Inside certain basins, the planning of forestry operations must be made as to not increase the water flood peak. On those territories, the equivalent cut area (ECA) must be equal or inferior to 50%.

GSF A.E.C. automatically calculates, on a polygon (watershed area), the equivalent cut area, meaning the area on which over the years, there have been disturbances of both human and natural origins. This index value is expressed in terms of area cut for the year of reference.

The application is presented as an easily accessible toolbar in ArcMap. This tool consists of functions for management and configuration in addition to the main function for the calculation process.

Thanks to a user-friendly interface, the user can calculate on one or multiple basins (serial processes) by simply specifying the layers for the watersheds, the forest tree populations and updated forestry interventions.

The results of the calculations can be presented in a Crystal Report text file or simply saved in the basin layer itself. The result data include the ECA area, the ECA index and the year of reference.

The "Codes and factors manager " interface allows the user to modify the regressive cutting effects rates which are the weighting factors that the application will consider while processing the data.

The default values entered into the database are those provided by the ECA calculations method produced by the Quebec Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife in September of 2004. The user can add or change de codes and factors of extension to fit his or her needs.

Moreover, this extension allows the dynamic configuration of the field names used to facilitate its processing and usage.

This configuration may be different for each of the separate layers of basins, tree populations and forestry interventions.