About TIGER Web
Forestry professionals across the country are continuously challenged to effectively manage limited natural resources in an ever-changing environment. They rely on timely and accurate inventory data to make informed business decisions that ensure the sustainability of their assets.
However, for many forest owners, accessing and analyzing inventory data is difficult and time consuming. Often, vital stand and tract information is recorded on paper maps and stored in filing cabinets scattered among various locations. At the very least, searching, updating, and retrieving information on what may be thousands of aces of land can be challenging.
FORECON, Inc., a multi-disciplinary forestry and natural resources management consulting firm headquartered in Falconer, N.Y., understands the complexities many forest owners face in successfully managing large tracts of land. Currently, the firm manages nearly 300,000 acres of prime hardwood timberlands for individuals and institutional investment groups throughout New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Realizing the potential of geographic information systems (GIS) for the forestry industry, FORECON embarked on an extensive campaign to bring this technology to its clients, from developing mapping tools to creating a Web portal to help clients more efficiently view and maximize land resources.
FORECON partnered with GeoDecisions, an information technology company specializing in geospatial solutions based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to enhance its timber information management and mapping services. Today, these customized GIS tools and applications enable landowners to better collect, view, analyze, and manage resource-related data. Empowering landowners to access and control their own data helps them to more easily perform everyday business functions, improve their ability to forecast the growth of their forestry inventory, and preserve and manage resources.
The latest application -TIGER Web - takes the desktop application to a new level with an integrated mapping page that links to growth and reporting models. This new, user-friendly system allows forest owners to access data from any Internet-enabled location. Data previously stored in filing cabinets and formatted in paper maps is now available online in a central location, allowing any number of users to access the spatial data for current reporting needs and future inventory analysis.
TIGER Web is one of the first solutions in the timber industry to offer owners, investors, and management specialists access to their own data through a secure, Web-based environment. Built on ESRI ArcIMS and ArcSDE frameworks, users can run customized and standardized growth models on stands, tracts, and management units, as well as generate reports in Microsoft® Excel or as PDFs to view and analyze land resources.
TIGER Web also allows timber owners to quickly prepare quarterly and annual reports with unprecedented accuracy. The system draws from selected data and displays it through a mapping interface so users can easily view and analyze meaningful information. This improved access to timber data enables owners to proactively manage their resources and protect their investments by predicting future growth.
"TIGER Web is a revolutionary tool for the forestry industry," stated Mike Darr, director for GIS and database management services at FORECON. "Anyone from investors to management specialists can access and input their own business data from any location to visualize large tracts of land for better planning and analysis capabilities."
Integrating the latest GIS technologies into its business functions has helped FORECON improve its service offerings. FORECON's clients can now more easily collect, view, and analyze data. Through a user-friendly Web-based interface, TIGER Web users now have the ability to utilize real-time growth, reporting, and mapping functions from any location, saving time and money in the ever-changing forestry industry.