Development and validation of a Watershed Forest Management Information System

Abstract

In order to protect water quality and quantity, a decision support system, Watershed Forest Management Information System (WFMIS), was developed with Visual Basic^® and ArcObjects^® in ArcGIS^® 9. There are three subsystems: the Watershed Management Priority Indices (WMPI) is a zoning method for forest management planning with respect to soils, water, and aquatic ecosystems; the Forest Road Evaluation System (FRES) is a module to evaluate roads and road-stream crossings in order to develop and implement preventive management strategies, and the Harvest Scheduling Review System (HSRS) is a module to estimate the cumulative hydrologic effect of timber harvesting on water yield and associated changes in water quality. The system is an extension to ArcGIS ^® 9. It uses commonly available GIS data and has user friendly interfaces to assist foresters and planners to manage the watershed in an environment healthy way.