www.scholarsresearchlibrary.com t Available online a Scholars Research Library Annals of Biological Research, 2011, 2 (5) :533-540 (http://scholarsresearchlibrary.com/archive.html) ISSN 0976-1233 CODEN (USA): ABRNBW 533 Scholars Research Library Implementation of GIS in Natural Resources Alireza Eslami 1 , Bahman Sotoudeh Foumani 2 , Rahim Khazraei 3 , Zahra Pourjafar 2 , Kobra Ghaebi 3 , Salma Dehghanzad 3 , Zeinab Karimi 3 and Roghayyeh Kheirandish 3 1 Department of Natural Resources, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran 2 Young Researcher's Club, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran 3 Department of Natural Resources, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT The demands for better management of natural resources require management of spatial data and information. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) refer to the broad collection of Information Management Techniques, which store and analyze such information to contribute to the needs for planning and resource management. The use of GIS has produced remarkable changes in the way and rate at which georeferenced data are produced, updated, analyzed and disseminated, making production and analysis of geographic information very efficient. Furthermore, it is characterized by diversity of applications and can be effectively used in urban planning, natural resource management, query of species on the verge of extinction, selection of suitable species for afforestation, wood supply simulation, fire control management, monitoring fire decline, forest road designing, tourism development and other land use fields (e.g. land resource mapping and land use changes). In the past three decades, this potential has led to rapid developments in both theory and technology resulting in increasing technical capabilities and decreasing hardware and software costs. This paper focuses on implementation of GIS in forest science. In conclusion, GIS is an extremely powerful tool in proper management of both public and private sector organizations and is very profitable or timesaving in situations with high risks where the scale is suitable, where there is creativity, and where identical procedures are used repeatedly. Keywords: GIS, Management of natural resources, Forest science, Land-use. ______________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is defined as a computer based information system that is designed to work with data referenced by spatial or geographic coordinates. The use of GIS is rapidly increasing, as city, regional and environmental planners, resource managers and the scientific communities become aware of the capabilities these systems have to offer [89]. This technology has the ability to incorporate many different forms of data, and can be used for analysis in many areas [35]. The geographical data which is stored describes objects from the real