ABSTRACT
The framework starts at the lowest level of sophistication in GIS use within environmental management, looking at GIS applications where these systems seem to be used just for the production of maps for visual use by
decision-makers or researchers. Sometimes these systems may evolve into allpurpose management systems using GIS in more sophisticated ways, as was the case, for example with the fully integrated information system for New South Wales developed at the CSIRO research institute in Australia (Walker and Young, 1997). Taking this as a valid – albeit temporary – category, one of the typical uses of such mapping systems is to provide areawide information systems, to service a varied range of needs in a particular area:
1 Prominent in this class is what we can call general environmental inventories used for monitoring the environment, like the early Massachusetts environmental database (Taupier and Terner, 1991), or similar systems for North Estonia (Meiner et al., 1990), for Hungary (Scharek et al., 1995), for the ecological regions of the Netherlands (Klijn et al., 1995), for the Rif mountains in Morocco (Moore et al., 1998), for the National Wilderness Preservation System in the US (Lomis and Echohawk, 1999), for the Antarctic Treaty area (Cordonnery, 1999), or for the Papua New Guinea Resource Information System (Montagu, 2000).
