Collaborative Geo-visual Analytics: Engaging the crowd beyonda data collection.

This project aims to link the opportunities offered by Internet-based technologies to support collaborative efforts, with societal, ecologic and economic challenges posed by pest population dynamics. In particular, it identifies collaborative analysis and geo-visual analytics as a feasible solution to improve pest control. The analysis of pest population dynamics is important, due to the negative effects of pests on environment, economy and human health. The overpopulation of a pest can threaten local flora and fauna. Additionally, some pests can significantly damage crop fields, producing serious economic impacts for farmers and the food supply chain. Furthermore, a significant reduction of crop yield can threaten food security. Finally, some pests represent a threat for human health. For example, by providing infection vectors for diseases. Despite substantial research on these phenomena, their complex dynamics are not well-understood. The literature suggests the need for approaches that combine geospatial analysis with domain and local knowledge, to better understand the phenomenon and minimize its impacts. This research aims to materialize such an approach by combining geo-visual analytics and collaborative analysis. The execution of this project will lead to the design of a system architecture for collaborative geo-visual analytics,and to the development of a prototype to analyze pest population dynamics. To test the prototype and validate the architecture, two application cases are proposed. First, the problematic occurrences of Oak Processionary Moth in The Netherlands, which represent a threat for human and animal health, due to an abundant urticating hair present during the caterpillar stage. Second, the Olive Fruit Fly in Andalucia, Spain. This is an important pest in olive-growing regions worldwide, which causes serious economic impacts to olive producers. Additionally, the control measurements causes negative environmental impacts.