GIS strengthens water resource management Technology advances have lent a helping hand to innumerable instances of water resource management attempting to shield this valuable natural resource. GIS and related technologies have been active in this realm. The nature of water resource threats and sound practices to counter such threats using GIS and related technologies may be illustrated further with a peep into three instances in the South Asian region, South East Asian region and Pacific region.
GIS applications in arsenic poisoning in South Asia Arsenic poisoning of groundwater is a big problem in this region especially in Nepal, Eastern Indian and Bangladesh. Human health is adversely affected by drinking water contaminated by arsenic. In 2003 the USGS launched a South Asia Arsenic project in Nepal to probe this issue. Nepal was selected, as the Himalayan Mountains are the probable source of the arsenic released in this region. This exercise used arsenic analysis field kits developed by the Environment and Public Health Organization in Nepal and GPS receivers. Almost 2500 public and private water supply wells were located and the arsenic content in the well water was determined. This useful data was the placed in a GIS map and thus the data points were plotted over rectified aerial photographs or topographic maps to observe the distribution of high values of arsenic concentration. GIS applications in Taipei Water Resource Management Commission GIS and related technologies have been a very big help in water resource management practices in Taipei Water Resource Management Commission (TWMC) for many years. TWMC has two watersheds and five townships in its jurisdiction. Soil and water conservation, house management, zoning, sewerage system managemnt and land-use enforcement are some tasks to be performed daily for water resource protection at TWMC. At TWMC Remote sensing, GIS and GPS integration have provided a nice infrastructure for water resource protection.  GIS has been used successfully by the SOPAC for water resource management purposes. In early 2003, with the help of the European Development Fund, the SOPAC launched a project to address these problems. The project successfully applied GIS and Remote Sensing, which helped to acquire and transfer much important information. SOPAC's GIS generated information has already directly benefited farmers in the Pacific islands because it encourages entire communities to improve their agricultural practices. For example, excessive logging and other poor watershed management practices on the larger islands have altered drainage characteristics, with adverse impacts on agriculture and fisheries. Once vegetation is removed the topsoil is not retained and flushes out into streams and lagoons, resulting in excessive soil erosion, and silt-laden, nutrient- rich runoff. SOPAC has used high- quality satellite imagery and GIS maps to demonstrate the changes in the region. GIS aids governance systems Indeed, water is critical for sustenance of life. Author Dave Dempsey has likened water to the "oil of the 21st century". Viewing the dynamic growth of GIS applications, this technology will continue to create value in the realm of water issues, leaving behind many ripples on the waterfront! Biodiversity-Protecting the Flora and Fauna Forest - as a natural resource Over 30% of the Earth's surface is covered with forests. They are among the most notable storehouses of biological diversity on land, which house over two-thirds of known terrestrial species; they also harbour the largest share of threatened species. Despite their central role in the well being of people, forests are threatened by human actions on a scale and pace far beyond nature's capacity to adapt. This has created global concern for protection and preservation of forests. Threats A diverse range of threats put forests across the globe at risk. Some of the threats to forest resources are-
Analysts all over the world agree that the world is losing forest cover; the arguments concern the magnitude and location of these losses, and all conclude with some figure of net deforestation, commonly ranging from 50,000 to 170,000 square kilometers of forest lost per year (FAO 1993). Deforestation rates vary from region to region due to the political, economic and cultural elements working against the environment and the particular type forest cover and forest species in that region. While during the past decade increasing emphasis has been put on research on the biological impacts of forest loss and fragmentation, much efforts to estimate regional and global deforestation rates are motivated by the need to estimate carbon emissions resulting from deforestation. Several research groups have used field data on tropical forest biomass and satellite-based estimates of deforestation (e.g. Hougton, 1991). Until about twenty years ago, the only significant efforts to examine global deforestation were conducted by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), largely through collection and analysis of national forestry statistics. More recently, the development of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing technologies have greatly facilitated independent investigations of forest cover change for effective planning, management and sustainable utilization of forest resources, and thereby increasing the volume of debate. (Tucker, Steininger, Slayback, Gran, 2001). Each year about 13 million hectares of the world's forests are lost due to deforestation. The threat to biological diversity was among the hot topics discussed at the UN World Summit for Sustainable Development, in hope of seeing the foundation of a Global Conservation Trust to help maintain plant collections.  |
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