How to create a digital map for displaying planned forestry activities

Disclosure of planned forestry activities contributes to the openness of the industry and the prevention of corruption. To do this, there are several web portals to display maps of forest enterprises and their planned activities (including logging). The main ones are: Geoportal of Forests of Ukraine and the website of the Forest Innovation and Analytical Center (LIAC). However, they are specialized and available for registration. Oleh Chaskovskyi, Head of the Forest Monitoring Laboratory of the LiiS NGO, has created a separate map with planned forestry activities for the Uzhansky National Nature Park.

The geographic information system of forest plantations of Uzhansky National Nature Park and planned forestry activities was used to present the planned activities. To build a web-oriented system of Uzhansky National Nature Park, information layers were created, developed in the QGIS environment:

Fig. 1 General view of the geographic information system for Uzhansky National Nature Park.

To create a map of planned activities was used a list of such activities for Uzhansky NNP for 2022. Based on the given table, the PNDV, quarters, and divisions in which actions are planned are selected. The list of forestry activities planned for 2022 included: clearing of quarter clearings and road lighting. No other types of felling are planned for 2022.

The next task of the work was to create a page for hosting a geographic information system based on the QGIS project. The saved project with all the necessary information layers is translated into HTML format (Fig. 2). To do this, use an additional module (plugin) to create QGIS2WEB pages. This module allows you to translate ready-made QGIS projects into HTML format.

Fig.2 Geographic information system for Uzhansky National Nature Park converted to HTML format.

The described GIS was posted on our website. Information can be obtained by positioning the cursor on any object on the map. Accordingly, we will get a pop-up window with a full description of the object (a separate territorial unit of the environmental institution), as well as designed activities with their full description, which is very handy for discussing them.

This logging information system is useful:

       • for environmental activities of the institution;

       • for reporting to higher institutions;

       • to discuss activities with local communities.

For the environmental activities of Uzhansky National Nature Park, we propose to make a permanent account of loggers and their spatial location, maintain the relevance of information, and publish it regularly to discuss planned activities. Forest management organizations are also interested in regularly receiving up-to-date information on forest plantations from nature protection institutions.