Harvesting Information to Sustain our Forests: Creating an Adaptive Management Portal

1. Harvesting Information to Sustain our Forests: Creating an Adaptive Management Portal NSF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT PROGRAM www.cse.ogi.edu/forest

2. Principal Team Members Tim Tolle Regional Coordinator for AMA, US Forest Service Eric Landis Forest Information System Specialist, Consultant Craig Palmer Natural Resources Monitoring Expert, UNLV Fred Phillips Professor & Head, Mgt. of Science and Tech., OGI Patty Toccalino Asst. Prof., Environmental Science and Eng., OGI Lois Delcambre Professor, Computer Science and Eng., OGI David Maier Shawn Bowers Mat Weaver Professor, Computer Science and Eng., OGI PhD Student, Computer Science and Eng., OGI PhD Student, Computer Science and Eng., OGI Forest/env. expertise Computer science expertise

3. PROJECT FACTOIDS • Duration: 3 years • Budget: $1.5 million • Participants: • Adaptive Management Areas (Tim Tolle) • Oregon Graduate Institute (Lois Delcambre, David Maier, Patty Toccalino, Fred Phillips), • Natural Resource Information Specialist (Eric Landis) • Federal Agencies: Forest Service (Northwest Region), PNW Research Station, Bureau of Land Management, National Science Foundation, Fish and Wildlife Service • Location: Western Washington, Oregon and California

4. Assistant Director, Ecosystem Mgt., USDA, Forest Service Steve Solem Advisory Board Co-Inventor of the Topic Map Model Michel Biezunski President, IUFRO, Oxford Forestry Institute, Dept of Plant Sciences Jeff Burley Martin Goebel Sustainable Northwest MD, Asst. Professor, Division of Medical Informatics and Outcomes Research, OHSU Paul Gorman Executive Director, IMFN Secretariat Fred Johnson Chief, Office of Technical Support, Forest Resources, USDI Fish and Wildlife Service Monty Knudsen Communications Director, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station Cynthia L. Miner Science Advisor, USDI, National Park Service Regina Rochefort Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Mark Whiting Forest/environmental expertise Computer science expertise

5. Current Natural Resource Information Management Conditions • Diversity of Information Content • Spatial Scale - from genes to ecosystems • Temporal Scale – that’s biological science • Both biological and non-biological information • Numerous Formats • Napkins to GIS including tabular, graphic, text, video, audio, physical specimens • Providers provide data – Users seek knowledge

6. Current Conditions (cont.) • Numerous Independent Locations of Holdings • Desktop corners, old floppies, hard drives, libraries, websites, home offices, back rooms • More Mandates Regarding Collection, Management and Dissemination • EO 12906 – “standardized documentation” • NEPA – provide environmental effects of management actions to decision makers & public • FOIA – access to federal documents • Unit and Project “Mandates”

7. Current Conditions (cont.) • Multiple Stakeholders • Providers - data “owners”, support staff, archivists, budget personnel, webmasters • Users – resource managers, K-PhD, business, policymakers, researchers, public interests • Numerous Controlled Vocabularies & Thesauri • Integrated Taxonomic Information Service Database • Global Change Master Directory Keyword List • NBII Thesaurus (early 2001) • WMC’s Recommended Watershed Terminology • NRCS Climate Glossary • “Local” and Individual Keyword Lists

8. Challenges • Easy Access for All Levels of Expertise • Turning Data into Knowledge - Usable • Making Contributions Simple • Low Cost • Interoperable Searching • Persistent Information • Provide Quality Assurance • Encourage the Use of Standards

9. Adaptive Management Areas

10. Plan & Set Directions Evaluate Continuous (Lessons Act Management Learned) Monitor: Gather Information Adaptive Management of Forest Lands

11. What do we need? The ability for the user to: search multiple and diverse sources (individual Adaptive Management Area sites) in an easy manner.

12. Understand the client • requirements and opportunities

13. Cle Elum and Wenatchee Test Areas Eugene and Corvallis Star RS and Applegate Watershed Center

14. Questions for Workshops What kind of information would you want? What kind of information will you provide? What kind of “meta-information is needed? Which semantics need to be standardized? controlled vocabulary(ies): useful? easy to use? good for searching? What equipment is needed?

15. “Places”

16. Similar Places

17. Most of the work is centered around three topics: • environmental analyses and associated resource decisions; • budget; and • personnel.

18. We also asked policy questions: What should the collection policy be? What training is needed? For whom? What are the organization’s financial and funding capabilities? Who does data management? What expertise is available (including time)? What resource equipment is available? Who are the customers? Why?

19. What we heard … about policy Access? some data will be widely available other data must be closely held Use common meta-data? Make data available? not so much interest in raw data Concern about funding beyond development

20. Primary Information • Documents • reports • assessments • decisions • studies • environmental impact statements • …. • Maps • in GIS systems • on paper

21. Documents are often linked toa geographic place ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1

22. Many of the keywords (climate, hydrology) are associated with places! Therefore….attach metadata to places! ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1

23. ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1 Use controlled vocabularies - for aspects hydrology controlled vocabulary climate controlled vocabulary topography controlled vocabulary

24. ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1 Feature: search by one or more aspect climate controlled vocabulary user browses to find documents

25. ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1 Similarity Search climate controlled vocabulary user wants studies in places like this one 4 3 5 2 1

26. Search by one or more aspects of interest • Search by location (GIS) • Search by place name (gazeteer) GIS Gazeteer (to look up place names) ... Place 2 Place 6 Place 1

27. System Features (cont.) • Make it really easy to browse the superimposed information (the controlled vocabularies) • Provide the same, easy-to-use mechanism for: • attaching metadata to place • searching for a document by aspect/keyword • specifying a similarity search • navigating through related documents

28. Digital Library Infrastructure • Digital Library Framework • Document Server • Digital Object Identifiers • Gazetteer

29. Library Collection + Catalogs + Services Basically the same for “real” and digital libraries

30. Sample Architecture Index User Index Collection Browser Handle System UI gateway Index Collection Repos. Repos.

31. Services and Interfaces • Repository service: deposit, storage, access • Index service: queries to handles and meta-data • document format • fixed vocabulary fields • Collection service: form meaningful groups • User interface gateway

32. Which Architecture and Implementation? • Have looked at Dienst • Both a protocol and implementation • There are other proposals (e.g., Marion) • Leipzig Document Server • Web interface for depositing documents • Can handle Dienst protocol

33. Digital Object Identifiers • From publishing industry • General way to name documents and other “creations” (e.g. opera score) • Different levels of granularity (in theory) • document, section, paragraph • Issued through a naming authority • Can have sub-authorities • Associated description with each DOI

34. Key Aspects of DOIs • Identifies content, not location • Persistent • Built on Handles • Handle format naming authority/unique local name 10.1045/january99-bearman