Design and development of the kondinsky lakes nature park's web map service

Abstract

Currently, many protected natural areas (PNA) implement geographic information systems (GIS) and technologies for structuring and managing collected spatial data to support of monitoring and scientific research. GIS of protected areas may be developed based on various software products and characterized by different level of functionality. Also, online web map services on this topic are being developed, which provide access to data not for employees only, but also for users. This paper focuses on the development of a web-GIS of the Kondinsky Lakes natural park located in the Tyumen region of Russian Federation and ensuring the preservation of unique river systems, landscapes, cultural and historical natural monuments. The web service includes cartographic layers and attribute data to characterize the main activities of the natural park. GIS layers are divided into thematic groups and contain information about flora and fauna, forest fires, logged areas, resting places and objects of the oil and gas mining in the park. The project is implemented using Leaflet, a popular open source web application development library. The code was written using the markup language HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Data management is implemented using PostgreSQL DBMS. The publication is created based on the open GIS server Geoserver. The data structure and functionality of the developed web service is also presented. The developed web service can be used by both employees of the natural park (to develop the content of the databases) and its visitors, as well as organizations working in the field of environmental education and tourism.