Download - FRA Nepal

7.3.1.2 Output and timetable
Duty / Product
Timetable
Selection of remote sensing material 2 nd half of 1 st year
Pre-processing: geometry, radiometry 2 nd half of 1 st year
The map themes defined 2 nd year
Thematic maps over Nepal 2 nd to 5 th year of the project
The project staffs responsible for implementation:
STA, Forest Information System and Remote Sensing Expert, Senior Remote Sensing and GIS Adviser, Senior Data
Management Adviser (Regional) with short-term staff and national counterparts are responsible bodies.
7.3.2 Capacity building
In-service training will be provided to all employees doing visual interpretation. Image processing calls for training and it
will be provided to personnel, who will be in charge of these activities. The training should cover the ortho-rectification and
radiometric calibration procedures, image interpretation, use of auxiliary data, etc.
7.3.3 Procurement
The remote sensing material will be procured on the 2nd half of the 1st year of the project. The necessary software and
hardware are procured on the 1st year of the project.
7.4 Component 3: Open Source Forest Information System (OSFIS)
7.4.1 Data sharing and dissemination
The greatest technological innovation since the previous NFI in Nepal has been the emergence of the Internet. Internet access
is currently available through wired and wireless channels, including even mobile phone networks. This makes it possible to
share information over large distances and difficult terrain. The trend in forest organizations worldwide is to make forest
information accessible with standard Internet browsers. This not only makes access cheap and ubiquitous, it also drastically
shortens the learning curve, since modern FIS systems obey the same logic as web pages. Such an approach can be
considered in Nepal, too, built on open source applications and tools used worldwide, but assembled and localised to
Nepalese conditions by a local IT company. The OSFIS becomes the central repository for the production of dynamic forest
maps. It allows maps to stay up-to-date as new information is uploaded into database at the heart of the OSFIS.
Interviews with potential users of the maps (i.e. national bodies, regional and district offices, and community forests) will be
carried out and their information needs as well as the desired access method and frequency of these users will be
documented. At this stage, it is also possible to look into gender issues and differences. The means of access – those available
now, and those foreseen in coming years – will also be analysed (availability of computers and/or internet access, broadband
capacity, possible preferences for forest cover map hardcopies). A system requirements document will outline the user
interfaces needed for different user groups.
The DFRS is and will be the responsible GoN branch for forest resource data production. The end-users of the data lie
elsewhere and they are scattered in Nepalese society, in governmental and non-governmental organizations. Inadequate data
sharing was identified as one of the major problems in forest information management of Nepal (see Figure 1). To address
this problem, a data sharing policy of the DFRS should be formulated. In the present-day society, data of this type should be
publicly available, especially, when it is produced by state organization. In addition to public access to data, a data promotion
and marketing efforts should be made to maximise the benefit of the FRA activities and to ensure continuity of the FRA
process. When data is needed and in active use, it is more likely that resources to continue the work will be allotted.
The core components of the project produce basically two kinds of data:
1. Tabular data of forest resources by regions, forest types, tree species, TOFs, NTFPs, etc.
2. Map data of forest coverage, habitats, forest types, etc.
These data can be reported together as standard forest resource assessment reports. The outline of these reports should be
carefully planned in cooperation with the end users, i.e. the organizations subject to the data needs assessment. The reports
are to be published as traditional hard copies as well as in digital form as PDF-files to be delivered via email, as
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