Project Training

Modelling Workshop, 16th-23rd November 1998 (Leipzig)

This is the first workshop organized for the TMR project, 'Survival of Species in Fragmented Landscapes'. An important emphasis of the TMR project is on collaboration between the participating groups, and these workshops will be a focus of regular communication between PhD students, PostDocs and Group Leaders actively engaged in the TMR project research. The aim of this workshop is to provide participants with a basic knowledge of modelling so that they can effectively collaborate with modellers. Participants should emerge with an appreciation of the possibilities and limits of modelling, the type of results that can be obtained from models, the type of information which is needed as input and the principles of modelling techniques. The emphasis will be on the rule-based modelling technique. This method can be easily adapted to biological needs and does not require the use of advanced mathematics. There will be a practical programming element (using a simple language) and use will be made of some prefabricated programs. See below for the detailed schedule Payment: Everyone should have now received the FRAGLAND Workshop Information Sheet, containing cost details. Please note that the accommodation and concert tickets should be paid for during your stay in Leipzig, and not before. Evening Concert Trip: Brahm's Requiem will be performed at the world-famous Thomas Church at 8pm on Wednsday evening of the Modelling Workshop. Tickets cost 25DM and the idea is to have dinner in the City beforehand. Important:Tickets for this concert are very likely to be sold-out in advance. Please email Karin Frank at Leipzig if you want a ticket reserved for this concert. Please indicate if you have a student card, as student discount is available. Friday Excursion: In the morning we will travel by bus to a hugh former mining area south of Leipzig where we will be given a tour by Jeep. This will give us a feel for the biodiversity and conservation of the site, as well as the problems of succession, future land use and other relevant issues. For lunch we will make our way to the Saale Valley, west of Leipzig, and we will eat in a historic restaurant in Namburg. After lunch we will visit the world-famous Naumburger Dom, hopefully with an english-speaking guide. It is one of the oldest domes in Germany and has a distinct architecture. We finish our day excursion with a trip to the most northerly wine region in Germany. Here we will visit a wine-growing estate in the Unstrut-Area to have a wine-tasting session with bread and cheese! Important: Warm clothing and sturdy footwear is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for the disused mine trip. Proposed Schedule:

Summary of GIS and spatial modelling : 8-13 January 2001

During 1999, GIS methods appeared to be a common topic of interest for all teams involved in the Fragland project. For this reason, a workshop on GIS was organised at Louvain-la-Neuve in January 2001. The aim of the Workshop was to provide participants with a basic knowledge of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and spatial modelling. The workshop was divided in two parts : (1) a GIS course which included lessons in theory and practicals, and (2) an open meeting where guest-speakers joined the Fragland team to present applications of GIS to ecological problems.

GIS course « GIS for Environmental Applications » - 8-11 January

The GIS course was performed by two experienced GIS trainers : Pierre Defourny (Professor UCL - Faculté des sciences agronomiques - Unité de biométrie et analyse des données) and Vincent Guissard (Research Assistant - UCL - Faculté des sciences agronomiques - Unité de biométrie et analyse des données). The mornings were reserved for the theoretical course and the afternoons for practical exercises on computer.

The scheduled of the theoretical part of the GIS course was as follow:

8 January	Introduction
	GIS : basic concepts	GIS principles Introduction to the database Representation of spatial data
	Environment and functionalities of ArcView & ArcInfo
9 January	Data sources and integration	geographical data digitising Data acquisition systems (GPS, remote sensing...)
	Operations in vector geometry	Spatial measurements Operations using a single layer Operations with multiple layers Algorithm implementation
10 January	Elements of cartography	Introduction to cartography Theoretical principles of cartography The practice of cartography
	Errors and quality control	Error typology Quality assessment of the data Quality control of the processing chain Meta-database
11 January	Methods of analysis and modelling	Spatial measurement Gravity model Expert system Simulation model (stochastic and mechanistic approach) Multivariate analysis
	GIS conception as decision support system

During the afternoons, participants were asked to implement a GIS in environmental management projects - project n°1: water contamination risk analysis, project n°2: identification of the best cycling paths

During this practical session, participants were asked :

- (1) to analyse the projects

- (2) to identify the different steps to carry out the projects

- (3) to create a digital data set by manual input

- (4) to link data sets to existing databases

- (5) to perform spatial analysis and spatial modelling

Mika Siljander from Helsinki team gave also a supplementary course on specific tools to perform landscape analysis.

Open meeting « GIS applications and landscape modelling » - 12-13 January

This two-day meeting was planned to present diverse examples of GIS applications in geography, geomatics and population biology. In order to provide participants with basic techniques and tools to develop their own project, talks were focused on 4 main research fields linked with research topics of Fragland network:

- landscape analysis

- habitat modelling

- dispersal in real landscapes

- spatially explicit population models

List of the presentations:

C. Petit & E. Lambin	Integration of multi-source remote sensing data by map generalization. Application to long-term land cover change in the Belgian Ardennes
M. Siljander	Using ArcView GIS in ecological research: building GIS database for Glanville Fritillary
V. Guissard, N. Bodin, P. Defourny, F. Devillez & P. Giot	Biodiversity inventory of wallonia: development of a methodology for inventory of landscapes and natural habitats, integrating remote sensing and ground sampling through GIS
P. Defourny & L. Vanhalle	Vector GIS to model the habitat selection of the European badger
S. Schadt	GIS habitat model for the Eurasian lynx, Germany
R. Swetnam	Linking ecological models with GIS to predict the impact of management and landscape change on farmland birds
J. Verboom	Making ecological knowledge of metapopulation dynamics applicable in landscape conservation planning
F. Adriaensen, P. Chardon, E Matthysen & H. Gullinck	Modelling functional landscape connectivity using a Cost Distance Algorithm
E. Revilla & T. Wiegand	Large scale dispersal movements of the Iberian lynx in real landscapes
T. Wiegand & F. Knauer	Spatially-explicit population simulation model for the brown bear in the Alps

Conclusion

The course provided an excellent introduction to GIS viewed from different perspectives. The theory classes conveyed important information on how GIS processes and analyses geographical data, how landscapes are mapped and some of the capabilities and misconceptions of GIS. The practical classes provided sufficient hands on training with ArcView GIS to set up and analyse new projects. Indeed, the skills learned during the course have already been applied to at least one of the Fragland projects. The talks presented in the last two days of the workshop gave a wide range of ways in which GIS could be applied to real ecological and conservation problems. As well as providing a first-class introduction to GIS, the Louvain workshop also created the opportunity to discuss ideas, form collaborations and, of course, have some fun!

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