Geographic Information System as a tool for forest management

 

Geographic Information System (GIS) is used as a tool to map, design, and monitor forest management including deforestation, afforestation, green vegetations, healthy vegetation, encroachment, modeling of forest species distribution, climate change impct on forest distribution, etc.

This has been professional app for development of new research works. You will find several vector and raster data through online. Below I have provide you some of essential links to get the data: 

1) National Geoportal (Link to National Geoportal ) : Download spatial data like administrative and political boundary maps from national Geoportal of Nepal. Downloading spatial maps from this you will be able to prepare study area map.

You get Nepal boundary, Province boundary, District boundary, Local level boundary, and Ward level boundary.

2) Climate Hazards center InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) (Link to (CHIRPS webpage ): They provides you the precipitation data from raingauge. You can download through the link directly through their webpage or maye be through Earthmap. It will be easy to download if you use the Earthmap platform. You can see my tutorial through the blog (Link to Earthmap).

3) If you are modelling and predicting climate change impacts obviously you will need worldclim data (Link to worldclim data). 

4) River basin shape files for river based research work you will find here (Link to Hydrosheds)

5) Different Landsat Imageries (Landsat 5-9) : Find through the Link to United States Geological Survey (USGS Earth Explorer website) 

6) Sentinel images (1-2) Link to Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (Website)

Link:Sentinel data

You will need to login to download.

7) ICIMOD lulc images download : Link to download 

8) MODIS fire data to monitor fire hazards within forest areas use VIIRS 375m data

Link to Fire data download : FIRMS

9) If you want use Google Earth Engine then you can learn watching youtube videos. (https://earthengine.google.com/). This is open access platform to explore online mapping without downloading data you can generate final maps. Java scripts are easier to learn. You can find open access datasets through GEE catalog.

You can access to spatial thoughts platform where they teach you python, GEE, QGIS

LINK TO Spatial thoughts webpage

Using different datasets and band images from Landsat you can monitor the vegetation indices as provided 👇 below:

To generate an NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) image, I would need specific data or satellite imagery (e.g., Landsat, Sentinel). NDVI is calculated using the formula:

NDVI = (NIR - RED)/(NIR + RED)

Where:

NIR = Near-Infrared Band

RED = Red Band

Using NDVI you can monitor vegetation changes.

Others:

Enhanced vegetation index (EVI) = 2.5(NIR-RED)/(NIR+6×RED-7.5×BLUE)+1

Green NDVI (GNDVI) =NIR-GREEN/NIR+GREEN

Normalized Difference red-edge index (NDRE) = NIR-RE / NIR+RE

Renormalized difference RDVI = NIR-RED /VNIR+RED

Optimized soil adjusted vegetation index (OSAVI) = 1.6[NIR-RED/ NIR + RED+0.16]

Modified simple ratio vegetation index

(MSR) = (NIR/RED)-1 

chlorophyll vegetation index (CVI)

(RNIR/Rgreen) x (Rred/Rgreen)

weighted difference vegetation index (WDVI)= RNIR - a.Rred

To monitor vegetation health  you can go through the methodology of this article: An improved global vegetation health index dataset in detecting vegetation drought

You need to calculate: NDVI, Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), Land surface Temperature (LST), Temperature Condition Index (TCI), and  and Finally Vegetation Health Index (VHI).

VHI = a * VCI + (1-a) * TCI

This helps to monitor the drought condition of forest vegetation.

Take reference for research topic: Determination of land surface temperature and urban heat island effects with remote sensing capabilities: the case of Kayseri, Türkiye