The Utility of GIS for Assessing the Ecological State and Managing Armenian's Farmlands

The practicable solution to the problem of degradation of mountainous pastures/hayfields provoked by unplanned and unregulated use of farmlands is considered in the article. With the view of developing animal husbandry and managing pastures/hayfields, in 2011-2012, the Government of the Republic of Armenia under support of the World Bank implemented a Farm Resources Management and Competitiveness Program. The goal of the Program is ceasing a trend to overgrazing and degradation of close-to-village sites, using remote pastures/hayfields in the best effective manner, improving feed production and animal feeding networks, and promoting a growth in animal feed production volumes. To achieve that, the following works were planned and implemented successfully in 23 rural communities of six marzes of the RA (Republic of Armenia), which was done by three stages. For the 23 communities series of cartographic layers was produced and a relevant database was compiled and mapped.