"Landscape Database Switzerland" is a research group of the Swiss Federal Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. This group consists of four scientists and manages a conglomerate of habitat and landscape inventories which are used for nature and landscape conservation. The main task of the Landscape Database Group is to process these inventories, especially to combine and compare them. It also includes the support of the database, the scientific handling of the data and their transfer from the government and scientific institutions to the users. The technical tools used are the graphical overlay utilities of a Geographical Information System (ESRI 1991) and some database software (Oracle Corporation 1990).
The aim of this section is to present seven examples of different ways of evaluating inventories on a computer system with the tools of a Geographical Information System. The examples also illustrate the contribution of Landscape Database Switzerland to the management of nature conservation in a country where much of the natural beauty could be lost for ever. The examples show the potential and limitations of some important habitat and landscape inventories.
Chapter 2.5.2.1 deals with the interpretation of the differences between the boundaries of several inventories. These differences could be due to insufficient precision of the digitalization, different intentions during the creation of the inventories, different mapping scales, or differences in the definitions of the mapped units.
The analysis of the development in time (Chapter 2.5.2.2) is important for planning nature conservation strategies of pioneer habitats.
In Chapter 2.5.2.3, an example is shown with differences in the data sets concerning the same type of habitat. The interpretation of these differences helps to improve and complete the data.
In Chapter 2.5.2.4, the use of habitat inventories for landscape evaluation is discussed.
The aggregation of two or more inventories into one single inventory simplifies the political utilization of the data. The questions around this task are discussed in Chapter 2.5.2.5. Data extracts of Landscape Database Switzerland are used to answer questions of special interest, such as the agricultural land use of wetlands in Switzerland (Chapter 2.5.2.6).
Rating habitats should be based on statistical analysis and an evaluation of different rating methods. Chapter 2.5.2.7 shows how the fenlands were rated to distinguish between sites of national importance and other sites.
Whereas in the present context the practical aspects of applications are considered, two other sections in this volume deal with the support of the database (see Chapter 2.6) and the data transfer to the users (see Chapter 2.7). Figure 2.5.1 shows the locations of the data used in the following examples.