The National Institute for Environmental Studies (Location: Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, President: Masahide Kimoto, hereinafter referred to as “National Institute for Environmental Studies”) and Mapry Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Tanba City, Hyogo Prefecture, Representative Director: Keiji Yamaguchi, hereinafter referred to as “Mapry”), which provides the geospatial information application platform service “MAPRY” useful for forest management and regional activities, We have started joint research on the detection of climate change effects on vegetation growing in alpine zones.

This initiative aims to complete a quick and easy survey tool for alpine ecosystems by using sensing technologies such as smartphones and tablets and geoinformatization technologies.

■Background
Since its founding in 2019, Mapry has been working on the development of forest survey applications and peripheral equipment using remote sensing technology mainly on iPhones and iPads, and has cultivated programming techniques indispensable for smart forestry and surveying. On the other hand, the National Institute for Environmental Studies has been conducting research on a wide variety of organisms on the earth and the ecosystems in which they live on a variety of scales.
The idea that collaboration between the two institutions would enable the development of new and more valuable applications and research tools was initiated.

■Outline of the joint research
Despite the fact that alpine vegetation and other alpine ecosystems are extremely vulnerable to climate change, it is difficult to conduct continuous surveys through on-site surveys, and the current situation and continuous surveys have not been sufficiently conducted. In addition, the shortage of investigators who are familiar with the names of living organisms was also a major problem.
Therefore, after using a combination of positional and three-dimensional shape measurements and other spectroscopic measurements using a tablet equipped with LiDAR, we will develop image processing algorithms and geoinformatization technology to complete a quick and easy survey tool for alpine ecosystems.

■National Institute for Environmental Studies Biodiversity
The National Institute for Environmental Studies is one of Japan’s national research and development agencies and a public research institute on environmental issues. In particular, in the field of biodiversity, we conduct surveys and research on the structure and function of ecosystems composed of diverse organisms on the earth and their relationships, as well as the elucidation of the effects of human activities on biodiversity and ecosystems, at various scales, and promote projects related to these.

■About Mapry
Mapry is a service for all those involved in surveying, forestry, disaster prevention, agriculture and construction. We provide solutions that can easily acquire and analyze 3D data, which has been difficult to bear the cost of surveying equipment and operate and analyze the equipment.

■Company Profile
Company Name : Mapry Corporation
Location : 165 Tada, Kasuga Town, Tanba-shi, Hyogo Prefecture (Head Office)
Sanyo Rokkaku Building No. 503, 84 Yanagisui-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto (Kyoto Office)
Representative Director: Keiji Yamaguchi
HP :https://mapry.co.jp
Inquiries about this matter: info@mapry.co.jp