I magine a time when you can sit at your PC, type in the name of your local area, and up comes a high resolution aerial photography or even a satellite image of that area. Further browsing demonstrates that all the forests of Ireland can be displayed in 20 different classes. Analysis of the system produces a map of your County indicating the location of all the mature Oak forests.
More detailed analysis indicates the best location for a new paper manufacturing plant.
The project involved the interpretation and verification of satellite imagery followed by photo-interpretation. Together with the high spatial resolution of the digital ortho-photography and other datasets available to the Forest Service, the Coillte consortium were able to enhance the classification results to provide 20 broad species and development classes. FIPS GIS user interface. A number of factors have highlighted the need for a new inventory. The rapid expansion of afforestation in recent years has seen large scale landscape change in the countryside.