About this itemStory Maps are a powerful platform that integrate spatial thinking with storytelling to present information in a compelling, interactive and easy to understand format. The University of Minnesota StoryMaps team provides support and resources for faculty looking to incorporate spatial tools such as StoryMaps, Survey 123 and other web-based GIS applications into their classrooms. The UMN StoryMaps site has examples of student projects, samples of project ideas/assignments/rubrics and user guides for students. This team’s work has received national recognition for promoting the role of spatial thinking and StoryMaps in higher education, K12 and informal learning spaces.Author/ContributorU-SpatialOrganizationUniversity of MinnesotaOrg Websitesystem.umn.edu

This feature collection, UCR Timber Harvest & Veg Management Activities_2022, provides the proposed timber harvest and vegetation management data within the ongoing Upper Cheat River project by the U.S. Forest Service for Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia.Purpose:This data was created by the U.S. Forest Service staff for use in analysis of the project’s likely environmental impacts.Source & Date:The source data was created in 2020 and downloaded in zipped ESRI shapefile format (GIS Shapefiles.zip) from the USFS project page (Analysis folder). The data was downloaded on July 1, 2021, and subsequently updated. The data is current as of March 29, 2022. Processing:ABRA published the source shapefiles from ArcMap as a feature layer. That feature layer was published as a feature collection to allow grouping in Map Viewer Classic. The sub-layers were symbolized using the provided map document as an example (Scoping Information and Maps.pdf).UCR Timber Harvest & Veg Management Activities_2022 contains the following data layers:UCR_TSIUCR_WildlifeHabitatEnhancementsUCR_FireBlocksUCR_ExWLOMaintenanceUCR_PotentialCommericalHarvestUnitsUCR_FireLines Symbology:The list below refers to the data layers above, named as shown in the Upper Cheat Project map provided by ABRA.Timber Stand Improvement Units: Light blue polygonWildlife Habitat Enhancements:Cutback Borders: a purple polygonDaylighting: green polygonWildlife Opening Expansion: yellow polygonBurn Blocks: brown polygonExisting Wildlife Opening Maintenance: red polygonPotential Commercial Harvest Units: Cable Timber Units: green polygonConventional Timber Units: green polygon with dark green outlineHelicopter Timber Units: clear polygon with red outlineFire Handlines: purple polylineMore information can be found on ABRA’s project description page, hosted by the National Forest Integrity Project. Additional detailed information is available on the USFS project page.

This dashboard draws upon a live spreadsheet maintained by the ACJV to track progress towards goals identified in the Saltmarsh Bird, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Black Rail, and American Black Duck Conservation Plans. All plans are accessible here. This dashboard identifies all Strategies, Objectives, and Actions in each of the plans and tracks the ACJV’s progress in attaining these goals. The ACJV staff meet annually to update the information contained in this tool. This tool was last updated in October 2024. The next planned update will occur in October 2025.This dashboard draws upon a live spreadsheet maintained by the ACJV to track progress towards goals identified in the Saltmarsh Bird, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Black Rail, and American Black Duck Conservation Plans. All plans are accessible here. This dashboard identifies all Strategies, Objectives, and Actions in each of the plans and tracks the ACJV’s progress in attaining these goals. The ACJV staff meet annually to update the information contained in this tool. This tool was last updated in October 2024. The next planned update will occur in October 2025.

Beginning with the discovery of a "curious valley" in 1903 by Captain Scott, the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) in Antarctica have been impacted by humans, although there were only three brief visits prior to 1950. Since the late 1950's, human activity in the MDV has become commonplace in summer, putting pressure on the region's fragile ecosystems through camp construction and inhabitation, cross-valley transport on foot and via vehicles, and scientific research that involves sampling and deployment of instruments. Historical photographs, put alongside information from written documentation, offer an invaluable record of the changing patterns of human activity in the MDV. Photographic images often show the physical extent of field camps and research sites, the activities that were taking place, and the environmental protection measures that were being followed. Historical photographs of the MDV, however, are scattered in different places around the world, often in private collections, and there is a real danger that many of these photos may be lost, along with the information they contain. This project will collect and digitize historical photographs of sites of human activity in the MDV from archives and private collections in the United States, New Zealand, and organize them both chronologically and spatially in a GIS database. Sites of past human activities will be re-photographed to provide comparisons with the present, and re-photography will assist in providing spatial data for historical photographs without obvious location information. The results of this analysis will support effective environmental management into the future. The digital photo archive will be openly available through the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER) website (www.mcmlter.org), where it can be used by scientists, environmental managers, and others interested in the region.

The central question of this project can be reformulated as a hypothesis: Despite an overall increase in human activities in the MDV, the spatial range of these activities has become more confined over time as a result of an increased awareness of ecosystem fragility and efforts to manage the region. To address this hypothesis, the project will define the spatial distribution and temporal frequency of human activity in the MDV. Photographs and reports will be collected from archives with polar collections such as the National Archives of New Zealand in Wellington and Christchurch and the Byrd Polar Research Center in Ohio. Private photograph collections will be accessed through personal connections, social media, advertisements in periodicals such as The Polar Times, and other means. Re-photography in the field will follow established techniques and will create benchmarks for future research projects. The spatial data will be stored in an ArcGIS database for analysis and quantification of the human footprint over time in the MDV. The improved understanding of changing patterns of human activity in the MDV provided by this historical photo archive will provide three major contributions: 1) a fundamentally important historic accounting of human activity to support current environmental management of the MDV; 2) defining the location and type of human activity will be of immediate benefit in two important ways: a) places to avoid for scientists interested in sampling pristine landscapes, and, b) targets of opportunity for scientists investigating the long-term environmental legacy of human activity; and 3) this research will make an innovative contribution to knowledge of the environmental history of the MDV.

Mapped ideas represent points of feedback from Brampton citizens as part of a neighbourhood audit called the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Program.This data is a component of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Program, a neighbourhood audit public engagement project that is part of Brampton Vision 2040: https://nurturingneighbourhoods.brampton.ca/

This dataset contains 63 shapefiles that represent the areas of relevance for each research project under the National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal Hub, northern and southern node projects for Rounds 1, 2 & 3.

Methods:
Each project map is developed using the following steps:
1. The project map was drawn based on the information provided in the research project proposals.
2. The map was refined based on feedback during the first data discussions with the project leader.
3. Where projects are finished most maps were updated based on the extents of datasets generated by the project and followup checks with the project leader.

The area mapped includes on-ground activities of the project, but also where the outputs of the project are likely to be relevant. The maps were refined by project leads, by showing them the initial map developed from the proposal, then asking them "How would you change this map to better represent the area where your project is relevant?". In general, this would result in changes such as removing areas where they were no longer intending research to be, or trimming of the extents to better represent the habitats that are relevant.

The project extent maps are intentionally low resolution (low number of polygon vertices), limiting the number of vertices 100s of points. This is to allow their easy integration into project metadata records and for presenting via interactive web maps and spatial searching. The goal of the maps was to define the project extent in a manner that was significantly more accurate than a bounding box, reducing the number of false positives generated from a spatial search. The geometry was intended to be simple enough that projects leaders could describe the locations verbally and the rough nature of the mapping made it clear that the regions of relevance are approximate.

In some cases, boundaries were drawn manually using a low number of vertices, in the process adjusting them to be more relevant to the project. In others, high resolution GIS datasets (such as the EEZ, or the Australian coastline) were used, but simplified at a resolution of 5-10km to ensure an appopriate vertices count for the final polygon extent. Reference datasets were frequently used to make adjustments to the maps, for example maps of wetlands and rivers were used to better represent the inner boundary of projects that were relevant for wetlands.

In general, the areas represented in the maps tend to show an area larger then the actual project activities, for example a project focusing on coastal restoration might include marine areas up to 50 km offshore and 50 km inshore. This buffering allows the coastline to be represented with a low number of verticies without leading to false negatives, where a project doesn't come up in a search because the area being searched is just outside the core area of a project.


Limitations of the data:
The areas represented in this data are intentionally low resolution. The polygon features from the various projects overlap significantly and thus many boundaries are hidden with default styling. This dataset is not a complete representation of the work being done by the NESP MaC projects as it was collected only 3 years into a 7 year program.

Format of the data:
The maps were drawn in QGIS using relevant reference layers and saved as shapefiles. These are then converted to GeoJSON or WKT (Well-known Text) and incorporated into the ISO19115-3 project metadata records in GeoNetwork. Updates to the map are made to the original shapefiles, and the metadata record subsequently updated.

All projects are represented as a single multi-polygon. The multiple polygons was developed by merging of separate areas into a single multi-polygon. This was done to improve compatibility with web platforms, allowing easy conversion to GeoJSON and WKT.

This dataset will be updated periodically as new NESP MaC projects are developed and as project progress and the map layers are improved. These updates will typically be annual.


Data dictionary:
NAME - Title of the layer
PROJ - Project code of the project relating to the layer
NODE - Whether the project is part of the Northern or Southern Nodes
TITLE - Title of the project
P_LEADER - Name of the Project leader and institution managing the project
PROJ_LINK - Link to the project metadata
MAP_DESC - Brief text description of the map area
MAP_TYPE - Describes whether the map extent is a 'general' area of relevance for the project work, or 'specific' where there is on ground survey or sampling activities
MOD_DATE - Last modification date to the individual map layer (prior to merging)


Updates & Processing:
These maps were created by eAtlas and IMAS Data Wranglers as part of the NESP MaC Data Management activities. As new project information is made available, the maps may be updated and republished. The update log will appear below with notes to indicate when individual project maps are updated:
20220626 - Dataset published (All shapefiles have MOD_DATE 20230626)


Location of the data:
This dataset is filed in the eAtlas enduring data repository at: data\custodian
esp-mac-3\AU_AIMS-UTAS_NESP-MaC_Project-extents-maps

Examples of conservation efforts pulled out of Regional Implementation Plans. Stream lines extracted from StreamNet database.The Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative (PLCI) is a collaboration of Native American tribes, federal, state, municipal and local agencies, and non-governmental organizations working to achieve long-term persistence of Pacific Lamprey, their habitats, and support their traditional tribal use throughout their historical range spanning the West Coast of North America.The intent of the partnership is to achieve this goal, where ecologically and economically feasible, by maintaining viable populations and habitats in areas where Pacific Lamprey exist currently, restoring where they are at risk of extirpation or are extirpated, and doing so in a manner that addresses the importance of lamprey to tribal peoples. PLCI envisions a future where threats to Pacific Lamprey and their habitats are reduced, and the historic geographic range and ecological role of Pacific Lamprey are restored to the greatest extent possible.

In 2007, Washington State legislators requested a trails database, but funding to complete that statewide project was not made available at the time.

In 2009, the Federal Government outlined the need for trails database schema in their Data Standards Review Committee, stressing the efficiency in management decisions that a streamlined database can provide.

“The collection, storage and management of trail related data are important components of everyday business activities in many federal and state land-managing agencies, trail organizations and businesses. From a management perspective, trails data must often mesh closely with other types of infrastructure, resource and facility enterprise data.”

In 2014, the Washington State Office of the Chief Information Officer's (OCIO) Geospatial Program Office acquired a Nonhighway and Off-Road Vehicle Activities (NOVA) Program grant through the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) giving the OCIO initial funding to develop a statewide trails database based on Federal Geographic Data Committee standards. Using the same standard for all trails data will allow land managers and recreational users throughout the state to access and use the data regardless of administrative boundary.

"Data standards will make it easier for trail information to be accessed and exchanged and used by more than one individual agency or group…Ease in sharing data increases the capability for enhanced and consistent mapping, inventory, monitoring, conditions assessment, maintenance, costing, budgeting, information retrieval, and summary reporting for internal and external needs.”

Along with streamlining data and facilitating efficiency in management practices across agencies, the database will provide a source of trails information that is open and free to the public.The 2016 State Legislature provided additional funding from the Nonhighway and Off-road Vehicle Activities Account to the Office of the Chief Information Officer to continue work on the database.

Additional details about the project can be found here:

Washington State Trails Map

Please note that this map and its component services have been designed to work together as part of the web application.

Working both collectively and independently, Gulf Coast Joint Venture partners conduct activities in support of bird conservation goals cooperatively developed by the partnership. These activities include biological planning, conservation design, and prioritization, project development and implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and applied research activities, communications and outreach, and fund-raising for projects and activities.This shapefile is a detailed version of the Gulf Coast Joint Venture (GCJV) boundary. A more generalized version is available at https://ecos.fws.gov/ServCat/Reference/Profile/81415. This dataset includes the boundaries of the GCJV Initiative Areas: Laguna Madre, Texas Mid-Coast, Chenier Plain, Mississippi River Coastal Wetlands, and Coastal Mississippi - Alabama Initiative Areas.