BUILDING AN OPEN SOURCE WEBGIS FOR FOREST DYNAMICS PLOTS

摘要

The objective of this study is to build a WebGIS for forest dynam ics plots in Taiwan. Forest dynam ics plots (FD Ps) are charact erized by lar ge plot size and standardized procedure for field data collection. A total of 13 FDPs with areas larger than 1 hectare have been established in Taiwan, among them the 25-hectare Fu shan site is the lar gest. Every tree within these plots were sam pled, and the species nam e, location, height, and DBH were recorded. The census of tree samples in the FDPs is done every five years, which result in a huge tree database valuable for scientists of various disciplines. As a pilot study, this study utilized a combination of open source software, i.e., Prim aGIS, Plone , and Zope, to build a WebGIS (web-based geographic inform ation system) for the Fushan FDP in T aiwan. The W ebGIS pr ovides easy access for tree databas e and integ ration of various sp atial and attribu te data from different sources. In addition, by overlaying the tree data with satellite im ages, aerial photos, and a variety of thematic maps, the WebGIS can help the scientists address research problems on more solid scientific basis.