About the ENVIS

       Realising the importance of Environmental Information, the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Government of India, in December 1982, established an ENVironment Information System (ENVIS) as a plan programme. The focus of ENVIS since inception has been on providing environmental information to decision makers, policy planners, scientists and environmentalists, researchers, academicians and other stakeholders. ENVIS is a decentralized computerized network database system consisting of the focal point located in the Ministry and a chain of network partners, known as ENVIS Centres located in the potential organizations/institutions throughout the country.

Environmental Management Information System (MIS)

       Environment has received wide attention and importance both as a subject and an object in the past few decades. Policy makers, academicians, scientists and researchers are on to find solutions for various environmental problems faced by the globe. Many times substantial data to analyze a given problem or to find solution to a problem exist but they are difficult to access. Hence there is a definite need at local, regional, national and international levels to enhance means of information collection and flow for a wider use.

Mandate of ENVIS

       Literature on environmental science and technology is vast, multilingual, expensive, and only imperfectly distributed or indexed. It is less likely if any single library can record, process and possess everything published on any specific subject, however narrow that may be. Environmental Information System (ENVIS) essentially helps in handling of huge and varied information relevant to environmental management and development. Now networks have been linked electronically for speeding up the information flows. Thus anyone needing specialized information can be benefited from the combined resources of a particular network.

Organizational Setup

       ENVIS is a part of an International programme INFOTERRA, the global information network of UNEP(United Nationas Environment Programme) and is being coordinated in the Country by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),Government of India, the national focal point in India. There are 66 ENVIS Centres(including state government and NGO nodes) currently functioning in India, which cover a wide range of subject areas. ENVIS at the Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, has been designated INFOTERRA's National Focal Point (NFP) for India and Regional Service Centre (RSC) for the South Asia sub-region. It provides referral as well as substantive information in the form of bibliographies, photocopies of the relevant reports/reprints, etc. The ENVIS Centre at GBPIHED was setup in 1992 and was assigned the responsibility of collecting, compiling, processing and disseminating information on the subject area of Himalayan Ecology.

ENVIS on Himalayan Ecology

       The ENVIS Centre on Himalayan Ecology is the sole centre in the entire Indian Himalaya, which is trying to integrate the available information in the ready to use form for the users of remote hilly regions in particular and for regional planning in broader perspective.

Information Dissemination

       The information is used regularly by 109 district information centres spreading across 12 Himalayan states in India; 30 Universities /university campuses, 10 Research centers, 5 Engineering colleges, and numerous NGOs located in the Indian Himalaya or else where in the country; and a number of experts working exclusively on various aspects of Himalayan Environment and Development. Information from ENVIS Centre are also sought by planners, policy makers and line departments from Indian Himalayan States.

Services Provided

       ENVIS center on Himalayan Ecology provides:

      a) Query service to users;
      b) Selected abstracts of published articles/research papers/technical reports           related to Indian Himalaya;
      c) Infrastructural data on 10 hill districts of Uttarakhand State;
      d) District-wise demographic data of 78 districts of 12 Indian Himalayan           states for 1991 Census;
      e) News-clippings service on environment related issues of Indian Himalayan           region;
      f) Information on R&D projects carried out on Himalayan Environment and           Development;
      g) Ph.D. theses on Himalayan eco-system;
      h) Publications of ENVIS Bulletins & Newsletters ;
      i) Forth coming events and many others.

Major Achievements

       The ENVIS Centre in the GBPIHED is facilitating and disseminating scientific research to improve production, management and conservation of natural resources. Some of the major achievements are:

• SUBJECT DATABASE: Development of a bibliographic database that contains more than 800 research papers / articles / technical reports exclusively on Himalaya. This database provides information on Authors, Year, Title, Source, Abstract, Keywords, Address of contact person, etc. It can be searched by entering a keyword, any field or by combination of different fields.
• EXPERT DATABASE: Development of an interactive database that attempts to sustain the records of experts working exclusively on Himalaya. It contains the records of subject experts in terms of details of individuals working, specialization, publication related to Himalaya, etc. This database can be searched on any specified field and hardcopy / ASCII text file can be taken on some/all selected records. Currently details of about 250 experts working in different fields are available in the database.
• DISTRICT DATABASE: Development of district database that contains the district level data of 109 hill districts of 12 Himalayan states of India. The sources of the database are primary Census abstracts and available statistical handbooks from concerned District Statistical Offices. The database contains the information on demographic parameters like total population, male and female population, decadal growth rate, population density, rural population, Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), literacy, sex ratio, working and non-working population, etc.
• BOOK DATABASE: This is a bibliographic database containing information about books on Himalaya available in GBPIHED library. The database contains more than 600 books exclusively on Himalaya and can be electronically searched by author, title of book, publisher, year, accessibility, Keyword, etc.
• SPATIAL DATABASE: The development of spatial database is the cooperative effort of ENVIS and MENRIS Centre of the Institute. Currently this database includes demographic data available at district level of all 95 Himalayan districts in India. The landuse database, a non-spatial database containing agricultural census data is linked with spatial information of district boundary for visualization of thematic maps for percentage share of selected land use type from 1974 to 1993 for the hill districts of Uttarakhand states.