• Nieuwenhuis, M.A.
  University of Maine Graduate School
  

The increasing costs of timber transportation and road construction, together with the increasing need for more information to support forest management, make it necessary to have detailed forest road and structure data available for maintenance scheduling, route optimization, travel time estimation, road inventory, and new road location. The structures included in this study are: culverts, bridges, gates, and obstacles. A map based information system which combines computer graphics and data base technology, offers the advantages of both the sub-systems. In this study the identification of road and structure characteristics, the examination of the possibility to quantify and/or qualify these parameters, the development of a data-base model, the collection of sample data, the linkage of the data-base with the graphics design file, and the testing of the resulting integrated data base by generating basic reports and maps are described. An evaluation of the results is given, and recommendations for future developments in map based information systems are included.