NaviForest: Digital mapping for timber transport

27.032020

Project completed

Forest access is a strategic issue for the development of the forestry and wood industry. Indeed, access to forests is essential to sustainably exploit forest resources, secure the supply of companies in the sector and allow the renewal of forests.

Numerous uncoordinated initiatives have been developed in the regions. They have highlighted the need to provide the sector with a national tool for visualising, digitising, qualifying and pooling information concerning the transport of wood.

Objectives

The aim of the project was to carry out an inventory of existing forest service mapping data, to define a national data standard for forest services, to create an up-to-date national layer of roundwood routes, and to develop an online tool for consulting, downloading and updating the data.

INVENTORY OF EXISTING FOREST SERVICE DATABASES

For each initiative, a standard form was completed in order to summarise the technical information, the right of way, but also the administrative information and the use of the digitised data.

DEFINITION OF A NATIONAL SERVICE DATA STANDARD

This standard is the result of a collaborative approach with the players in the sector and is based on existing territorial initiatives. It was conducted under the aegis of the Conseil National de l’Information Géographique (CNIG) and is compatible with the COVADIS standard for exceptional transport. This standard provides a framework to ensure interoperability between different local service mapping initiatives. Its aim is to define a shared data model in order to homogenise practices when digitising data related to timber transport. It allows the qualification of road and forest service sections; equipment such as depots, turnarounds or barriers; and constraint points such as bridges, steep slopes or sharp bends.
It is available on the cnig.gouv.fr website.

Digitisation of roundwood routes

On the one hand, the current versions of the prefectoral decrees relating to the transport of roundwood were recovered and centralised, and on the other hand, a database of roundwood routes was created by digitising the routes mentioned in these decrees from the IGN’s BD TOPO.
The digitisation of all the departments with an order was completed in mid-2019. For each department, the codification described in the standard was completed.

Development of a collaborative tool and a database

The purpose of the tool is to pool and valorise data on wood transport. Two objectives are sought:

Facilitate the distribution of roundwood routes and their updating by departmental instructors,

To allow the actors of the forestry and wood sector to visualise, enrich and share data on forestry services.

The functionalities are as follows: authentication to access the tool, navigation and localisation on the map, visualisation and consultation of data, entry of geometries, entry of business attributes and qualification of data, verification and updating of roundwood routes, integration of photos, interaction between users, export of data, management of a data history.