[Qgis-user] How can QGIS help to save the planet? - The Natural Capital Project

Sat Feb 27 16:03:36 PST 2010

Hi Noli & Giovanni,

Thank you for both of your replies. Your questions about funding are fair
and understandable.  I should clear something up right away.  I am not
associated with the NatCap project, and have not been asked by the project
to approach the QGIS community.  I *have* exchanged a few emails with
project members, and while they of course like the idea of an open source
GIS, no one actually requested me to do what I'm doing.  I'm just an
"outsider" who really believes in the projects goals.  So what that means is
that I have absolutely no say on where funds go or even any inside track to
talk to somebody who has funds.  That being said, I'm all for the QGIS
project getting funding if it can be made available.  Here are a couple of
options that I see.

1) Do an upfront investment of time - Volunteer to invest the time into
converting the scripts over to QGIS, then help show the NatCap project how
an open source platform speeds adoption of the software, how much better
users like to use QGIS, etc. Basically show the demonstrated benefits after
the conversion. Once the value of QGIS is demonstrated, it should be very
easy to get funding.  Obviously all the risk is on the QGIS community with
this option.

2) Work up a proposal to move Invest over to QGIS.  The proposal would have
to estimate the benefits of moving to an open source platform ahead of time,
and the community would also need to know how much funding they are looking
for to do the work.  The overall investment to the project is less with #1
than #2, but of course it is always easier to show someone the benefits
(plan #1) than to convince them of the benefits ahead of time (plan #2).

If the community is interested in pursuing either approach, I am interested
in helping.  With either approach, however, it will take an initial analysis
to estimate how many hours it will take to convert the scripts over.  How
many hours would just this initial analysis take?

Finally, while all talk about funding is understandable, I also want the
community to keep in mind that the project is for a great cause, so you can
rest assured that any amount of "volunteer" time that people can provide is
greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ben Carlson

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:59 AM, G. Allegri <giohappy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Ben,
> I think NCP is a very good effort in the field of natural sources
> evaluation and externalities management.
> A venial question: is there some founding for the project to move
> Invest to Qgis? Do you mean to ask for volunteer time? The actual
> modules seems to be quite small, so it shouldn't require a big
> work.... but it requires time to get into it.
>
> giovanni
>
>
>
> I would like to contribute, gievn the time (and the money...)
>
> 2010/2/22 Noli Sicad <nsicad at gmail.com>:
> > Hi Ben,
> >
> > I downloaded Invest 3 months ago and look at it and see what is the
> > "inside" of invest. I was particularly interested in the carbon
> > sequestration model / module.
> >
> > I am hoping INVEST project would be one of the projects of Qgis. I
> > think QGIS could find developers or current developers can find time
> > to work in this project, if Natural Capital Investment can sponsor and
> > fund this project.
> >
> > Probably later on, I can later on "plugin" for optimising the forestry
> > carbon estate model to cater for various carbon protocol and standard
> > e, REDD and REDD+, etc. using GNU GLPK
> > (http://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/glpk.html). I have a forest estate
> > LP model (timber supply at the moment) reading data for areas from
> > shapefile and writing results in dbf as part of the GNU GLP project
> > examples. It can be found in glpk-4.43/examples/db folder).
> >
> > BTW, I am forest carbon estate modeller.
> >
> > Noli
> >
> >
> > On 2/22/10, Ben Carlson <ben.s.carlson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hello QGIS community,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm writing because I'm looking for a few QGIS programmers who are
> >> interested in using their skills to help with an important environmental
> >> project.  Before I get into how you can help, here is some info about
> the
> >> project.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The Natural Capital project, a joint venture between Stanford
> University,
> >> The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund, is "developing
> tools
> >> for quantifying the values of natural capital in clear, credible, and
> >> practical ways".  What is Natural Capital and why is it important to
> value?
> >> To use another related term, Natural Services are services that nature
> >> typically, and historically, has provided for free.  Unfortunately,
> since
> >> society is so used to getting these services for free, the services
> often
> >> don't have a value attached to them.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> For example, a standing forest today may only have one economic value in
> the
> >> marketplace: the price of its timber once cut.  But a forest provides
> many
> >> tangible benefits to society that are not measured in the marketplace,
> such
> >> as water filtration, carbon sequestration, or flood mitigation.  If a
> real
> >> economic value could be put on these services, would their value be
> greater
> >> or less than cutting the forest for timber?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> You can get quite a bit more information about the NatCap project here:
> >>
> >> http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org
> >>
> >> You can also read a good book on the subject by one of the projects
> leading
> >> scientists:
> >>
> >>
> http://www.amazon.com/New-Economy-Nature-Conservation-Profitable/dp/1559631546/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266733265&sr=8-2
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> So where does QGIS fit in?  As part of its strategy, the NatCap project
> is
> >> developing software tools using GIS software.  Unfortunately, the only
> GIS
> >> the tool runs on is ArcGIS, which presents a significant barrier to
> entry
> >> for many would-be users around the world.  Based on the project's goals
> and
> >> the open nature of the software it is developing, a free GIS is the more
> >> logical choice.  I'm emailing the QGIS community since I use QGIS
> myself,
> >> have found the tool to be great, and the community to be strong. For
> anybody
> >> who feels this is an important use of your time, I would like to ask for
> >> your help in making the software work for QGIS.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Now for the details.  The software, called Invest, runs as a python
> script
> >> in ArcGIS.  There are around 6 different modules, comprised of 1 to 3
> python
> >> files for each module.  Each module is around 300 to 900 lines of code.
>  It
> >> would be great if somebody could volunteer to analyze a few of these
> >> modules, say - Carbon, Biodiversity, and Timber, to see what it would
> take
> >> to convert them over to QGIS.  Are there any ArcGIS scripting calls that
> >> can't be ported over to QGIS?  Can an API layer be written to abstract
> >> different GIS?  What about the user interface?  After the assessment is
> >> complete, we'll figure out what are next steps.
> >>
> >>
> >> You can read more about the software here:
> >>
> >> http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/InVEST.html
> >>
> >> And you can download the software here:
> >>
> >> http://invest.ecoinformatics.org/
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm also attaching the Timber module for you to take a look at if you
> want
> >> instant gratification for your curiosity.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> So, what do you say, any volunteers?  Please let me know, I really
> >> appreciate any help!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Ben
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Qgis-user mailing list
> > Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
> >
>
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