Monitoring natural reserves using wireless sensor network

Yu Xinwen, Yang Yanchen, Zhang Xu

Institute of Forestry Resource and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Forestry

Contents

Basic data of nature reserves in China Current situation of nature reserves New approach for monitoring

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.

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

Current situation of nature reserves

Management issues: Very simple management, Not standardized Weak infrastructure Simple protect method

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

The demands for reserve monitoring is urgent

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

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

Candidate reserve Hupingshan national nature reserve, located in Hu

nan 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

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

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

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

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?

Height—Vertax

Diameter: Web camera

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

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.

Thank you very much for the attention