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| TRACK: Natural Resources/Environmental Protection |
| Beginning With Habitat - a Map-Based Approach to Conserving Maine's Natural Landscape for Plants, Animals, and People |
| Don Katnik & Colleen Ryan, Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife |
| Beginning with Habitat is a collaborative, public-private program whose goal is to maintain habitat that supports healthy populations of Maine's native plants and wildlife. The program provides local and regional planners with a set of 8 GIS maps that integrates information from many sources to show the locations of important habitats in each Maine town. This landscape-level information helps local decision-makers accommodate both growth and resource conservation. Since 2000, 167 towns have been mapped. Creating hundreds of town-specific map sets presents many technical challenges. Towns differ in size and shape, requiring different page sizes. The map sets previously were created as individual ArcView projects with a View and Layout for each map. Labels for base layers (roads, hydrography, towns) were "lost" in these town-specific files. We recently migrated to ArcMap to leverage its ability to access SDE, export to PDF, and recycle labels as external annotation. However, ArcMap's single-layout limitation has presented new challenges. Some elements (logos, text, and scale bars) and base layers occur on all maps, whereas others are map-specific. We have developed an ArcMap template able to rapidly produce all 8 maps, retrieve town-specific settings, and automatically adjust map elements to fit any page size without saving individual MXD files. |
| Emerging Species of Concern in the Perimeters Of Military Installations Due to Urbanization Encroachment by 2020 |
| Dan MacDonald, USACE CRREL |
| Using data from a DoD Species of Concern (SOC) report, habitat data was developed using 30 meter resolution NLCD "National Land Cover Data" data by using raster spatial analysis techniques. The habitat data was then overlaid with recent evaluations of urbanization encroachment trends near military installations developed using a simple eight-corner neighborhood analysis using 4 meter resolution Ikonos imagery; a prediction of the effect of that urbanization to 2020 on the SOC was made by calculating the percent habitat loss. The NLCD data and the Ikonos data had to be normalized for resolution and temporal differences before the analysis was completed. This was a first-tier analysis of the likelihood that an animal SOC would be adversely affected by urban encroachment in the next 15 years and might seek refuge on the nearby installation. If so, this SOC would become a potentially important species to the Army by requiring increased management and resources.Key terms for this study are: Urban encroachment, Species of concern, Threatened and Endangered Species, military installations, Habitat loss. |
| Custom Atlas Helps Rangers Patrol to Better Protect Resources |
| Karen B. Anderson, National Park Service |
| At Acadia National Park, two operational divisions, Resource Management (RM) and Law Enforcement/Visitor Protection (LEVP), were looking for ways to assist each other to get work done efficiently. One difficulty LEVP has is rapidly orienting seasonal staff members (who are often new to the park) and easily alerting them to spots to keep an eye on in the backcountry. RM's GIS Specialist designed a custom map atlas to assist. The atlas is about the size of a field guide; it is printed on "Rite in the Rain" paper using a color laser, resulting in waterproof maps. Each map sheet contains patrol zones, UTM graticule, topography, hydrography, transportation, place names, boundaries, and mapped locations of enforcement or resource protection concern. We print these in-house, which is labor intensive, but gives us the ability to update select pages quickly if needed. Map atlases were issued to backcountry rangers in 2004 and a few more will be printed in 2005 for patrol cars. We hope to secure funding to convert this to a digital atlas that will operate on a handheld; this would allow the atlas to quickly reflect updates to the data layers.law enforcement; atlas; resource protection; DS Map Book |
| Concord Roadside Invasive Plants Inventory |
| Matthew Barrett, Town of Concord |
| In the fall of 2003 the Town of Concord conducted a roadside inventory of invasive plant species. Observed species were noted on paper maps in the field, and these data were later transferred to a personal geodatabase. A WebGIS Internet site was later created to share this information with the public in an effort to help educate residents about the plants in front of their homes. The site includes pictures of each species along with a brief description of the plant. Before the user get to the mapping page there is also a list of links to other sources of useful information on invasive plants. |
| Applying Economic and Ecological Principles to Identify Vernal Pool Conservation Reserves in the Pawcatuck River Watershed of Southern Rhode Island |
| Dennis E. Skidds, Yong Jiang, Dana M. Bauer, Peter W.C. Paton, Stephen K. S URI Environmental Data Center, Coastal Institute at Kingston |
| Wildlife managers are increasingly concerned with the impacts of forest fragmentation and habitat loss on vernal pool-breeding amphibians. Legal protection of these small, isolated wetlands and the upland linkages between them is often weak or nonexistent. For amphibian species which exist as metapopulations, losses of these habitats can mean localized extinctions. In this study, natural resource scientists and economists collaborated and developed strategies for identifying and prioritizing ecologically significant habitat patches for targeted conservation efforts on the watershed scale. In the preliminary phase of the study, models were developed for two species and used to estimate breeding effort at all known vernal pools within a watershed area. These data, combined with land cost estimates, were used to rank 1-ha parcels for conservation importance. The concluding phase of the project will take into account ecological processes and resulting spatial linkages that may influence the long-term sustainability of biological diversity in the conservation reserves. Amphibians, conservation, GIS modelling, environmental economics, vernal pools |
| Perceived Importance and Previous Use of Geographic Data for Private Woodland Management |
| Dr. Kirk D. Sinclair, Housatonic Valley Association |
| This was the first of three studies done for a dissertation titled "Geographic Data Intervention to Support Private Woodland Management." The dissertation was prompted by a claim once made by the Forest Service that ecosystem management was made possible because of GIS. Forests of the Northeast are owned primarily by private forest landowners, not the Forest Service. GIS may be a necessary component for the management of National Forests and Grasslands, but can it be a practical component for private woodland management in the Northeast? This first study explored the current attitudes and behaviors of private forest landowners (PFLs) regarding the use of geographic data for ecosystem management strategies. The results of a mail survey indicated that PFLs were supportive of geographic data and ecosystem management strategies that relate to stewardship objectives, but the mental maps of PFLs, their mistrust of government, and the discrepancy between perceived importance and previous use of geographic data remain as obstacles. Intervention to overcome these various obstacles will need to be carefully crafted. |
| GIS Analysis of Forest Cover Types for Private Woodland Management |
| Dr. Kirk D. Sinclair, Housatonic Valley Association |
| This was the second of three studies done for a dissertation titled "Geographic Data Intervention to Support Private Woodland Management." The dissertation was prompted by a claim once made by the Forest Service that ecosystem management was made possible because of GIS. Forests of the Northeast are owned primarily by private forest landowners, not the Forest Service. GIS may be a necessary component for the management of National Forests and Grasslands, but can it be a practical component for private woodland management in the Northeast This second study explored whether forest cover types classified through remote sensing and reclassified with GIS could be useful to private forest landowners (PFLs) employing ecosystem management strategies. Though a remotely-sensed dataset of forest cover types could be reclassified as forest communities commonly used for private woodland management, field data revealed that the reclassified forest communities were not accurate enough to be useful. Further work in the classification of forest cover types should consider the practical implications for private woodland management. |
| Engaging the Collaborative Use of GIS for Private Woodland Management |
| Dr. Kirk D. Sinclair, Housatonic Valley Association |
| This was the third of three studies done for a dissertation titled "Geographic Data Intervention to Support Private Woodland Management." The dissertation was prompted by a claim once made by the Forest Service that ecosystem management was made possible because of GIS. Forests of the Northeast are owned primarily by private forest landowners, not the Forest Service. GIS may be a necessary component for the management of National Forests and Grasslands, but can it be a practical component for private woodland management in the Northeast? This third study evaluated whether information-based intervention, in the form of a role-playing simulation during a forest management workshop, could empower PFLs to use GIS collaboratively. The results from post-workshop interviews indicated that intervention promoting the collaborative use of GIS should be able to overcome the obstacles PFLs face in using GIS, but the motivation of PFLs to learn about GIS and overcoming the obstacles to collaboration remain important issues to address. While top-down intervention may address some obstacles to the use of geographic data for private woodland management, these issues of motivation and collaboration may be more amenable to grassroots intervention. |
| Advanced Spatial Analysis course in Sustainable Landuse Planning and ModelBuilder |
| Christopher Kroot & Gordon Longsworth, Maine Department of Environmental Protection |
| This
presentation discusses a new course in ArcGIS ModelBuilder software and
planning theory to support sustainable landuse planning. The course will
challenge students to grasp concepts of sustainable landuse planning as
outlined by Ian McHarg and to apply those concepts through data synthesis.
The process involves starting with feature based thematic data layers, applying
human values and summarizing these values to create sustainable landuse
'scenarios'. Scenarios are idealized landuse maps providing visions of various
options for the future. The course is regional in nature though the methodology
demonstrated applies at many scales and geographic regions. The course teaches
students how the ModelBuilder has removed the technical barriers of past
GIS modeling techniques that required lots of programming in AML or dozens
of repetitive ArcMap Spatial Analysis tasks. ModelBuilder enables processes
to be set-up in a short time, parameters changed and models re-run using
changed parameters in a few minutes.
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| Mapping Habitat for Rare Species |
| Tara Boswell & David Szczebak, Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program |
| In July of 2004, the Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program began a project to map habitat footprints for all of the current records in our rare species database. This was a huge undertaking, with over 7,000 records to work through. With recent revisions to the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act, however, revising our habitat boundaries became crucial, as these areas will be used to inform new regulatory boundaries. In this presentation we will discuss the rationale for our mapping approach- a laborious process of working record by record, map by map. We will highlight some of the main issues that surfaced, such as scale, accuracy, and the tension between biological judgement and the need for consistency. We will also detail our digital storage setup, wherein users can store mapping criteria and associate attributes with individual species polygons. We will then discuss the utility of the final polygons, and how we will use them in the Regulatory environment. We will discuss the pros and cons of our approach, and talk about the advantages of having such a detailed habitat layer, as well as some of the analyses in which we envision using it.Keywords: Mapping, Rare Species, Habitat, Biotics, ArcGIS |
| GIS Tools Useful for Air Quality Event Analyses |
| Martha Webster, Maine DEP Bureau of Air Quality |
| Maine DEP's Bureau of Air Quality has used GIS tools for a variety of analyses and official submissions. In Air Quality we have stationary monitors and mobile monitors on the sea and in the air. By including location information along with data collection one can map a given quantity as it changes in time and space. Since data from a mobile monitor is collected so frequently one finds a continuous line is mapped. By color coding this line based on ozone level one can 'see' ozone plumes. During the last few years that the Scotia Prince Ferry ran between Portland Maine and Yarmouth Nova Scotia, DEP staff placed a monitor onboard. The resulting data was mapped across the Gulf of Maine. In 2002 aircraft was outfitted with sophisticated equipment including an ozone monitor. Ozone data aloft was then mapped with surface data. MEDEP-BAQ staff has also mapped wind frequency information and wind paths (trajectories) to demonstrate transport of ozone into the state. These and other maps will be discussed during this presentation. |
| Massachusetts Military Reservation Fuel Spill 28 Conceptual Model |
| Scott DeHainaut, CH2M HILL |
| Fuel Spill 28 (FS-28) is a detached groundwater plume originating from the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod and flowing southward under the town of Falmouth MA. It was originally characterized in 1992 and is composed of ethylene dibromide (EDB), a fuel additive. The plume's flow direction takes it beneath the Coonamessett River and associated wetlands, part of which have historically been used in cranberry production. The core of the plume is being contained and remediated by an extraction well extended deep into the plume and also by a series of shallow extraction wellpoints placed further down-gradient at an area where the plume is upwelling into the wetlands. GIS is used to produce and consolidate a wide variety of spatial and chemical data describing this plume, including terrain and bedrock surfaces, along with output data produced by specialized groundwater modeling applications. These data are composed into a three-dimensional visualization representing the key elements of the surface and sub-surface environment to form a unique illustration of the effort to remediate this plume. These illustrations are used to help remediation managers visualize and interpret complex data, to support their subsequent decisions, and to show the public the conceptual understanding of the plume. |
| Forest Habitat Protection Using a Connectivity/Proximity Model |
| Nathanael Lloyd & Chandreyee Lahiri, MA Department of Conservation and Recreation |
| There is extensive research showing that contiguous areas of forest habitat tend to be more beneficial to species health and diversity than if the same acreage exists in small scattered patches of land. It has also been shown that lands that are in close proximity to each other can confer similar benefits as connected lands. However, the proximity benefit changes depending on the type of land use that exists between polygons. A model has been created using Spatial Analyst in ArcGIS 9.0 to evaluate the connectivity and proximity of polygons in one layer, or multiple layers. The model will also produce a grid that will serve as a measure of potential connectivity across the entire landscape. The model was designed to serve a specific habitat protection purpose but flexibility has been built into the model that will allow it to be used for any set of polygon GIS data.Connectivity, Proximity, Model, Habitat, Forest |
| Overlay Analysis for the Forest Stewardship Program |
| Chandreyee Lahiri & Nathanael Lloyd, MA Department of Conservation and Recreation |
| The Forest Stewardship Program, administered by the USDA Forest Service and implemented by state forestry agencies, encourages private forestlandowners to manage their lands using professionally prepared forestmanagement plans. These plans consider all associated forest-relatedresources to meet landowner objectives, including, but not limited totimber, wildlife fish, water, and aesthetics. A pilot effort, called the Stewardship Spatial Analysis Project (SAP), was launched to develop a GIS-based strategic management tool that allows participating stateforestry agencies to identify and spatially display: their important forest lands, land currently under Forest Stewardship Plans, and areas of opportunity to focus future Forest Stewardship efforts. This pilot effort was a great success and there are now plans to implement the project in states across the country. Key to the success of the project was the close coordination among partners, prudent selection of input data, and quality of cartographic products depicting results. However, the greatest factor in the success of the project was the careful design of an overlay model that uses a consistent methodology for all states, yet has the flexibility to accommodate and respond to state-specific conditions and needs.overlay, partnership, model, planning, forest |
| Vermont's Nutrient Management Planning Tool |
| Steve Sharp, VT Center for Geographic Information |
| The Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), in collaboration with federal, state, and local agencies, as well as producers, completed an ambitious multi-agency project referred to as the Idaho OnePlan. The project resulted in the development of web and desktop software which combines a myriad of government regulations and current best management practices to help farmers develop nutrient management plans. The Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI), in collaboration with NRCS VT, has implement the OnePlan system in Vermont. Web and desktop components of the application have been modified for use in Vermont. This initiative will provide NRCS Technical Services Providers (TSPs) and farmers the tools they need to develop comprehensive nutrient management plans. |
| Marine Conservation Modeling at The Nature Conservancy |
| Dan Morse, The Nature Conservancy |
| The Nature Conservancy is approaching marine conservation with several geospatial methods. Available bathymetry can be used to identify undersea ridges or canyons, and with better resolution may be able to locate biological features such as tilefish burrows. Where quality bathymetry is not available, a new surveying technique has been developed to spatially reference depths gathered from a common fishfinder.Methods to animate pelagic circulation have also been developed; values to be mapped can be poured over a travel cost surface, or "pumped" through flow vectors representing circulation. We have chosen data from the University of Miami's Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model from the many circulation models and remote sensors available, because of its relatively high resolution (1/12°) and large historical archive (up to 7 years). This information will help locate and track the movement of biologically significant features in the open ocean, to guide our conservation work.Keywords: Marine, conservation, modeling, bathymetry, circulation |
| Innovative GIS-based Approach for Tracking Local Development in Maine using Electrical Utility Connection Data |
| Richard Sutton, Applied Geographics, Inc. |
| Modeling the rate and location of land development requires a method of determining when new construction is actually built or occupied. Aerial photography, local surveys, building permits, can be used but each has limitations in terms of cost or effort, consistency, and interpretation. Electric utility connection data provides a consistent, broad based, and reliable proxy for land development. The Maine State Planning Office, the Maine Office of GIS and Maine's primary electrical utilities (Central Maine Power Company and Bangor HydroElectric) have collaborated to produce multi-year metrics for measuring new development in the state since 1990. This presentation describes the cell-based analysis framework that accommodated both the utilities' requirements for customer confidentiality as well as the need for accurate spatial representations of these changes over time. Cell size in this array is 500 m, and cells are populated with absolute connection values year over year. These data present significant potential for monitoring development patterns and guiding multi-level and multi-jurisdictional planning as well as providing a development tracking model that allows for easy creation of animated series in ArcGIS. Keywords:development tracking, grid-based modeling, planning, Maine, utility connection |
| THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION: SPATIAL PROBLEMS IN ONGOING RHODE ISLAND AND MASSACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTIONS TO RESTORATION OF A KEY SPECIES DECIMATED BY IMPORTED DISEASE |
| Yvonne Federowicz, The American Chestnut Foundation, Massachusetts Chapter |
| American chestnut was one of the most important trees of upland eastern forests until the early 1900s, providing a large, consistent food source for wildlife and humans and quick-growing, rot-resistant lumber. Beginning in 1904, an imported fungus decimated virtually all four billion adult American chestnuts within a few decades. The American Chestnut Foundation is working to create a population of American-Chinese hybrids that will be more than 90% pure American, blight-resistant yet retaining the American growth characteristics that enabled this tree to dominate areas of the eastern forests, and adapted to local conditions through incorporation of local "mother trees" into the gene pool. Volunteers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have been involved in this multi-state effort for several years, and mother trees located by volunteers in our area are producing hybrid offspring currently being raised in local volunteer-run orchards. Ongoing spatial problems include locating and incorporating mother trees that provide a good selection of local habitat types and genetic diversity, defining those habitat and genetic types, and utilizing volunteered land of these types. Additionally, growing chestnuts in orchard settings is a relatively new undertaking. Spatial analysis of growth and pollination at the orchard scale is being considered for the future. species restoration, American chestnut trees, spatial population diversity, habitat mapping, biogeography |
| Mapping Potential Groundwater Recharge: Soil Moisture Accounting in NH's Seacoast |
| Frederick H. Chormann, Jr., Gregory Barker, Derek S. Bennett, Weston R. Dripps, NH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY |
| Management
of groundwater resources requires knowledge of the spatial and temporal
distribution of recharge resulting from precipitation events. The rate of
recharge sets limits upon the amount of groundwater that can be withdrawn
without depleting aquifer storage. Unfortunately, recharge is extremely
difficult to quantify by direct measurement. Water budget approaches for
estimating recharge therefore occupy a useful place in the hydrogeologist's
toolbox. The method applied by the NH Geological Survey as part of a cooperative
project to assess availability of groundwater in the Seacoast region of
NH uses gridded data as input to a simple, soil water balance model (Dripps,
W.R., et al, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Circular, in
preparation) to map the spatial variations in potential recharge as a function
of physical watershed characteristics. Input grids include: daily meteorological
data, flow direction derived from a 30-meter digital elevation model, soil
drainage characteristics, Anderson level II land cover, and impervious surface
area. ArcGIS Spatial Analyst is used to create regular data arrays to execute
the model and view the output. Temporal variations in recharge can be simulated
through selection of the annual series of daily precipitation values that
drive the model.Keywords: groundwater recharge, spatial analyst, model.
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| Using GIS to Support Superfund Remediation: 2-D Map Production and 3-D Visualization |
| Scott DeHainaut, CH2M HILL |
| The Massachusetts Military Reservation groundwater remediation program became a "Superfund" cleanup site in 1989 under the federal government's 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The current Air Force program manages a sampling network of more than 10,000 locations throughout upper Cape Cod, monitoring and/or remediating more than 13 groundwater plumes, areas of concern, and source areas. The program makes extensive use of GIS, groundwater modeling, and related spatial technologies to plan, manage, and analyze the ongoing remediation effort. Because of its flexibility with disparate data and the value associated with surface and sub-surface spatial information, GIS has become an important part of the program's entire effort, from model visualization through report production to community involvement. To accomplish this the GIS staff works with a variety of applications, formats, and methodologies to satisfy the flexibility, quality, and fast-turnaround requirements of their clients. Traditional two-dimensional products include posters and formal report figures illustrating remediation issues, as well as digital versions intended for remote distribution and presentation. Three-dimensional products are often used to visualize the complex sub-surface remediation environment, which are made available in a range of formats, from AVI animation files to interactive VRML models and multi-perspective report figures. |
| A Web-Based Geographic Markup Tool for Capturing Conservation Lands Data |
| Sam Merrill & Rich Sutton, Enivonmental Finance Center, USM |
| The New England Environmental Finance Center (EFC) at the Muskie School of Public Service (University of Southern Maine) developed and deployed the Geographic Markup Tool (GMT), a web-based interface for distributed data capture of conservation lands in EPA Region 1 (New England). EFC worked with Applied Geographics in Boston to implement an application for compiling polygonal vector updates over an orthophoto basemap. This application utilizes multiple unrelated ArcIMS services and fuses them at the host location for serving to the web. The client side provides scalable vector graphics (SVG) editing capability over the orthophoto base, which allows features to be compiled to orthophoto accuracy and saved as individual sketches. These edited sketches can then be exported out locally as Shapefiles for integration with ESRI and other software environments. The GMT is designed to facilitate distributed spatial data capture among a segment of data providers with little or no existing GIS experience but with strong local conservation lands expertise and access to the Web. The project is currently providing orientation and training to field users in Maine and developing cost-benefit indicators for comparison with current state data collection procedures. |
| Natural Resource and GIS Support of Land Trust Planning for Natural Areas Protection in Southern Rhode Island |
| Andrew MacLachlan, US Fish and Wildlife Service |
| In a rapidly developing state such as Rhode Island, land conservation requires collaboration. Local land trust organizations found they didn't have the biological information and technical resources to evaluate regional natural areas data.ActionNine local Land Trusts in Washington County, RI formed the Washington County Land Trust Coalition. The Coastal Program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was asked to assist by providing ecological assessments and GIS expertise to the Coalition. This partnership first identified each Land Trusts' most important resources. The USFWS Coastal Program combined this information into several map views and tabular summaries for the land trusts to better see how their shared common important areas interact on the local landscapes and assessed the extent and consistency with which digital data represented the resource issues important to the group. This GIS work was followed by ecological interpretation and presentations of 'what if' landscape scenarios to the land trust representatives, allowing them to mold their individual interests to develop action items for a larger region. ResultsThese data and analyses will help conservation partners compete for land preservation grants, and will ensure that the most valuable natural areas in southern Rhode Island are protection priorities. |
| Two Variables in One Symbol: How to Make the Map |
| Wayne Richter, New York State Department of Health |
| This talk provides basic step by step procedures on how to use ArcMap to create a bivariate map in which a single symbol provides information about two different variables. Symbol size is used to portray the value of one variable, population, and symbol color is used to give the value of a second variable, trihalomethane level. The installation and use of an ESRI developer sample for a bivariate renderer is described. Construction of the map will be used to illustrate processes of symbolizing data based on a joined table, using definition queries to subset the data, and how to indicate areas with missing data.Keywords: bivariate renderer, map, joined data, symbology |
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