Japanese Agricultural Institute Launches Website on Biodiversity of Domestic Agricultural Ecosystems

The National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES) announced August 19, 2011, the launch of its Rural Landscape Information System on website (RuLIS WEB), which efficiently organizes information on biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems across Japan, accessible to everyone, in order to widely promote sustainable agriculture.

NIAES first set out to develop the Rural Landscape Information System (RuLIS) to objectively and comparatively study regionally diverse Japanese agricultural ecosystems. At the time, however, the individual survey findings of local researchers, governments, and farmers could not be used in a cross-sectional way. Thus the RuLIS WEB was developed for the input and output of survey data for comparison.

RuLIS WEB enables users to search ecosystem data classified by RuLIS (60 types across the country) for comparison of biodiversity, and then output the results into a file. In addition, the website allows data from organizations other than NIAES to be stored online, which enable users to more widely evaluate the effects of sustainable agriculture or nature restoration activities on biodiversity, depending on the local natural environment.

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http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/030310.html
MOE Compiles Action Plan for Conservation Use of Satoyama (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030457.html
Ministry Convenes Symposium on Developing Indicators for Agricultural Biodiversity (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/028790.html

Posted: 2011/11/25 06:00:15 AM