The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is a comprehensive biodiversity data management system for Australia and is also the Australian node for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). It is a world-class research tool and feeds Australian biodiversity data directly into the GBIF’s international data index.

The ALA is seen as a leader in biodiversity e-infrastructure as it was one of the first sites worldwide to aggregate existing biodiversity data into one place and provide tools to analyse and visualise that data. The key benefit of the ALA is that it is built on the principles of open data – the data is freely available and also the infrastructure is built using open source software so it can be easily replicated and repurposed.

Since 2014, the ALA and GBIF have worked together to facilitate other countries to develop biodiversity information platforms using ALA e-infrastructure. The ALA’s open source platform is becoming a critical component within the Global Biodiversity Information Facility network.

The ALA’s open source platform is becoming a critical component within the GBIF network. Spain, France, Costa Rica and Scotland have used ALA’s open infrastructure to help establish national biodiversity information portals, with several other countries investigating its use.

A list of those countries can be found below.

Implemented

  1. Spain (http://datos.gbif.es)
  2. France (http://portail.gbif.fr)
  3. Costa Rica (http://www.crbio.cr/crbio)
  1. Brazil (https://portaldabiodiversidade.icmbio.gov.br/portal)
  1. Scotland (https://als.scot)

Implementing

  1. Argentina
  2. Portugal
  3. England, Wales and Northern Ireland
  4. UK (overarching)

Discussions

  1. Germany
  2. New Zealand
  3. Belgium?
  4. Norway
  5. Sweden
  6. Mexico (CONABIO)
  7. Symbiota (Northern Arizona) – looking at some of the Spatial Portal components

More info can be found on the GBIF website http://www.gbif.org/living-atlases