Conservation Web-GIS Application Of The Virunga National Park, Dr Congo Using Open Source GIS Technologies

Abstract

The availability of conservation data and information of a conservation area (such as a national park) can lead to an improvement in the exploitation of its natural resources, management and preservation and to a greater fruition by the local and international community. To this aim, a Web-GIS of Virunga National Park (Pare National des Virunga, PNVi) - a natural and a UNEP world heritage site and among the oldest parks in Africa located in the eastern part of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - was designed and implemented. The main goal was to create a tool, easy to access and suitable both for domain experts, such as conservationists or museum curators, and laypersons interested in the cultural assets of the area for educational or tourist purposes. Territorial and environmental information was organized in two different parts, in order to provide a complete and exhaustive frame where the environmental protection entities are located. The first one allows the analysis of the environmental and administrative aspects of the area, providing several groups of thematic maps; the second one deals with the study of the conservation features (distribution/occurrence of species), giving their position and their main characteristics (such as taxonomic classification) and features. Data sources were both digital data (existing and in-situ acquired) and non-digital hard copy maps which were scanned, georeferenced and digitized during the data mobilization phase. All data was processed and loaded in the system as vector (shapefiles) and raster (GeoTIFF files) which were then subsequently stored in PostgreSQL DBMS tables. The whole system lives in a common web site, implemented in Python, HTML and Javascript languages and exploiting GeoServer for GIS functionalities and PostGIS (spatial data engine) for its connection with the PostgreSQL database as well as GeoNode for its map-rendering/viewing and creation features.