Forests & Planning
https://www.globalforestresources.com/gis-mapping
Keywords: Conservation Plans, GIS, mapping
All You Need to Know About Conservation Plans and GIS Mapping
Webster’s dictionary defines “conservation” as “the wise use and management of” and is not limited to natural resources. It could just as well refer to human resources. However, our use of the term ‘conservation’ refers to our natural resources and how we manage them. Thus, a Conservation Plan is a planning document and as such, it contains a variety of information necessary and vital to make short term and strategic (long term) resource management decisions. For a variety of reasons, global forests are being logged and stripped at an ever-increasing rate for human ‘development’, agriculture, food production, and fuelwood. And even more, the increasing effects of climate change are taking a devastating toll on global forests. Conservation plans are developed as a planning tool to address these issues and offer solutions and adaptations to problems identified in the planning process. These plans are an integrated effort to manage the human environment.
There are several critical components of a Conservation Plan. The first being an appropriate and adequate inventory. An appropriate inventory includes forest metrics as well as wildlife species and habitat, water, and carbon resources. An adequate inventory models and predicts how they will change and evolve with the prescribed treatments. Which leads us to the second critical asset of a Plan, the actual documented management prescriptions- how each resource is going to be managed to improve/ increase their viability. The third critical asset in a Conservation Plan is the modelling, or projecting and predicting how the prescribed treatments will influence the forest’s growth, yield, and diversity not only in terms of timber, carbon, wildlife, and water resources, but also to predict the forest’s resilience, or ability and capacity to adapt to change.
The technical management of forest resources frequently makes use of a potent technology known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Data about forests, species distribution, wildlife habitat, soils, water resources, rare and threatened flora and fauna and other assets can be stored in tabular form, analysed, and visualized using GIS and mapping procedures. It can also be used to examine the effects of proposed projects and alternatives, track changes in forest health, structure, and age class distribution over time given the different management prescriptions and offer valuable insights into resource management alternatives and options. We use GIS mapping to monitor the health of forests and fuels accumulations, follow the spread of wildfires, and even anticipate and plan for the direction of potential forest fires. This allows us to make better-informed decisions about how to protect and manage forest resources and allocate scarce resources where they will be most effective. GIS is a valuable tool for the sustainable management of forests in innumerable ways.
The number of applications for GIS technology of forest management is expected to increase as its utility expands. Users of GIS mapping can better understand context, linkages, and patterns. Globally, hundreds of thousands of businesses use GIS to communicate information, analyse data, and produce intricate maps essential for solving problems. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a map is priceless. In our case, a map offers straightforward, visual information about the earth and its resources. By illustrating the size and shape of the land, the locations of its assets, and their juxtaposition, maps describe the earth in intricate detail. Maps can display the global distribution of many types of resources, including human resources and infrastructure.
Conservation plans are critical to landowners and resource managers. And GIS is critical to Conservation Plans and the planning process. Both are essential in the process of integrating and managing all natural resources and related environmental concerns. Both serve to increase public awareness, also. Both offer a range of strategies for protecting forests and educating the public, and both are crucial for maintaining the natural forest environments. For these reasons and many more, we need to believe in and promote this concept of developing planning documents that will greatly aid in our efforts to manage the global human environment.
The following thematic display, or map was developed from pixellated GIS data and mapping software: (source: NASA).
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