Data management system

Creating data networks for a sustainable future

Meaningful research on, and management of the South African environment at all levels requires reliable, long-term information; information that will inform decision-making aimed at achieving a sustainable future for our planet. Subsequently, SAEON has been tasked to deliver reliable and accessible environmental information as part of its mandate.

This is to be done by monitoring and studying long-term environmental change over large pockets of natural environment throughout our country. By creating and managing nodes in different ecosystems in South Africa, and establishing a comprehensive archive for long-term ecosystem observations over extended periods of time, SAEON will create a state of the art national facility for earth observation.

Given the fact that eco-informatics is a new science globally, and that eco-data management systems are only now being put in place by leading countries, SAEON faces a somewhat daunting task to get its data management systems and networks established. Enter Avinash Chuntharpursat, SAEON’s information management co-ordinator, the person who has to ensure that all of this happens, and in the quickest possible time.

Benchmarking to ensure accessibility

Over the past few months, Avinash has embarked on an extensive fact-finding mission and benchmarking exercise to determine world best practice in the facilitation of information sharing, through human and electronic networking processes. His task is to establish an ethical and accessible data management system for SAEON.

According to Avinash this is not an easy task since ecological and associated data have their own unique requirements [such as access to spatial data]. Special software had to be developed and refined, and the University of California recently refined the metadata management software, known as Morpho, required for the system. The USA, China and Taiwan are currently leading the pack. China in particular has succeeded in streamlining software and processes such as database and remote sensing analysis. Avinash will be modelling the SAEON system on these successes, with special adjustments to allow for our country’s unique requirements.

Against the background of reliable data management infrastructure, software and tools that have become available on the world market, Avinash organised a successful local workshop for Information Management experts at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park in May this year. Subsequently, he attended a workshop and international conference on  Ecological Data Management Systems in East Asia, held in Beijing, China, where he presented the results of the Skukuza workshop.

Eco -Informatics

Avinash is positive that now is the right time for SAEON to establish its own eco-informatics system, as SAEON’s envisaged technical specifications were confirmed by the Beijing workshop, which is tantamount to an international peer review of the SAEON strategy.

The success of the venture in South Africa depends on people skilled in ecological data and network management, and international experts will have to be brought in to train local people before the end of the year. Avinash has just returned from an international conference in Canada where he learnt a great deal from international experiences in the field of cyber-infrastructure for ecological data management and analysis.

Avinash describes himself as a man with a mission: to establish a world-class eco-data management system to which all the SAEON nodes and the National Office in Pretoria will eventually be linked, and which will link into international earth observation systems with the aim of providing information freely to users, locally and internationally.

But for now SAEON’s Ndlovu Node, the network’s first earth observation node established at Phalaborwa in September last year, will serve as the testing ground for the pilot project.

Watch this space …