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A purpose-built mobile data collection application is used to plan and implement community-oriented primary care (COPC) in a pilot project in the City of Tshwane (South Africa). Web reports present the data in the form of tables, graphs and point maps, but other types of thematic maps have not yet been implemented. We describe a proof-of-concept web map application that presents the COPC data in different cartographic representations. To reveal spatio-temporal patterns and correlations in the daily growing dataset, the user can choose between choropleth maps, segmented proportional circle maps, or a combination of these. The data is shown aggregated by administrative unit or by regular grid cell. As the user zooms in, the aggregation level automatically changes to smaller aggregation units. The setting of a threshold ensures data privacy protection. Spider diagrams link households visited by community health workers during a user-specified period to the sending clinic. The web maps can empower those involved in COPC to dynamically tailor health care provision to the complexity of people’s health needs. It is a valuable addition to the mobile application and web reports, and could contribute to more effective and efficient service delivery to meet the specificity of localized needs.

Tropical forests are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities often resulting in habitat and biodiversity loss. To effectively manage and protect these areas, it is important to have an understanding of the factors affecting their biodiversity. Previous research has shown that birds in tropical regions are severely affected by human-induced habitat conversion and disturbance. The effects, however, are often area and guild-specific and the underlying mechanisms are frequently unclear. In this study, we disentangle and quantify the direct and indirect effects of human population density, distance to forest edge, habitat disturbance, and vegetation structure and composition on the total abundance and species richness of birds in Kakamega Forest, Kenya. Specifically, we use structural equation modeling to develop and test path models, which reflect the potential causal relationships between the bird assemblages and the chosen explanatory factors. Relationships were tested on the overall bird community and on five different guilds, classified according to birds’ forest specialization and feeding preferences (i.e. forest specialists, generalists and visitors, and frugivores and insectivores). Results showed that habitat disturbance, caused by logging, had a weak positive direct effect on the bird communities, but also had a strong detrimental indirect effect, particularly on the total abundance and species richness of forests specialists and insectivores. The negative effect was mediated through changes in the forest’s vegetation structure and composition. Shorter distances to the forest edge also had a negative effect, on all bird categories except on forest visitors, which also benefited from higher levels of disturbance. Our study shows that although in some cases habitat disturbance may have no strong direct negative effects it can still negatively influence bird communities in an indirect way. In the case of Kakamega Forest, we suggest that to conserve bird communities it is important to maintain the forest’s compositional and structural diversity by reducing human-induced habitat disturbance, such as illegal logging activities.

Over the last 100 years the Kakamega-Nandi forests area, western Kenya, experienced a loss of about 60 % in natural forest cover due to human interferences. In order to create awareness for sustainable forest use among the local population, tools for environmental education have been developed. The tools, here among others a jigsaw puzzle and a card game, aim at making use of geospatial data because map reading literacy is considered a prerequisite in any natural resource management and planning. The tools are introduced as well as the chosen participatory approach, which allowed enhancement of prototypes in an iterative manner.

A student assignment within the concluding module on map compilation is taken to elaborate on the difference between maps (cartography) and info graphics (information design). By describing the task and approach, the various skills adding to the outcomes — a more traditional newspaper map and an appealing info graphics each for up to now 47 distinct topics — are demonstrated and discussed. This is meant to highlight the still existing need of important original carto-graphic skills in the otherwise rather IT-focused training of nowadays.

Damit die Forschungsergebnisse aus dem BIOTA-Ostafrika-Projekt von direktem, anwendbarem Nutzen sind — hier fur ein partizipatorisches Waldmanagement des Kakamega Forest in Westkenia —, gilt es, die verschiedenen Bevolkerungsgruppen zu informieren, sie zu sensibilisieren und so zu verandertem Handeln zu bewegen. Aus umfangreichen Geodaten entstandene, interaktive Visualisierungen werden vorgestellt und ihr moglicher Einsatz diskutiert. Erkenntnisse aus ersten Untersuchungen bzgl. ihrer Nutzlichkeit vor Ort zeigen die Herausforderungen — Kenianer sind mit dem Kartenlesen nicht vertraut —, aber auch ihr Potential.

Im Projektverbund BIOTA-Ostafrika ist der Aufbau eines Pools gemeinsam genutzter Geodaten Grundvoraussetzung fur integrative Aussagen zu Veranderungen in der biologischen Artenvielfalt und ihrem Management. Die Konzeption des BIOTA-Ost-Geodatenkatalogs, die Notwendigkeit einer Harmonisierung heterogener Geodatensatze und ein Vergleich mit anderen Online-Geokatalogen sind Gegenstand des Artikels. Der Einsatz von WebGIS-Applikationen, die uber HTML ImageMapper und MapViewSVG realisiert werden und der Unterstutzung des Geodatenkatalogs und der Darstellung von Projektteilergebnissen dienen, wird diskutiert.