Data Dissemination in Forestry Sector: Need, Constraints and Trends

One of the main constraints involved with research and situation analysis in forestry sector is the lack of re-measured data over a long period of time. Since the forest dynamics and tree growth takes such a long time to provide valuable insight, the data gathered in a short time period is mostly not useful. Further long-term data measured at regular intervals to detect such changes is not feasible without an intervention of a dedicate institute or group of institutes so that they can implement a formal system to collect required data and disseminate in effective manner in a selected platform. Due to the rapid change of technology, data disseminated via printed form become less popular at present. Further, raw data cannot be provided in bulk via those methods. Therefore web-based data dissemination systems, especially web portals became very much popular among the present generations. In addition to the ease of data storage, there are many advantages of having portals such as data upload, data filtering etc. However, if the portals are poorly maintained or if those do not successfully cater the user requirements, the popularity will decline. This paper discusses about the different users of forestry sector data, characteristics of good data dissemination systems, problems faced by the users in data availability and different methods of data dissemination. In addition, advantages and disadvantages of web-based data dissemination systems, especially web portals are also discussed in detail.Keywords: web portal, public access to data, stakeholder coordination, improved communication