WEB MAPPING SERVICE TO DELIVER PASTURE RESOURCES CARTOGRAPHY OF THE MURCIA REGION (SPAIN)

This paper present the use of web mapping technology to deliver a preliminary cartography of pasture resources of the Murcia region, and to offer GIS functionality via internet/intranet. This cartography has been obtained within the context of a national SEEP-INIA project ’Characterisation, cartography and evaluation of Spanish pastures’. Shrubland communities in natural pastures represent the largest contributors to animal feed resources, whereas in cultivated areas sub products from cereals and horticulture crops (both, herbaceous species and trees) are the main fodder resources. Proper integration and management of livestock, crops, and degraded natural resources, remains one of the major tasks to develop new agrosilvopastoral systems. A model at 1:200,000 scale was obtained to estimate livestock stocking rates in relation to the units mapped, its potential biomass and energy production and its bioclimatic conditions and fluctuations