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1.1.1. Overview of WebPark

Project Aims

The overall aim of WebPark was to: "identify the geographic information needs of mobile users, to provide to such users geographically relevant personalized location-based services (LBS) and to create new G-commerce termvalue-chains for recreation/ protected area administrations and termdata integrators." (WebPark 2001, p. 4)

WebPark therefore aimed to develop a platform and suite of end-user services, together with related termbusiness processes, that would allow visitors access to unique environmental, cultural, historical and touristic information on mobile devices. The content was to be largely drawn from existing data resources that had been captured by the park agencies and custodians for various commercial and non-commercial purposes such as research, education, and tourism. WebPark aimed to leverage these data resources within a new computational framework that contextualised access and presentation of the information according to aspects such as; the location, time, personal interests and activities of visitors.

User groups

The project sought to add value to the data resources for both the visitors and the park administration (Dias et al. 2004). For the visitors, a more informed encounter with a region could be experienced. Their questions could be answered as they arose, activities could be better planned and organised, and the area could be explored in ways beyond what was immediately visible.

Enriching the enjoyment and education of visitors to the protected areas was of course of direct importance to the park administration (Eagles 2003). The channel added by WebPark for providing information could also allow a better return on the investment of data collection. However in addition, the system also suggested a number of possiblities to support the park in their management of the natural resources. For instance, by knowing where the visitors were they could help control the distribution of visitors throughout the park and prevent them concentrating in particular areas. Likewise they could use the system to inventory species that saw during their day-to-day work.

Study sites

The project was tested for two study sites. The Swiss National Park and the island of Texel.

The Swiss National Park Dune park on Texel

Texel

Texel is the largest of the Wadden islands situated in the Waddensee off the coast of Holland. It has a resident population of more than 13,000 with an additional average of around 45,000 tourists staying overnight per day . Its landscape comprises a number of significant ecotypes including tidal flats, marshes, beaches, dunes and cultivated land. The entire dune area is protected as a national park - "The Dunes of Texel". The island is rich in flora and fauna. It is particularly well know for the variety of birds that can be found there, sometimes being called "Bird Island". In 2003 a total of 264 species were recorded by the Texel Bird Society. (Graaff 2005)

Swiss National Park

The Swiss National Park is situated in the South-East Switzerland in the Canton of Graubunden. The park is the oldest in Europe, founded in 1914 and holds International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) level 1 protection, the strictest category. It receives nearly 150,000 visitors every year. The landscape of the park is dominated by mountains which range up to from 1400m (Clemgia gorge) to 3173m (Piz Pisoc). The park supports 3 main types of habitat; forest, alpine meadows and high alpine.

Consortium

The WebPark consortium consisted of partners from industry; European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, and Geodan Mobile Solutions, the sciences; City University London, the University of Zurich, and Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil Lissabon, and from the national parks community; the Swiss National Park. The industry partners were responsible for developing the technical infrastructure that supported services. The Swiss National Park provided the perspective of the end-users both in terms of their visitors and their own needs as a host for the services. In addition, they supplied rich content such as animal and plant observations, route descriptions, and point-of-interest (POI) information. The research institutes provided GIScience expertise for modelling, analysing and representing geographic information.

Project outline

The project sought to innovate in four main areas:

  • Mobility – By creating services that could answer visitors’ questions at the moment when they were most relevant, for example when the user was mobile and outside, and by providing information that would otherwise only be available from a static context, e.g. a CDROM, kiosk or over the Internet
  • Ubiquity – By providing services available at any time and in any location, not dependent on the available technological infrastructure such as the mobile communications network
  • GI and Multimedia content business processes – The project needed generate design processes for the storage and handling, integration, and commodification of geographic content for location-based services
  • Spatio-temporal intelligence in coastal, rural and mountainous landscapes – The service needed to be responsive to the context of use. Taking into consideration not only where and when the service was being accessed (position and time), but also what the user was interested in, the past and future space of their activities, and their personal preferences, for example for types information and language


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