In the past effective conservation and management of the KS teak forest was difficult due the lack of comprehensive baseline vegetation and other biophysical data and information. As of 1993, the FC with assistance from the German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) launched a vegetation mapping and monitoring system (VegRIS) under the auspices of the Research and Development Division of the FC. VegRIS employs state-of-the-art technology such as satellite remote sensing, aerial photography, geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning system (GPS) to provide up-to-date information on protected forests in terms of vegetation cover, cover change, forest types in both spatial and temporal dimensions, forest encroachment, distribution and numbers of forest settlements and fire occurrence. Remotely sensed data are normally obtained from landsat multispectral scanner (MSS), landsat thematic mapper (TM) satellite imagery and black-and-white vertical aerial photos. GIS contains a large amount of spatial and attribute data. The remote sensing and digital image processing software used by the Mapping and Inventory Unit of the FC includes ARC/GIS, ARC/INFOR, ARCVIEW, IDRISSI, TNT MIPS and ERDAS. The Unit has developed this GIS database with assistance from territorial staff in the western region. Extensive ground verification exercises are conducted to validate the preliminary interpretation from satellite images and aerial photographs.
The outputs from VegRIS are woody cover database and forest maps at various scales showing different attributes of the forests, e.g. vegetation types, fireguards, fire lines, borehole sites, location of forest stations, different types of access roads, forest blocks/compartments, forest zones by use, topographic information, fire towers, forest settlements, cultivated areas and external forest boundaries.
Chesa Research Station, a sub-station of the Forest Research Centre, participates in the fire monitoring system for the SADC region in conjunction with the University of Maryland in USA. Information from this monitoring system complements annual forest fire reports compiled by territorial foresters. This has improved the system of accounting of forest fires in the protected KS forests. Fire maps are produced every five years using information from these two fire monitoring systems.
This information is used in the planning, management, updating of management plans and control and monitoring of the protected forests. Studies and research in the different aspects of the protected forests have resulted in a huge accumulation of data. These are stored in two forms, i.e. hard and soft copies. The ordinary Microsoft programmes excel and access are used for the storage and analysis of some of the research data.
