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B. Accessing new ways of collecting and translating data

The maintenance of environmental database consist of two basic tasks: collection of the information and their interpretation. As discussed in previous chapter, environment comprises of biophysical, socio-economical, and cultural components. Thus, the environmental database comprises the information of diverse ranges and are of multidisciplinary nature. Consequently, collection of these data differs largely depending upon their nature. Scientific tools and methods are generally applied for collection of information in biophysical components, whereas tools of social science such as, appreciative inquiries, interviews, questionnaire, etc. are employed to generate information on socio-economic and cultural components.

A comprehensive system of information management is necessary, which can provide a holistic perspective of understanding of the environment and its components. Geographic Information System (GIS) has emerged and applied as system of information management which can combine graphical features, with the numerical data to provide a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the information.

GIS is combination of computer software and hardware, which captures, manages, manipulates, analyses, modulates, and displays spatially referenced data. GIS thus combines features of what are conventionally called 'maps' with features of what are conventionally called 'tables'. The basic strength of a GIS is that geo-referenced data can be 'overlayed', and their interactions analysed. This can be done at a global, regional, national, or even municipal level, depending on the nature of the problem. A good example of the use of a GIS is the investigation of soil erosion. Erosion does not depend on the qualities of the soil alone. Other contributing factors include land use practices, rainfall, wind speed, vegetation cover, and land slope. This is a comprehensive and effective tool of information management, which has extensive application in planning process, and facilitate in decision making process in prioritizing the issues and activities.

The major usages of GIS application are presented below:

• collection, storage, and retrieving of the information from any spatial location;
• identification of locations within a defined environment that meets defined criteria;
• exploration of relationships among data sets within that environment;
• analysing the related data spatially as an aid to make decisions about the environment;
• facilitation in selecting and passing of data to application of specific analytical models;
• assistance in the process of impact assessment by interpreting the impacts of an activity to its environment;
• comparison of the available alternatives of a activities to identify environmentally sound option; and
• presentation of environmental information in both graphical and numerical form.

GIS application in the Environmental Database

GIS has an extensive prospect of managing the environmental database because of its strength in combining the geographical information with the socio-economic data in numerical data. This feature of GIS opens up the avenues of effective data processing and interpretation and their comprehensive presentation. Brief illustrations of its usage are presented below.

Maintaining an inventory of environmental settings: A comprehensive inventory of environmental setting of an area could be developed by internalizing primary and secondary environmental data into the GIS. For instance, a forested land inventory could be maintained with such information (area, growth rate, species diversity, density of vegetation and wildlife, volume of timber, etc.)

Spatial analysis: The graphical presentation supported by numerical data of an issue in a form of map, opens up the horizon of effective interpretation of current status and helps in predicting its trend. A comprehensive analysis of environmental impact could be performed in GIS with the input of data related to interventions in particular environmental setting.

Planning: With a comprehensive presentation of environmental setting and issues in graphical form supported by numerical data, provides an opportunity of planning the environmental conservation/ preservation activities.

Monitoring of environment issues: Monitoring is the process of observation and determination of qualitative and quantitative transformation occurring and to predict their future trends. GIS presents the opportunity of undertaking effective graphical and numerical monitoring of the environmental issues.

Other advantages of GIS:
- digital storage of data in GIS allows a quick reproduction of data in the forms of maps in desired scale and with thematic topics. This creates an opportunity of understanding different planning concepts in a short time period;
- GIS stores primary data in a digital database and allows creating the desired view of this data, drawn to suit a particular purpose. For example, soil data may be integrated for evaluation of parcel value, as criteria for its usefulness for the modeling of erosion risk zone;
- The time-consuming procedure of map updating is rapidly shortened and rapid map updating could be performed with much less effort and thus, time constraint between evaluation of new data and the map updating is decreased dramatically.

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