: ROLE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) IN FOREST MANAGEMENT

Sana iqbal Rabail Urooj 

Basically GIS is a technology or tool that is used for management. GIS  is the combination of three words in which “geographic” means “specific location of earth surface”, “information” means “huge amount of effective data” and “system” means a set of things working together as a part of a mechanism or an interconnecting network as a whole complex”. GIS helps in many fields in which forestry or forest management is one among them. GIS can be used to develop different maps such as land cover maps, vegetation maps, soil maps, etc which is constantly proving itself beneficial for forest management. Forests are known as lungs of the world.

This is because, it provides 6 tons oxygen per person, medication, habitat for many species and for timber. Nowadays forests are decreasing with alarming rate due to deforestation, urbanization, timber harvesting, land clearing, overgrazing, and forest fire. Through GIS forest agencies or managers, maps of the forest area are developed and the data is collected. This data is analyzed through simple photographs or aerial photographs. Geographical Information Systems is an information tools that has been used in community strategy making for environmental and forest planning and judgment.

Topographical diagram at scale 1:50,000 were earth-referenced and features like the transportation system, water bodies, arrangement, curve lines and archaeological structures were digitized. Forest, block, section and strike boundaries were digitized from forest topographic maps at scale 4 inch to 1 mile. Soil form polygons were digitized from soil maps and an MS Access record was created. This store for every soil polygon characteristic including code number, soil-depth categories, particle-size group, mineralogy division, soil PH categories, soil drainage category, surface texture, slope and erosion category. Characteristic were used to build up a soil GIS layer.

Furthermore, GIS data also provides information of forest cover, types of forest, develop plans, policies to implement and control the forest degradation. Forest fire is one of the basic threats that are mitigated through GIS by predicting the fire intensity which is based on slope, site exposure, wind speed and other climate factors. It also helps in collecting data regarding wind direction, speed and dryness of environment which in turn helps in telling the direction and speed of the fire spread.  GIS stores spatial information in a digital mapping environment that allows fire managers to quickly select and view data that can influence fire   Because of these information’s, measures will be taken on time which will decrease the damage.

So it is clear, that throughout the world forests are used for economic, ecological and commercial purposes. By protecting our forests, we can make our environment clean, precious resources and biota can be preserved and forest clean the air by carbon sequestrationGIS identified the depleted or degraded forest areas manage attribute and spatial queries of soil and village-population. GIS study was carried out to recognized best possible locations for saw towers for fire and forest protection. After the GIS analysis of their characteristics, forest areas were selected to a variety of Working Circles (WC): that are Protection WC (12,169ha), Thinning and Improvement Felling WC (1,454ha), Soil and Moisture Conservation WC (5,650ha), Fodder WC (2,309ha),Fuel wood WC (3,562ha).

1- Protection WC: it is selected to forest areas with hills above 200, 20m broad buffers areas with streams, water catchment areas of lakes that provide drinking water to villages or farms, and section with threatened plant life and chronological sites. 

2- Thinning and Improvement Felling WC: it is selected to teak-tree bearing region on slopes beneath 100, partitions with a great amount of tree-trunks that is 20cms to 45cms and region with over 60% forest mass. 

3- Soil and Moisture Conservation WCs: It composed of forest regions with a slope smaller than 300 and smaller than 40% density, and regions where soil erosion is harsh.

 4- Fodder WC: To meet the fodder demand of cattle, forest regions surrounded by 2km from settlements and with soil deepness more than 10cm were allocate as Fodder WC. 

5- Fuel wood WC: It is the main necessity of local people. Forest sections within 2km of settlements were recognized and a buffer region of 100m was formed for planting only fuel-wood species. Badlands with the river and soil form suitable for black cotton, soil deepness is greater than 30cm and within 100m of the riverbanks was recognized for planting Acacia nilotica, a tree with high in calories. For every WC such recommendation have been describe and integrated in the regional Forest Working Plan


افکار و نظریات: ROLE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM, GIS