INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] FOR BIODIVERSITY

PRESENTED BY: HIMANSHI DOSHI [RAJKOT] HELI CHAVDA [AMRELI] DIVYA DAS [AHMEDABAD] VISHAL CHAUHAN[JUNAGADHA] JAY CHAUDHARI [PATAN]

Introduction Biodiversity is the term used to describe variety of life found on earth. The impact of human activity has cause the problems like climate change, biodiversity loss, ebbing of natural resources and lack in non-renewable energy resources. New Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support environmental research and biodiversity conservation.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES AIMS: To make the use of ICT, playing a crucial role in conservation, preservation and development of biodiversity conservation. To make the fundamental research faster and more effective in order to make ICT a powerful tool for biodiversity conservation.

Objectives: The primary objectives of this divisions are as follows:- Serve for spreading awareness about biodiversity information. Serve as the national reference center for biodiversity related publications.

Relation between ICT and biodiversity Challenge of ICT: Set a link between “virtual” and “real” biodiversity.

Threats to biodiversity Extinction is a natural event. We know that, most species that have ever lived have gone extinct. In past, there have also been episodes of mass extinctions. In the modern era, due to human actions species and ecosystems are threatened with destruction to an extent rarely seen in earth history.

We can examine five specific types of human actions that threatened species and ecosystems: I. Over-hunting II. Habitat loss & degradation III. Invasion on endemic species IV. Pollution V. Climate change

I. Over-Hunting

II. Habitat loss/ degradation Habitat loss and degradation is an important cause of non-extinctions.

III.Invasion of endemic species Invasion of endemic species is an important and often-overlooked cause of extinctions.

IV.Pollution Pollution from chemical contaminants certainly possess a further threat to species and ecosystems.

V.Global climate A changing global climate threatens species and ecosystems.

METHODOLOGY With the advancement in ICT, we have invent many applications for biodiversity conservation. Examples are GIS, GPS, social networking devices, etc. Thus these device have helped a lot for its conservation. Fullforms of GIS and GPS:   G.I.S. - Geographic Information System   G.P.S. – Global Positioning System

Geographical Information System:  

Applications of G.I.S. :- For wildlife:- an effective tool for managing analyzing and mapping wildlife data such as population size and distribution, habitats. Vegetation Research: helps to analyse vegetation character, quantity and distribution from the vegetation map GIS files. For marine: GIS technology allows for the integration of geographic data and advanced analysis of marine datasets.

Global Positioning System: The G.P.S. is currently the only fully functional global navigation satellite system.

Social networking media It includes mobile phones, facebook, twitter, etc.

Conclusion     From the advancement of ICT, we can conclude that in upcoming years, we can decrease the threats to biodiversity and can conserve them in sitting home by monitoring them with many technological and communicational devices. Thus understand the importance of biodiversity conservation and use ICT in their favour.