GeoConnections

Regional Online Landscape Decision Support System Project

GeoConnections is a national program initiative led by Natural Resources Canada. GeoConnections is collaborating with organizations across the country, including the Foothills Research Institute (FRI), to expand and enhance the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI).  To learn more about this national program please check out their informative website http://www.geoconnections.org/en/index.html.

The Foothills Research Institute (FRI) together with GeoConnections and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Jasper National Park, the Town of Hinton and Hinton Wood Products (A division of West Fraser Mills Ltd.) completed a user needs assessment (UNA) for a regional online land-management atlas that uses the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI). The CGDI is an on-line resource that enables decision-makers to access, combine, and apply geographic information to gain new insights into social, environmental, and economic issues. The CGDI is essentially all of the technology, standards, access systems and protocols necessary to harmonize all of Canada's geospatial databases, and make them available on the Internet. The UNA process was important as it helped to discover and evaluate user requirements in order to develop solutions to meet the identified user needs.

The objectives of the user-needs assessment are as follows:

  • form a strong relationship with users involved in integrated land management;
  • learn about users and identify information products that these users could employ and benefit from;
  • rank information requirements and products;
  • determine functional requirements such as visualizing geospatial information;
  • educate users about the regional atlas, GeoConnections and the CGDI; and,
  • identify and explore methods for sustaining the future regional atlas project.

Upon completion of the UNA, it was revealed that users (which consisted of participants from all the project partners) were interested in an Internet mapping framework that focuses on disturbance and access information. It was also revealed that users were looking for a system that leaned more closely towards a decision support system rather then just a system where they could turn local layers off and on (regional atlas). In general, users were looking for improved methods for information exchange across the Foothills region and associated jurisdictions.

GeoConnections reviewed the final UNA and requested a full proposal for pilot projects to support integrated land management (ILM) in Canada. This consisted of a 2 phase submission process and in June 2009, the FRI was notified that our project proposal was successful and that we would be a new pilot project as part of this opportunity through the IMAGINE network. The mission of the IMAGINE network is to spawn the growth of a network of ILM practitioners across Canada to improve the state of readiness of Canadian land use planners and decision-makers to undertake integrated land use management (http://nwrc.openconcept.ca/Home). This is another site worth investigating and anyone is welcome to use the site. There are 2 other pilot projects as part of this opportunity including: Bras d’Or Lakes, Cape Breton (NS) and the Eastern Ontario Model Forest Area.

The objectives of the FRI regional online landscape decision support system project are the following:

  • Promote the “beyond boundary” exchange of data and information between project partners and organizations within the Foothills Research Institute (FRI) region
  • Implement the standardized access and disturbance information products
  • Provide a unique regional system that will help promote the collaboration of regional partners such as government, industry, and municipalities in landscape level resource development plans
  • Provide a system that will help assess cumulative effects on values such as caribou, grizzly bears, fish, wetlands and water
  • Serve as a pilot project system based on collaborative approach that could be applied to other areas in Alberta or in other provinces
  • Help raise the profile of ILM and build cross-sectoral relationships e.g., Government and industry Participate in the Canadian Integrated Land Management (ILM network)

The project will run until April 2010 and though in the early phases of system development with the Forestry Corp., will be based on an open source platform. We will still be using ESRI software as our base GIS software, but by utilizing an open source solution for the decision support system, this will allow us many benefits. Some of these benefits include but are not limited to: an adaptable and flexible framework, the ability to meet FRI and partner business needs over time, the utilization of a strong world-wide community of open source developers, and the opportunity to put our maintenance dollars towards tangible tasks such as capacity building and development time.

 

For additional information on the project, please contact Debbie Mucha, GIS Coordinator at Foothills Research Institute at 780-865-8290 or at debbie.mucha@gov.ab.ca.