Standardisation of forest information

Forest information standardisation is work commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the Finnish Forest Centre is responsibility for organising it. Sitowise's core task in standardisation is technical consulting and maintenance work, but at the same time we bring our own forest expertise contribution to solving the needs of the sector.

The standardisation of forest data is essentially

• BIM of data content transferred between systems or organisations
• matching the needs of operators
• producing sustainable solutions

And on the same occasion

• modelling of data transfer processes
• creating common operating models

The work has continued in the forest sector and, on our part, as uninterrupted maintenance and productive work since the publication in 2010 of a data transfer message intended for the transmission of forest resource information.

Most of the standard content has been produced in XML format, with XML schemas guiding data structures and data format requirements. The packages are schema packages and a total of more than 30 of these have been produced throughout history. The basic units of final output are called messages and more than 130 of them have been formalized for use. These form about 10 sets of messages, which represent the following forest resource data, timber trade and forest management, as well as timber harvesting and enterprise resource management, among other things, from the functional entities of the forest sector. In addition, transactions with the authorities are handled with standard messages, e.g. to the Finnish Forest Centre (e.g. statutory forest notification).

In addition to the XML format, standardisation is also carried out on top of the GeoPackage format, which is particularly suitable for mass data transfers. Standardisation strives to keep up with the times, and it has been recognized that there are also needs for other data transfer formats, such as JSON. Solutions are made on a need-based basis, and the trend is increasing the amount of data transferred and the amount of metadata and more up-to-date and delay-free data transfer.

Changes to the content are made in cooperation with representatives of organisations in the sector in various small working groups and presented in regular meetings. Forestry organisations are free to participate in the activities.

As a leading standardization expert, Sitowise is among the first to introduce new message versions in its products, such as Foresta and LeafPoint.