Description
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are powerful tools to deal with spatialized issues. As such, they have become routine tools in forestry to delimit forest resources, support the design of forest inventories, map forest resources, and analyze, model and support decision making to sustainably manage forests. Two examples will be provided to show how forest management can benefit from progress in GIS technology. The first one deals with the optimization of forest roads to harvest trees in tropical rainforests. It required the development of heuristics to solve the multiple target access problem in a reasonable time. The second one deals with the definition of indexes to assess the level of geographic marginality in marginal and peripheral tree populations in the Mediterranean. It required the development of new indices based on mathematical morphology. Empowering GIS in forestry requires not only relevant data processing tools, but also easy access to data. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations provides access to national forestry statistics and geospatial information through different web platforms. It also supports the development of open tools to facilitate the collection of geospatial data on forests.
Start Date
11-2018
Document Type
Presentation
Keywords
forest, GIS, spatial
Session List
Keynote
Included in
GIS to address questions in forest ecology and management
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are powerful tools to deal with spatialized issues. As such, they have become routine tools in forestry to delimit forest resources, support the design of forest inventories, map forest resources, and analyze, model and support decision making to sustainably manage forests. Two examples will be provided to show how forest management can benefit from progress in GIS technology. The first one deals with the optimization of forest roads to harvest trees in tropical rainforests. It required the development of heuristics to solve the multiple target access problem in a reasonable time. The second one deals with the definition of indexes to assess the level of geographic marginality in marginal and peripheral tree populations in the Mediterranean. It required the development of new indices based on mathematical morphology. Empowering GIS in forestry requires not only relevant data processing tools, but also easy access to data. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations provides access to national forestry statistics and geospatial information through different web platforms. It also supports the development of open tools to facilitate the collection of geospatial data on forests.