Rajasthan, the largest state of India comprises about 9.50 % of forest land. The Health GIS facilitate to visualize the Forest and Protected areas overlaid on revenue khasra data. Yet the importance of physical forest maps cannot be ignored, however these maps have limited use as not much details and old measurement units and other cartographic limitations. As the current developments in of digital mapping and Information technology tools it is possible to go ahead for better decision making. This facility will encourage subjective decisions & support to resolve land disputes by understanding the ground situations using Geo-spatial datasets. At the same time where topographic map scales are insufficient and have limited scope for present forest management issues as Forest Land Parcels/Forest Landscapes are more sensitive for encroachments and degradation.
This portal will be helpful for visualization of digital forest boundaries over the latest revenue scale digital map data with details of administrative boundaries such as districts, tehsils, villages, khasra boundaries along with forestry attribute of land parcel as Forest Divisions, Ranges, Legal Status, Notified Forest area and much more.
The portal will provide a uniform, scientific, higher & precise information in form of digital map data of forest land parcels (Forest Blocks and Protected Areas) with transparency to public information.
An atlas is a bundle of maps and a map is a symbolic representation of selected characteristics of a place, usually drawn the 3D surface on a flat 2D surface. All maps are scale models of reality only. A map’s scale indicates the relationship between the distances on the map and the actual distances on Earth. This relationship can be expressed by a graphic scale.
The use of digital map portal is depends on how an users view and interpret the data and it requires some training and orientation of various cartographic and related scientific method. Users may need technical skills so these digital maps are developed for forest management & decision support only. The data cannot be used in any form digital or physical as an utmost evidence in a court of law regarding land disputes.
Also the scale of digital maps generation has a scientific defined purposes & uses, so the data does not claim for every purpose. Hereby it is clearly informed that, any loss or harm by use of these management level map datasets does not claim the right to any compensation and cannot be used for legal purposes.
The users are informed to use the facility of portal only for better understanding the ground situations. There may be some variations/differences due to multiple data source overlaying & its time to time updation procedures. The in-build soft errors, technical limitations, real-time information minor gaps and digital map data management issues may produce some errors. So to reach on any decisions the ground level process cannot be ignored.