About the project
The WEEDMAP database has been created by Geocentrum, spol. s.r.o. on the basis of cooperation with the Department of Agroecology and Biometeorology of the Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Life Sciences in Prague and EWRS Working Group Weed Mapping. System environment was created by Geocentrum Olomouc, which has many years’ professional experiences in the development of geographic information systems for practical applications in agriculture and natural resources. The database is administrated and operated by the Department of Agroecology and Biometeorology. Technical development, database management and data storage guarantees Geocentrum Olomouc. The objective of this application is collection, administration and provision of information on the occurrence of weeds and other plants. Obtained data should provide specific information about the distribution of weeds on agricultural and non-agricultural land for both research and public use. Changes in weed communities including the occurrence of invasive or endangered weed species can be documented continuously. The database is accessible worldwide via the internet interface. It is divided into two sections.
The secured part is designated for scientists. It enables inserting, displaying as well as administration of data. It facilitates searching on the basis of entered requirements and exporting data in the form of phytocoenological relevés or maps. Access to this part is authorised. In case of interest in contributing to the database please contact the administrator.
The public section is dedicated to all people interested in geographical distribution of weeds. It allows viewing maps of weeds species distribution in a selected region, as well as inserting species records without authorized access.
Quality of the output maps will be initially dependent on the extent of the information collected. We believe that this shortage will be overcome in a short time. The application is continuously expanded and modified; therefore, we welcome any comments, which will help to improve it.
Rules for authorized users
The database is based on a voluntary sharing of data (phytocoenological relevés, occurrence of single species, and occurrence of resistant weed populations) and its content is fully dependent on the contributors.
A contributor may be any scientific worker, who has obtained authorization from the administrator.
Besides inserting the records, each authorized person may also edit or delete his own data from the database. All authorized persons may view all the content of the database including searching (creating selections) and creating maps.
Data import allows a direct inserting or bulk import of Turboveg data. Import of Excel data may be done by administrator only.
For data analysis, the created selections of records may be exported in XML and CSV formats; however, the export is subject to the consent of authors. Consenting process is controlled by a software utility, which allows exporting only after the electronic consent of all authors of exported records.
Created maps will be subjected to copyright. Three types of maps can be exported to pdf or JPEG files (point maps, species distribution based on average species coverage or species frequency).
Rules for unauthorized users
In the public section, creating and viewing of maps of weed species distribution in a selected region is possible. Three types of maps can be displayed (points, and species distribution based on average species coverage or species frequency).
Inserting of species occurrence is possible without any authorized access. The photo of species is obligatory for easier administrator’s consent of this contribution. Author’s e-mail is necessary to mention. After administrator’s consent, such a record will be included in database and may be projected to point maps together with scientific data. Maps showing species distribution based on their coverage and frequency are created from scientific data only.