Forest Inventory & Analysis Data Management Update: Nationalization & Virtual Data Center

1. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Production: Information Management Acting Group Leader: Mary Miller

2. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Data & Processing: • We will be maintaining a 7 year cycle for most states • We are consistently ahead of schedule • 5 year reports are rolling out the door! • FIVE completed in FY18 • TEN expected in FY19 • 8 states have completed 2018 field work • 2 of those states have been processed and sent on to the analysts for review and reporting • IM has been working with the Data Collection Group to get us closer to a fully digital method of collecting data on the plot for increased efficiency and accuracy.

3. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Virtual Data Center • All of our databases, tools & products now housed at USDA’s Virtual Data Center (VDC). • Security protocols at VDC are much more stringent and fluid. • Continue to have to rewrite/rework a number of tools & products. • We’ve finally made some headway with figuring out to deploy web apps in this environment, so hopefully we will start having more success with web-apps serving both internal and external clients going forward. • One USDA • Oracle 12c migration

4. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Nationalization • Resource levels and customer needs are really pushing us in the direction of greater nationalization with how we do our work and how we present the results of that work. • National Operations (NatOps) Team has been created to direct many of our new projects. • A few of our significant NatOps projects: • National Ownership Management System (NOMS) • Universal National Information Management System (U-NIMS) • UNIMS Geospatial Reference Library • Web Modernization

5. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Database - UNIMS • Replacement for the current NIMS, which cannot support our expanding designs and protocols • Provide for better and more streamlined storage of existing data (currently stored in NIMS), as well as future data for new protocol designs and studies • Enable enhanced metadata support. • A more structured approach utilizing modern design principles will allow for a more flexible, scalable, and long-lived system

6. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis UNIMS Geospatial Reference Library • Working with EDW to define a new Reference Library • Will store Authoritative geospatial layers used by FIA • Work with Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to acquire and manage the best available data for each layer • Regular snapshots from EDW captured on established schedules for each layer • Capture metadata for each layer • Stored in an Oracle schema in Oracle SDO Geometry format • Enable geospatial work within the Oracle Database while still able to be visualized in products like ArcMap

7. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Tools & Reporting • RPA • The RPA Forest Resource Assessment data comes from the FIA program, so the RPA and FIA datasets are effectively the same. • EVALIDatornow has a radio button that allows the user to implement the RPA definition of forest land. • The data was and is still summarized to the condition level and stored in the RPA Plot Summary Database. • An Excel Visual Basic Application is used to generate the reports needed for the assessment. • The entire National FIADB can be downloaded from the FIA DataMart. • NRS has been the RPA database steward for the past two reports. Pat will be here to see us through the draft of the next RPA report.

8. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Tools & Reporting • DATIM • For tabling, spatial intersections, developing monitoring plans. • 9.1 is in Production10.0 will be available at the end of year/begin of January. • With 10.0, all log-ins will be done using eAUTH.   • Much overlap has existed in FIDO/EVALIDATOR/DATIM. We continue to move forward with incorporating functions of FIDO and EVALIDATOR into DATIM … would be nice in future to only have one app to focus on.

9. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Tools & Reporting • EVALIDator • EVALIDator will be around for several years; will eventually go away. • Working to incorporate EVALIDator capabilities into DATIM. DATIM is already using the EVALIDator API’s. • Exists as both a desktop and web application. • NUTS - National Urban Tree Statistics • Web application for generating population estimates from the Urban FIADB. • Will deploy once the Urban FIADB is pushed to the production server. • FIDO • No longer available.

10. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Spatial Data Services • FIA continues to receive an increasing number of MOU requests. Customers want the actual FIA coordinates. • Cloud Technology • Google Earth • ESRI Massive Raster Processing project • The Spatial Data Services group is lead by PNW (Tom Thompson).

11. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Web Presence • NRS is responsible for both the regional and national sites. • Coordinated with analysts for better and more timely posting of annual reports & associated tables. • Will be working to add more interactive content, such as story maps • Will be working with the Community Engagement Team to improve some of our pages … visually, functionally, and with more relevant content.

12. Northern Research Station – Forest Inventory & Analysis Staffing • MIDAS is critical to our collection of data. The main developer will likely retire in 4 -5 years, so we will be looking at options for coverage. • Using our staff with added resources for additional support for NIMS and UNIMS work. • Web-based app skills would be helpful. • Thanks to Dennis’ creativity, able to retain most of staff (IM and in other groups) with move of Newtown Square office to Wisconsin. • Main concern with IM is the amount of work keeps increasing and staff remains the same.