GIS-18: ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: CLIMATE CHANGE

Order No:	GIS-18
Total Length:	60 minutes

Modeling The Impacts of Climatic Change on Terrestrial Ecosystems: A GIS Application

Reference No:

GIS 18-1

Climatic change over the next century could have a profound effect on the distribution and character of terrestrial ecosystems. Such changes would directly affect renewable resources such as forests, wildlife and water, which are inextricably linked to their environment. Using a GIS and a statistical package, climatological and ecological data were manipulated, integrated, analyzed and displayed producing a scenario of Canada's ecosystems under greenhouse warming.

The research consisted of three parts: (1) manipulating, analyzing and mapping selected climate data; (2) formulation of a classification model used to link the climate data to the ecological data and, (3) displaying and analyzing the results.

Potential Use of Geographic Information Systems in Local Climate Warming Forest Research

Reference No:

GIS 18-2

The real potential for climate change during the next 10 to 100 years mandates a need to predict changes in forests associated with predicted climate warming. Until now, most related studies have been global or regional studies using computer simulation models. However, much of our forest management occurs at the stand, watershed, or district level. This presentation discusses the changes forest managers should expect at the local scale and the advantages of a GIS approach.

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