%0 Journal Article
%T Cultivation of GMO in Germany: support of monitoring and coexistence issues by WebGIS technology
%A Lukas Kleppin
%A Gunther Schmidt
%A Winfried Schr£żder
%J Environmental Sciences Europe
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2190-4715-23-4
%X The WebGIS applies Web mapping techniques to generate maps via internet requests and offers additional functionality for analysis, processing and publication of selected geodata. It is based on open source software solely. The developments rely on a combination of the University of Minnesota (UMN ) MapServer with the Apache HTTP server, the open source database management systems MySQL and PostgreSQL and the graphical user interface provided by Mapbender. Important information on the number and the location of Bt-maize fields were derived from the GMO location register of BVL. The "WebGIS GMO Monitoring" provides different tools allowing for the application of basic GIS techniques as, for instance, automatic or interactive zooming, distance measurements or querying attribute information from selected GIS layers. More sophisticated GIS tools were implemented additionally, e.g. a buffer function which enables generating buffers around selected geo-objects like Bt-maize fields. Finally, a function for intersection of different maps was developed. The WebGIS comprises information on the location of all Bt-maize fields in Germany according to the official GMO location register of the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety between 2005 and 2008. It facilitates, amongst others, access to geodata of GMO fields and their surroundings and can relate them with additional environmental data on climate, soil, and agricultural patterns. Furthermore, spatial data on the location of flora-fauna-habitats and environmental monitoring sites in the federal state of Brandenburg were integrated.The WebGIS GMO monitoring was implemented according to the concept for an "Information System for Monitoring GMO" (ISMO) which was designed on behalf of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. ISMO includes hypotheses-based ecological effects of GMO cultivation and suggests checkpoints for GMO monitoring to test whether impacts may be observed in the receiving environment
%U http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/4