ISPRS SIPT DEVELOPMENT OF BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR NORTH EAST INDIA USING INTERNET GIS

Abstract

Table of contents Table des matières Conservation of Biological Diversity will be major challenge for the ecologist in the forthcoming century. In-situ conservation, biotechnology tools for conservation and prospecting, understanding genetic variability, species habitat relationship and allowing evolutionary process of speciation are some of the challenges. India is one of the mega biodiversity centers and is also known for its traditional knowledge of conservation. The varied regions of the country, with unique floristic and faunal richness, their vastness, endemism, heterogeneity and also inaccessibility of large areas have necessitated creation of authentic baseline data on biodiversity. This information system is essential to monitor, analyze and plan action oriented programs for conserving and preserving our biological wealth. North Eastern India is one of the three mega diversity hotspots in the country. The region is referred as a cradle of flowering plants as it lies in the region of conjunction of biogeographical zones of India viz. Indo-China, Indo-Malayan and Gondwana land masses. The spatial characterization of landscape structures and its linkage with attribute information on the floristic composition, economic valuation, endemism has been developed in the form of Biodiversity Information System (BIS) on sharable environment. The BIS is integration of large databases using a concept of Internet based Geographical Information System commonly known as Internet GIS. The development of BIS involves the basic framework of concept, selection, and aggregation of fundamental and processed data. The information generated as a part of project entitled “Biodiversity Characterization at Landscap