and administrators：Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP |
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Internet browsers for users and managers：Microsoft Internet Explore 5.5 and above. |
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Communication protocol: TCP/IP |
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| Results |
Flora and fauna data query website is the key structure for the system. It is a querying website that integrates all domestic flora and fauna databases; furthermore, with WebGIS technology, the Internet GIS function allows the general users to query data through the Internet. Other than general online query, to cope with the business demands of the units in charge, the limited data uploading and managing functions are provided so that maintenance and update of data could be made with authority.
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| The Taiwan Wildlife Survey Database Query System enhances the function of uploading photographs. |
The system development can be divided into four categories：system function development, data integration, WebGIS enhancement and educational training.
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System function development: |
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Query species：On the species query list, a query interface is added so that users can search the map for a specific town |
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or country where the species is distributed. |
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Enhanced photography upload：When uploading photos, the photos’ information are recorded, such as photographer and |
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the shooting time. |
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Statistics：A statistic table of the species distribution at a specific area can be displayed. |
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Presents species diversity analysis results of the surveyed data. |
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Data integration: |
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Created a data integration mechanism for field survey units to upload data. This system is used as the entrance port for |
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querying species query and integrating the survey data collected from units to extend the contents of this database. |
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WebGIS enhancement: |
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Integrate related spatial data, such as satellite images and various kinds of vector maps. |
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Integrate aerial images：The system integrates the aerial images with the WebGIS query interface for users to have an |
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overview about the species habitat. |
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Educational training: |
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Course contents：Educational training and technology transfer are aimed at assisting users to manipulate the system |
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easily. The user manual provided by this project allows the persons in charge to be familiar with the system quickly and can be used as a system guidance. |
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The Taiwan Wildlife Survey Database Query System integrates aerial images. |
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