Assessing Forest functions of General Benefit with GIS

Basic idea of tjis paper was to show forests role in preservation and protection of biodiversity through general benefit forest functions (GBF) using geographic information system (GIS). Management unit (MU) Kutina - lowland forests was used as a subject of research concerning its partial placement within borders of Nature park Lonjsko polje, and a vicinity of potential origins of pollutants - "Petrokemija" Kutina factory, and phosphogypsum pisposal site.As a base for making this paper, we used digitized topographic map 1:100, 000 from which we used data about settlements waterstreams, while data about areas under vegetation was obtained by digital interpretation of satellite imagery. Obtained attribute tables containing vectorised data were conected to data of forest management of MU Kutina-lowland forests.To this data was conected data of general benefit forest functions too. Loading the table with these data back to ArcWiew resulted by getting a map of management unit with possibility of presentation values of GBF per category as well as reading values per departments.data about type of forest aasociations and distribution were taken from GIS database made for Nature park Lonjsko polje, and added as a single layer.That gave us a map of forest associations of management unit. Analysis of plant species within associations, and comparison with IUCN Red list of endangered plant species, Red book of endangered plant species of Croatia and The list of protected plant species according to Law on environmental protection (NN, No.82/94), resulted with data about endangered plant species within associations.Joining mentioned data to attribute tables gave us a map of management unit with habitats of endagered species.Final results of the paper is a series of maps, that clearly present current state of, not only GBF, but all elements of management unit. These maps could be used in veryday work as well as in planning of future work and prediction of potential hazards.