In Russia all forest and planning activity are based on Federal Forest Service, Forest project enterprises and expeditions (one enterprise per a large region combined from many subjects of Russian Federation - about 10), Forest committees (one per each subject of Russian Federation - 89) and forest service enterprises (about 30-50 per each subject of Russian Federation - total number more than 2000). Our GIS software is used (started from 1993) by many Forest project enterprises covering more than 5 mln.sq.km - North of European part, Middle Volga river, East Siberia and Far East - see the map. These enterprises are the basic regional centers for the propagation of GIS forest databases, software and technologies into the regions up to the level of forest service enterprises. Forest project enterprises create the new forest GIS database for each forest service enterprise each 10 years and put the database for the current update to them. So the process of GIS penetration to the forest service enterprises started in 1995 and is growing now. Our GIS software is also used in Forest Academies in Sankt-Petersburg and Ekaterinburg as the education tool as well as in some forest Research Institutes for research.

We help to organize the process of forest project GIS database design so that the regional GIS infrastructure is used as much as possible and the results are represented as the layers and attribute database in the same regional GIS infrastructure (new forest layer of digital topographic maps, available for road planners, pipeline companies etc.). The current update of the forest data in forest service enterprises logically looks like the update of this part of regional GIS infrastructure (besides forest needs itself). This is the way to use GIS as, first of all, unique tool for integration of data, permanently created by different organizations of the same territory.

Forest GIS projects in 1:25 000 scale give the detail forest cadastral data (about 1-2 millions elementary forest polygons for region with about 100 indices for each polygon)

Russia is one of the most reach countries in the world in aspect of mineral resources (gas, oil, coal, iron and other metals, gold, diamonds etc.) and has a developed structure of geological organizations. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources is the main organizations responsible for geological data. It includes the Main Computing and Scientific Center (GlavNIVC), the network of regional computing centers along the country as well as computing labs and groups in geological committees and geological funds in each region (subject of Russian Federation) and up to the many geological expeditions.

From the beginning of 1990 this system is actively implementing GIS and now it is the mostly developed vertical information system using GIS in Russia. The system is developed in close cooperation with USGS. The core part of the system is based on several hundreds ESRI products (ARC/INFO for SUN and partly for PC, ArcView and other products) and as the complementary GIS product all centers use our software GeoDraw / GeoGraph / GeoConstructor (more than 600 installations). The complementary GIS products are selected on the base of competition between many products and by tests and orders from the regional organizations. This wide experience has proved that such a combination of GIS products is valid and effective from the point of view of the cost, data exchange and functional capabilities and from many other sides.

Besides the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, GIS are actively used in many governmental and joint stock oil and gas companies. Often you can meet there the same combination of GIS software products as well as sometimes MapInfo. We help them to create geological database as a part of regional GIS infrastructure.

Our GIS software is used for oil transportation system from Russia to Europe through Belorussia (the main way of oil export from Russia), for gas pipeline diagnostics and repairing, for emergency management on communications.

In field of ecology GIS are used by the Federal Center of Geoecological systems of the Russian Ministry of Ecology, by regional and municipal ecological committees, by administrations of natural reserves and parks, by state, municipal and private project ecological firms, as well as by respective faculties of universities and research institutes. All mentioned types of organizations use our GIS software GeoDraw / GeoGraph / GeoConstructor for GIS database creation, support and for environmental management. The use of data created by many other organizations is the special feature of ecological activity. Therefore the use of regional and municipal GIS infrastructure is very important in this field. The example of GIS applications like "overlay on fly" is presented on the picture (overlay of pollution zones by different components). You need only select the layers to overlay and apply a query (spatial, QBE, SQL query) and the results as a critical zones will be immediately displayed and reported.

Our GeoConstructor-based GIS application is used since 1996 by Moscow city 911 emergency service for monitoring of the service vehicles. 911 has about 300 cars moving along the city and having radio modems and simple GPS. On the central station the situation is managed by use of GIS application displaying the current position and the parameters of each vehicle in action.

In this field GIS are used by the Federal auto road service, by regional road committees as well some project, education and research institutes.
In field of auto roads from 1994 the popular direction was to create GIS as the updated digital map of roads of the region linked to the attribute database of road passports. As the result the existing disorder in the road passport databases was discovered by use of GIS and the required changes of data quality were done. Essentially that sometimes finally such a work cost nothing for road committees � the road map was published from GIS and the profit from the selling of this map fully covered all expenses for GIS creation! By such a way auto road GIS were created by our GIS software more than in 10 regions. The layer of such updated roads and linked database was used as a part of regional GIS infrastructure.

• The growing direction in 1998-1999 is to integrate the road GIS with field survey data during road inventory, linking it with land cadastral system as well as road projecting and constructing. The sample of integration of field survey digital coordinate data by using real time (RTK) GPS into our GIS GeoDraw / GeoGraph see here.

Land cadastral system is a developing direction in Russia due to the implementation the new relations like "private property for immobility", "land rent" and "land ownership and property" as one of the most important parts of transaction to the market economy from 1992.
Our GIS software is used by many regional and land committees for creation of cadastral maps and as GIS subsystem of cadastral document system. The special subjects are GIS/GPS integration and help to design land cadastral systems as a part of regional and municipal GIS infrastructure, as well as the interaction between information systems of land committees and other services on the same territory. Our GIS software is also certified by the Federal state land center for use for cadastral mapping.

Our GIS software is actively used by many organizations working in projection, constructing, repairing and using of networks such as electricity, gas, water, hot water supply in Moscow, Podolsk, Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, Novokuznetsk etc, as well gas and oil pipelines.
Especially interest is the project of Moscow city devoted to technology of interaction between information systems of gas, electricity, water supply services and companies with city GIS infrastructure on project, construction and exploiting stages.

Our key directions is to support regional, city and municipal GIS centers. We help them in the following directions:

• to create GIS infrastructure of the region/city/municipality as a tool (an environment) to attract the investors to the territory;
  GIS infrastructure is not an information only, but the joint space of different rights and regulations of the territory (all the respective geocoordinate descriptions are integrated in the regional/city/municipal information register);

• to interact with activities of different ministries and organizations which create and register the coordinate descriptions of rights and regulations by on the same territory;

• to develop GIS as a tool for interaction between population, regional/city/municipal administrations and investors;

• to facilitate the activity of investors from the preliminary stages of any projects on the respective territory to project, building and exploiting stages;

• to help to save money using GIS and to get profit for all the participants; GIS is a tool to prevent lot of duplicated expenses and to get additional effects for many participants simultaneously;

• to prepare specialists which are able to solve the mentioned tasks.

We do such an activity everywhere, for example in Komi republic, Nenetsky autonom okrug, Moscow city, Togluatti city etc.

Reconstruction of geodetic network and space images as elements of the spatial data infrastructure.

The register of administrative boundaries in GIS as a part of the regional GIS infrastructure.

GIS will play an important role only if the duties to implement GIS and to use GIS will be included into the system of laws, legal regulations and technical norms. Therefore we try to include the respective part to any GIS project.
It includes:

• the investigation of existing documents and extracting all the requirements in creation and use of map/coordinate descriptions in the concrete area; it is essential to investigate all the relations which touch the spatial data infrastructure of the regions/cities;

• building the graphs of all the existing relations in this field;

• analysis of required changes in the existing documents which will be necessary to implement in order to get the maximal effects from GIS;

• preparation of the draft of regional laws, legal regulations and technical norms and making test projects before the final signing of the documents.

Our GIS software is used by a set of specialized geodetical and cartographical enterprises for map digitizing and distributing in any formats, for processing of raster images, for preparation maps both for GIS and publishing in traditional and electronic forms.

Our GIS software is used for election activities from federal and regional to local levels. It is used for creation of electronic portraits of electoral districts including multiple social-economic and ecological variables, for electoral programs, for the analysis and interpretation results of elections and for forecasting. It is used for the federal level and regional election campaigns since 1995

Our GIS software is used more than in 50 universities and colleges in Russia and abroad. The Center takes part in the Russian Ministry of education GIS activity to support the system of regional advanced information and technological centers belonging universities. We help them by the software, education, searching for the projects, design GIS technologies, experience etc. We are also closely collaborate with Russian branch of UNIGIS started in 1999.
About 50 academic and research institutes use our GIS software for experimental projects, case studies, applications etc. in wide range of areas.