ASEAN BioGIS

About ASEAN BioGIS

WHAT is ASEAN BioGIS?

The ASEAN BioGIS is a project of the Biodiversity Information Management (BIM) team of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) funded by European Union. The WEB-based ASEAN Biodiversity Geographic Information System (ASEAN BioGIS) consists of a geodatabase of the flora, fauna and natural habitat in the ASEAN Region. ASEAN BioGIS will serve as a sharing platform on biodiversity information and statistics to support the ASEAN Member Countries (AMCs) in meeting the reporting requirements of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAS).

This is a transition database system that will replace the current by species and by country database.

WHY USE ASEAN BioGIS?

The ASEAN BioGIS can carry out:

1. basic mapping operations;
2. accomplish simple-to-sophisticated spatial queries; and
3. visualization patterns of species distribution, status and concerns in AMCs and the region in general.

It can assist non-expert users of GIS technologies to picture scenarios, to support sound judgment, and development of solutions based on the integrated information from ASEAN BioGIS. Communication with the public and other scientific community on the state of ASEAN Biodiversity will be enhanced through ASEAN BioGIS and which hopefully will result to sound ecological and economic decision making on the sustainable use of biodiversity (Tatlonghari, 2007).

The advantages of ASEAN BioGIS over the previous ARCBC BISS Mapper are the following:

1. information can be viewed offline even without internet access using HTML file or PDF through scalable vector graphics (SVG);
2. there is no need to install any kind of GIS software to view the geographic information because it utilizes Internet Explorer, Opera or any kind of internet browser with SVG browser that can be plugged in the user’s computer;
3. more interactive and basic mapping operations similar to expensive GIS software are available for simple-to-sophisticated analysis;
4. map-graph-table interaction can be performed;
5. querying inside the map is possible;
6. attributes can be viewed/published;
7. distribution and sharing of information is more secure and easily done;
8. programming knowledge is not a requirement.

HOW are data compiled?

The ASEAN BioGIS geodatabase compiled the original BISS records of natural habitat, flora and fauna species from AMCs came from herbaria and museum collections, data and surveys carried out by academic institutions, individual scientists, government authorities, non-governmental organizations within ASEAN Region, and even international organization such as WorldFish Center, UN, WWF and IUCN. Future updating of the geodatabase will be coordinated with the AMCs and global and regional data holders.