Application of PRA integrated GIS: Tools to Develop Management Arrangement for the Devolution of Mangrove Management in the Municipality of Panay, Capiz, Philippines 2.3 Method The research included two main steps (Fig. 1). The first stage was to create a table of attributes of the information and criteria, which would analyze the feasibility of proposed mangrove uses. The factors considered by this study include the physical mangrove forest attributes, site suitability and environmental factors, rules and regulations governing use of the mangroves, existing management issues and problems, and the potential use as identified by the local community taken through PRA workshops. This was done to accurately evaluate the environmental, economic, legal and social issues existing on the resource. The relevant geographical information were then stored in six GIS themes, namely: the Map of the Mangrove Forests, Map of the Community Identified Potential Uses of Mangroves, Map of the Management Issues in the Local Mangrove Forests, Maps of the Navigational Route, Map of the Mangrove Buffer Zone, and Map of the Aquasilviculture Regulation of the local government. The second step focused on the integration of classified data to speedily identify the types of suitable use and management of the mangroves in aid of planning. Information and propositions collected from the local mangrove community was compared with identified criteria to find the conflict area, which resulted to the exclusion of an activity from the list of potential uses of the resource. The spatial processes and analysis was done through the use of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to match up the existing government rules, mangrove attributes, and other environmental considerations with the community-identified uses and activities.  Figure 1: Methodology of the study 3. Results and Discussions The relevant geographical information were stored in six GIS themes, namely :
The different themes were overlaid with the map of community-identified potential use and management sites to identify conflict areas between the potential use and management and the government policy (the rules and regulation), and the physical attributes such as the mangrove forest through GIS merge theme technique. Using the criteria laid down for each rule, a new set of data was generated to reveal any conflict area between the two themes, e.g. community potential use and buffer zone (Table. 1). Table 1: Attribute of the merged community-identified potential sites and buffer zone regulation themes. 
The results from overlaying the navigational route, mangrove forest attributes and the community identified potential uses showed many examples of conflict areas (Fig. 2). These are mostly identified potential use areas that conflict with the navigational route of the Municipality. Considering the priority of navigation over all other waterway uses, all potential use in conflict with it were disregarded and taken out of the final potential use list.  Fig. 2 Potential use conflicts map In summary, some community identified potential use sites were disregarded due to the following main conflicts:
By overlaying different themes with the community identified potential use and management as base map, the resulting map of the potential use sites (Fig.3) was generated and summarized in Table 2. It shows the feasibility of each proposed use which can regarded as potential use and management options for the local mangrove area. Table 2. Potential Uses of the Local Mangrove Area
 Fig. 3 Potential uses and management sites map The final potential use sites identified in Table 2 and Fig 3 are when the government agencies develop a strategic plan for the future use and management of the existing mangrove resource. Ownership by the local community on the issues and plans stated therein is a powerful motivation for them to sustain the conservation and management efforts on the mangrove resource. |