Designing an Online Geospatial System for Forest Resource Management

Geographic and Geospatial information systems (GISs) have especially benefited from increased development of their inherent capabilities and improved deployment. These systems offer a wide range of services, for example, user-friendly forms that interact with the geospatial components for locational information and geographic extents. An online distributed platform was designed for forest resource management with map elements residing on a GIS platform. This system is accessible on non-authenticated browsers optimized for desktops; whereas the online resource management forms are also accessible on mobile platforms. The system was primarily designed to aid foresters in implementing resource management plans or track threats to forest resource. Baseline data from the system can be easily visualized and mapped. Other data from the system-can provide input for stochastic analyses especially with respect to forest resource management.