We have developed a state-of-the-art forestry application product, FMS (Forest Management System), to cater to the requirements of all the divisions. The application can be further customized to the requirements of customers.

Salient Features of FMS

Preparation of Compartment Maps:

Digitization of base map layers (contours, roads, drainage,village etc.,) from topo-sheet in 1:50000 scale

Digitization of differentforest classes (stock growing) in every compartment in 1":1mile scale

Final overlaying of bothbase layers and stock growing layers in 1:25000 scale

Creation of Compartments history in hot-link option

Tools creation for area calculation (in ha.) and zooming of entered latitude and longitude values (useful to locate check-dam position)

GIS For Forestry :

"GIS technology helps us organize the data about problems and understand their spatial relationship associations and provides a powerful means for analyzing and synthesizing information about them." (Aronoff, p.1)
GIS is designed for the collection, storage, and analysis of objects, and phenomena where geographic location is an important characteristic or critical to the analysis. GIS is now accepted as a fundamental tool for the effective use of geographic information.

Forestry Applications :

Forestry involves the management of a broad range of natural resources within a forested area. In addition to timber, forests provide such resources as grazing land for animals, wildlife habitat, water resources and recreation areas. The National Forest Service is responsible for the management of forest harvesting, grazing leases, recreational areas, wildlife habitat, mining activities as well as protecting endangered species. To balance the competing resource conservation and resource use, activities must be accommodated. Accessing the feasibility of these multiple uses is greatly enhanced by the use of US technique.

For example, The GIS data can be utilized for such analyses as timber harvesting, habitat protection and planning the location of scenic roads.

Why Only GIS ?

The conventional forest inventory was done progressively with a small portion of the forest being inventoried each year. To update a forest cover map could take few years with expensive manual drafting.

With GIS, the forest cover maps can be updated on a constant basis and it provides the forest managers more current data than what was previously available.

With GIS technology, the average age of the information in the forest database could be reduced from few years to only a few weeks. The time factor alone has led to a wide acceptance and large demand for GIS applications in forestry.

In itself, the use of GIS to update the forest inventory maps is not much more than automated cartography but it is the analytical power of GIS that sets it apart from cartography.

The GIS can store and analyze the forest information in ways that could not be previously done. It can be used to calculate the harvestable timber in the forest or model the spread of a forest fire.