DEVELOPMENT OF THE FINNISH BIODIVERSITY INFO FACILITY – LAJI.FI
The flagship project for the digitalisation efforts at Luomus has been the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (FinBIF). FinBIF promotes open science. In its portal at Laji.fi, anyone can search within all the digital data available on Finnish species, browse observations in Finnish species databases and record their own nature observations. The Information Facility operates as a platform for open science, and it brings together citizen science, academic research, administration, teaching and companies.
FinBIF was established in 2012 and launched in 2015. The year 2017 was the first full year of operations for the Laji.fi-portal. The portal has increased in popularity every year.
Open information
In spring 2020 the Natural Resource Institute Finland (Luke), Metsähallitus and the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE signed a contract with Luomus on sharing their data through one portal. Luomus coordinates the construction of this national information service, and many other universities, research institutions, non-governmental organisations and experts are also involved. This agreement, established across sectors, is internationally unique, making Finland a pioneer in open data sharing. Digital data sharing through one portal makes the use of joint data more efficient. It also helps in the planning and decision-making of nature reserve areas and land-use, among other things.
The number of observations is accelerating
The environmental and natural resources administration and the natural history museums produce observations on various species in Finland. The data that has been digitised by Luomus and other institutions are shared through FinBIF. In 2020, a considerable data set of over one million observations, the LajiGIS system, was added to the Information Facility. Professionally produced data is also accumulated by FinBIF through the work of experts, for example by the experts in the Hymenoptera team and the Diptera team.
Apart from professional work, observations are also accumulated through citizen science. In spring 2020, Laji.fi started co-operating with the biodiversity network iNaturalist, and launched the application iNaturalist Finland. In the iNaturalist network, members of the public, together with artificial intelligence, help people in identifying nature observations. The observations that are saved in the network benefit the knowledge and research of Finnish nature, because the observations are also saved by FinBIF. After the launch of iNaturalist Finland, the number of observations at Laji.fi grew rapidly, and by the end of 2020 the portal had almost 40 million observation points.
