EcoGIS – GIS tools for ecosystem approaches to fisheries management

Executive Summary: The EcoGIS project was launched in September 2004 to investigate how Geographic Information Systems (GIS), marine data, and custom analysis tools can better enable fisheries scientists and managers to adopt Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries Management (EAFM). EcoGIS is a collaborative effort between NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and four regional Fishery Management Councils. The project has focused on four priority areas: Fishing Catch and Effort Analysis, Area Characterization, Bycatch Analysis, and Habitat Interactions. Of these four functional areas, the project team first focused on developing a working prototype for catch and effort analysis: the Fishery Mapper Tool. This ArcGIS extension creates time-and-area summarized maps of fishing catch and effort from logbook, observer, or fishery-independent survey data sets. Source data may come from Oracle, Microsoft Access, or other file formats. Feedback from beta-testers of the Fishery Mapper was used to debug the prototype, enhance performance, and add features. This report describes the four priority functional areas, the development of the Fishery Mapper tool, and several themes that emerged through the parallel evolution of the EcoGIS project, the concept and implementation of the broader field of Ecosystem Approaches to Management (EAM), data management practices, and other EAM toolsets. In addition, a set of six succinct recommendations are proposed on page 29. One major conclusion from this work is that there is no single “super-tool” to enable Ecosystem Approaches to Management; as such, tools should be developed for specific purposes with attention given to interoperability and automation. Future work should be coordinated with other GIS development projects in order to provide “value added” and minimize duplication of efforts. In addition to custom tools, the development of cross-cutting Regional Ecosystem Spatial Databases will enable access to quality data to support the analyses required by EAM. GIS tools will be useful in developing Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs) and providing pre- and post-processing capabilities for spatially-explicit ecosystem models. Continued funding will enable the EcoGIS project to develop GIS tools that are immediately applicable to today’s needs. These tools will enable simplified and efficient data query, the ability to visualize data over time, and ways to synthesize multidimensional data from diverse sources. These capabilities will provide new information for analyzing issues from an ecosystem perspective, which will ultimately result in better understanding of fisheries and better support for decision-making. (PDF file contains 45 pages.

3D GIS TOOLS FOR SUBSOIL MANAGEMENT

[EN] Applications of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) on several archaeology fields have been increasing during the last years. Recent approaches in these technologies make possible to work with even more realistic 3D models with the so-called GIS 3D. However, these systems are currently far from being the perfect tool to integrate the subsoil management in Arqueology. In this paper we focus on the state of the art in 3D GIS for subsoil management as well as the hybrid subsoil model for 3D data management.[ES] Las aplicaciones de los Sistemas de Información Geográficos (SIG) en muchos campos de la Arqueología se han ido incrementando en los últimos años. Las nuevas propuestas en estos sistemas permiten trabajar con modelos cada vez más parecidos a la realidad con los denominados SIG 3D. Sin embargo, estos sistemas actualmente distan de ser la herramienta ideal para el manejo del subsuelo en Arqueología. En este artículo nos centramos en el estado del arte en los SIG 3D para manejo del subsuelo y también en un nuevo modelo de datos en 3D, el modelo híbrido de integración de información espacial.Herrador, M.; Graciano, A.; Feito, FR.; Ortega, L. (2016). 3D GIS TOOLS FOR SUBSOIL MANAGEMENT. En 8th International congress on archaeology, computer graphics, cultural heritage and innovation. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 277-280. https://doi.org/10.4995/arqueologica8.2015.3227OCS27728

Combining interactive GIS tools and expert knowledge in validation of tree species models

Poster presented at XIII Congreso Forestal Mundial. FAO, Buenos Aires (Argentina). 18-25 Oct 200

GIS Tools for Hydrology and Hydraulics

GIS information sources used by the Office of Hydraulics to improve the accuracy and efficiency hydrologic computations will be presented. A variety of information sources will be discussed with an emphasis on DEM data obtained from Indiana\u27s recent state-wide mapping initiative. Sources and limitations of the data will be discussed, and techniques for utilizing this data will be introduced

Utilizing GIS tools for ecosystem related mapping

Geographic information system (GIS) is a tool for making and using spatial information and it is mainly concerned with location of the features as well as properties/attributes of those features. It helps us gather, analyse and visualize spatial data for different purposes. A GIS quantifies the locations of features by recording their coordinates which are the numbers that describe the position of these features on Earth. The uniqueness of GIS is its ability to do spatial analysis. GIS helps us analyse the spatial relationships and interactions. Sometimes, GIS proves to be the only way to solve spatially-related problems and it is one of the most important tools that aid in decision making process. GIS basically helps to answer three questions; How much of what is where? What is the shape and extent of it? Has it changed over time

Spatial Analysis Of Foreign Migration In Poland In 2012 Using Geographically Weighted Regression

The aim of this paper is to analyse the spatial distribution of officially registered foreign migration in Poland in 2012. GIS tools are implemented for data visualization and statistical analysis. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to estimate the impact of unemployment, wages and other socioeconomic variables on the foreign emigration and immigration measure. GWR provides spatially varying estimates of model parameters that can be presented on a map, giving a useful graphical representation of spatially varying relationships

GIS Resources @ Purdue

GIS tools, resources, and data provided by ITAP and RCA

Site selection for reclaimed water infiltration using GIS tools

In the Beira Interior region (Portugal) some sources of water do not present characteristics suitable for some uses due to pollution (namely associated to the discharge of point and nonpoint effluents) or are over-exploited (namely the aquifers). However, the water demand will grow in this region to meet socio-economic activities under development (e.g. the Cova da Beira irrigation plan, irrigation of golf courses and green areas and SPAs, as well as for distribution for human and industrial consumption), which will lead to the search of alternative sources of water. The region is characterized by many disperse urban agglomerates with less than 2,000 inhabitants, where the wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are mainly ecological systems such as constructed wetlands (CW). In this context, the treated wastewater (reclaimed water) from these ecological treatment systems should be seen as a source of water to be used and not a waste to be eliminated. After a monitoring campaign of two years at the CW system of Vila Fernando (Guarda, Portugal), the characteristics of the final effluent suggest that it could be used for aquifer recharge, not only because it is an area that uses many groundwater resources, but because other uses seem to be not relevant and would require a polishing treatment for the effluent, which would increase the costs of both investment and operation. From 6 thematic maps and environmental, technical and economic criteria, it was selected a study area of 6687 ha. This area was analysed based on the manipulation of complex information using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which consisted on overlapping areas of exclusion and inclusion from each thematic map and the use of algebraic operations (multi-criteria analysis) to obtain a final Suitable Map that indicated an area of 6.4 ha located in anthrosols as the most favorable ones for the infiltration of reclaimed water.The authors wish to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, through the project PTDC/AMB/73081/2006, for allowing the funding to obtain data for this study

Custom GIS Tools for Enhancing Wilderness Search and Rescue

Search and rescue teams are relied on to save the lives of people injured or lost in the wilderness. The Sierra Madre Search and Rescue (SMSR) team needed assistance incorporating a GIS into searches to increase the information available for search decisions and analysis in order to improve their search success rate. This project focused on the home search area of SMSR and created a GIS that integrates into their operations. A custom ArcMap experience was delivered, including custom analysis tools to supplement SMSR’s current field procedures, as well as supporting user documentation and training. The system provides information previously not available during searches and also serves to begin familiarizing the team with GIS