IRICC Meeting Notes

May 4, 2004

 

Attendees:  Duane Dippon-BLM, Kim Rivard-FS, Bill Bogue-EPA, Dana Collins-BPA, Dale Guenther-FS,

Jeanne Keyes-Titan Corp./BLM, Rich Kang-NOAA, Steve Lanigan-FS, Jeff Nighbert-BLM, Ian Reid-USDA,

Doug Terra-OR-OWEB, Debra Kroeger-FS

 

Duane Dippon (BLM-CoChair) Introduction

 

Jeanne Keyes (GIS Analyst Titan Corporation/BLM) Interagency Restoration Database (IRDA) Update

 

2002/2003 Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service data has been processed and integrated in a report format with the 1998 through 2001 datasets for the OWEB Coho Coastal ESU data request.  Currently working on completing the processing and integration of the BLM and FS data to complete the data collection for 2002/2003.  Still waiting to receive some unit’s data.  Working on completing a request from Dave Baker, Interagency Monitoring Team.  Data will be posted on the IRDA web site as soon as it is complete for this processing period, expected by the end of May.

 

Rich Kang, NOAA expressed interest and concern that the IRDA data remain available and posted to maintain interagency agreements.  NOAA collects restoration data from 27 participants including IRDA in support of scientific monitoring & evaluation efforts.  IRDA data is a part of their collaborative restoration database used to track restoration costs and effectiveness. 

 

Group discussion concerning the importance of who is collecting what, what data calls and collections are currently addressing restoration efforts, costs and scientific monitoring.  Is the data being collected meeting the executive, scientific needs to address Congress and PNAMP and support of the NWFP?   How is it fitting in agency/organization priorities?  Can we make a concerted effort for validation of past data collection efforts by requesting units to check data submitted in previous years? 

 

 

Ian Reid (USDA) 2005 National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) Imagery Acquisition

 

USDA, Farm Services Agency (FSA) oversees this program and uses this imagery for agricultural compliance checking.  If 50% of a county is agricultural, then the whole county is flown, if the agricultural area is less then 50 %, then just the agricultural area is flown not the whole county.  The photography is flown at 1:40,000. The imagery is flown in the summer with “leaf” on and less than 10% cloud cover.  FSA contacted the Oregon Geographic Information Council and they have organized a consortium of partners to try to acquire statewide coverage of NAIP photography at 1-meter resolution for the 2005 season.  The group is looking to raise $1.5 million for statewide coverage.

 

Group discussion included agency updates from the FS and BLM.  Rod Dawson (FS) has already acquired some 2003 NAIP imagery for the Willamette National Forest and is currently testing these products for use. BLM Oregon mapping sciences department is working with Oregon framework group.

 

Good opportunity to establish local partnerships and make connections to share costs.  This is an opportunity for IRICC members to get involved to help obtain statewide data.

 

Farm Service Agency (FSA) State Office in Tualatin contact is Jim Baker.

Email address is james.baker@or.usda Telephone Number:  (503) 692-3688 x 235

Randy Sounhein, OGIC Digital Ortho Framework Lead, randy.sounhein @state.or.us (503) 378-3805 x270

Additional Information about the product can be found at:http://www.apfo.usda.gov in the “White Papers” Tab

 

 

Jeff Nighbert (Bureau of Land Management) Serving Raster Data

 

The IRICC membership convened in the BLM theater area for demonstration by Jeff, the Senior GIS Technical Specialist.  As a lead beta-test site for Arc9, he has been working on implementation of BLM Oregon State Office Enterprise GIS strategy, using Citrix Servers, ArcSDE and an ArcIMS portal.  He has been generating seamless images and datasets in Geographic NAD83 decimal degree projection.  He ran up against disk space issues and has additional disks ordered.  Oregon & Washington seamless datasets for BLM business applications are hosted for internal BLM and Forest Service use.  Oregon BLM State Office datasets will be available for public access in the future.  Images are 80,000 by 80,000 he has been working on standardizing raster datasets and generating products such as slope & contours from the same source.  A process has been implemented to utilize the markup tool to inspect, identify and comment on errors found in the data with a direct feedback to the source host or steward of the data through e-mail.  He demonstrated access in ArcMap to the BLM datasets through the Internet to obtain seamless statewide DRG’s, hillshade and agency corporate themes.  Policy has been implemented to engage data stewardship and metadata completion before data becomes corporate.  As use increases evaluation of performance and production issues continue.  Focus of his work has been on business process, functionality of the data, and data sharing through hosting and serving.   Additional funtionality exists beyond display of data to what the GIS analyst customer needs, functionality of processing the data on the server verses working off the desktop and collaborative work between agencies. 

 

Address of Oregon BLM State Office Data Library to download datasets:

 

www.or.blm.gov\gis

 

 

Address of Oregon BLM State Office Product Development:

 

www.or.blm.gov\gis\showcase

 

 

Doug Terra (OWEB) Riparian Habitat Assessment

 

The Bio Science Group, of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, has available $100,000 to support FGDC framework data development.  The thoughts are that a Riparian Assessment theme is one of the critical data sets that has not been given enough attention.  It is important to the Oregon State Salmon Recovery Plan and the Oregon State Department of Fish & Wildlife for the development of a Comprehensive Conservation Strategy to receive federal USFWS grant funds.  Doug provided a handout of the Ken Bierly’s “Review Draft Oregon Riparian Assessment Framework”, a conceptual introduction to the project proposal of providing a proof of concept work plan to document guidance for assessing riparian conditions, functions, processes, management or project actions, and to track changes in riparian characteristics over time.

 

 Doug brought the topic to the IRICC membership for discussion and is soliciting ideas and partners to develop a work plan to utilize available funds.  Considering a range of ideas including a proof of concept test –using an ad hoc process to address content standard, assessment of riparian habitat in urban, agriculture and forest landscapes, working with GEO Science to pull together a 1:100,000 scale map of best available data compiled into a product, or laying the ground work to start data collections of 1:24,000 scale uniform set protocols.  The

Oregon Geographic Information Council is advocating use of Federal Standards. Providing a single point of focus to work with the many groups.  Added to Oregon Plan Assessment Guidance.  He is interested in what IRICC members would suggest for this project or money?  The dollars need a work plan and are target for use by June 2005.

 

 

Group discussion suggested contacts with Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring PNAMP and Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) effectiveness monitoring groups to move forward with data content standard or data theme development in a collaborative way. Consider the possibility of attaching riparian conditions to hydro or integration with Oregon Fish & Wildlife Stream Survey. 

 

 

Rich Kang (NOAA) Collaboration Web Site Demo

 

The NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center has sponsored a collaborative web site for IRICC members to communicate and track project status.  The site is secure and has been initially established for use by the current IRICC membership mailing list. Members will need to obtain a userid and password to gain access to the site. The site consists of a people contact tab with names, telephone numbers and email addresses of the membership.  Demonstrating the functionality of the Oracle database user-end tool, Rich navigated through the IRICC meeting notes and other related regional informational documents posted in the Documents section of the site.  Key to collaboration is the sites functionality of organizing and tracking project status.  Projects can be established with members assigned to them organized to track and document discussion, decisions and host end product deliverables. The site provides a technical interoperability between agencies providing a communication and tracking tool for partnerships with a focus on issues relevant to our region and increase visibility of what each of the membership agencies/organizations are currently working on.  The site also provides links to IRICC agency/organization web sites.  It provides a forum for communication between meetings and can track issues and agreements of IRICC priority projects for accountability and status. 

 

 

Steve Lanigan (USFS) PNAMP Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership/NED Northwest Environmental Data-network

 

Steve provided status overview on what PNAMP and NED (Stewart Toshach) groups are working together on.  PNAMP is working to standardize attributes, protocols and GIS layers used for watershed monitoring, fish population monitoring and effectiveness monitoring.  They are providing a forum for existing efforts, coordination between Pacific Northwest regional efforts and developing a network of data that can be shared regionally. 

 

Stewart leads the data management work group and is engaged in development of a work plan(s) to ensure that the data structure and operability is in place to manage and utilize the data between monitoring groups.

 

PNAMP group would like to work with 1:24,000 stream data and concerned with transportation inconsistencies.

 

A general meeting of PNAMP for providing status updates from each module is scheduled for June 2, 2004. 

 

Group discussion began with questions of parallel efforts of PNAMP and IRICC.  Both groups are supporting coordination efforts.  The focus of PNAMP is identifying data collection, use and needs of the scientific monitoring community.  IRICC creates the links on specific project or theme development, with scope, priority, technical, operational and delivery assistance.

 

PNAMP has a need for the IRICC sponsored hydro project to be regionally functional, providing an opportunity for them to advocate priority and funding from partners to generate resources and accelerate completion and delivery of hydro to meet their needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duane Dippon & Kim Rivard (BLM/FS) Action Items and Proposed Items for next meeting agenda

 

Membership Action Item:  Begin pilot use of the NOAA/NWFSC sponsored website.  Evaluation and assessment of the site will be addressed by the membership as an agenda item for the August 5th IRICC meeting. 

 

Members can contact Debi Kroeger at dkroeger@fs.fed.us (541)471-6616 or Chantrelle Nielsen at chantrelle.Nielsen@noaa.gov  (206)860-3435 for instruction on how to obtain their initial userid/password.  Chantrelle and Debi will co-manage the site.  Posted on the site is a document entitled “How to Use the Website” that provides instruction and guidance on use of this collaborative tool.  Members can contact Debi Kroeger or Rich Kang with your suggestions or comments on about the site.

 

 

Proposal for next IRICC Meeting Agenda:  Establish who is collecting what, where the data is stored and how to develop interagency strategic organization and set priorities.  Develop IRICC strategy, priorities and deliverables.  Revisit current work plan and adjust to align with membership organizations current focus.

 

 

Next scheduled IRICC 2004 Meetings Dates:  August 5 and November 2.