COMPUTER GRAPHICS FOR REGIONAL PLANNING: MONITORING WOODLAND RESOURCES BY A LAND INFORMATION SYSTEM

Abstract

To satisfy the cartographic requirement for planning at a regional scale the Csi-Piemonte has developed a system for computer assisted production of thematic maps. The activity of the Csi-Piemonte is directed at the construction of an information system related to the area of the Regione Piemonte. The paper will describe the cartographic results deriving from the research undertaken on the monitoring the woodland resources which is part of the land information system. The I.P.L.A. (Regional Institute for Woody Plants and Environment) has conducted the research and the Csi-Piemonte consults for the computer related aspects and the computer-aided cartography. Thematic maps such as, theoretical soil use, woodland inventories, type of vegetation cover have been compiled from numeric survey data, cartographic data and from aerial photographs. The cartographic data have been reduced in numerical continuous form by manual digitalization then reduced to a rectangular grid for the ease of integrating and evaluating the inventories and thematic data with topographical data. Tipically these are contour lines from which are derived digital terrain models and slope models. This process results in information available to the regional planner in the evaluation actual and future wood resources and in forecasting how to intervention strategies.