Monitoring natural reserves using wireless sensor network

1. Monitoring natural reserves using wireless sensor network Yu Xinwen, Yang Yanchen, Zhang Xu Institute of Forestry Resource and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Forestry

2. Contents • Basic data of nature reserves in China • Current situation of nature reserves • New approach for monitoring

3. Basic data of nature reserves in China • Total reserves: 2349, 1.5 million sq. kilometer, 15% of land area. • 242 National reserves, 880k sq. kilometer • Forestry related reserves • Number: 1699, 72% of total reserves • Area: 1.2 M sq. kilometer, 12.49% of land area, 80% of total reserve area.

4. 85% land ecosystem types • 85% wildlife populations • 65% flora community • 50% natural wet land • Habitat of over 300 rare and endangered wildlife species • Distribution area of over 130 species of rare trees

5. Current situation of nature reserves • Management issues: • Very simple management, • Not standardized • Weak infrastructure • Simple protect method

6. Situations: • No scouting in 25% of reserves • No resource monitoring in 75% • No scientific investigations in 70% • No any research activities in over 50%

7. The demands for reserve monitoring is urgent

8. New approach for monitoring: wireless sensor network • Sensor technology helps automatically monitor the conditions of reserves • Wireless network helps remotely acquire monitoring data in real time • Seldom labor is needed

9. What we want to monitor • Environmental parameters of reserves • Provide data for reserve protection and evaluation • Growth procedure of rare plants and trees • Provide data for modeling plant growth • Activities of endangered animals (mammal) • Provide data for animal protection and ethological research

10. Candidate reserve • Hupingshan national nature reserve, located in Hunan province (http://hps.nre.cn/eindex.asp) • Area: 66568 ha. • Aim: • Protect endangered animals and their habitats, key species: South China tiger • Protect rare plant species and community, key species: Dovetree (Davidia involucrata ) • The project will be executed in this reserve as a demonstration and will be extended to other reserves

12. Construct the sensor network • Easiest way: to use FieldServer, but still some issues exist • Budget raising: • The name FieldServer implies it is agriculture oriented, and our project is forestry oriented. • Also it emphasizes on Server, but not sensor network • Available Chinese names for FieldServer: 田间服务器，原野服务器，are all agriculture oriented. • Related people will not bother to know the detail of FieldServer

13. Key problems in application: battery life • No power supply in some area of the reserve • No enough solar energy receivable in forest • Rechargeable battery? Periodically recharge the battery

14. Construct own sensor system: • Must start from scratch • No much experience of using sensor • Takes long time • But may foster a team skillful to sensor network

15. Monitoring plant growth • Using Web accessible camera to monitor plant growth • It is relatively easy to monitor the seedling trees, diameter and height • But how to monitor the height when tree becomes very tall? • And crown or crown projection?

16. Height—Vertax Diameter: Web camera

17. Monitor animal population • The mobility of animal makes it very hard to automatically monitor the behavior and population activities. • Using portable device to record animal behavior might be an applicable approach • Portable device based recording software • Submitting data to database via sensor network

18. How to use monitoring data • Collaborative project • Institute of Forestry Resource and Information Technology • Responsible to constructing sensor network, software development, data management, providing data service, system maintenance. • Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection • Responsible for the data requirement, data analysis, modeling, evaluation, etc.

19. Thank you very much for the attention