GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROJECT - CONSORTIUM FOR RURAL GEOSPATIAL INNOVATIONS IN AMERICA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: SPECIAL GRANT
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0207692
• Grant No.: 2006-34558-17477
• Proposal No.: 2006-06105
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2006
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2008
• Grant Year: 2006
• Program Code: [EL]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIV OF WISCONSIN
21 N PARK ST STE 6401
MADISON,WI 53715-1218

Performing Department
LAND INFORMATION & COMPUTER GRAPHICS

Non Technical Summary
Much of rural America is facing a crisis - depressed farm commodity prices, declining extractive industries, dwindling and aging workforces, and other conditions leading to stagnant rural economies. Rural economies are often dependent on agriculture and related food-processing industries which make these areas vulnerable to both natural and human-induced disasters. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some rural areas near growing cities are under tremendous development pressure, resulting in conversion of productive farmland and other open land uses to residential, commercial, and other developments, with concomitant issues of water quality and quantity, air quality, habitat loss, farmland conversion, transportation delays, etc. In all three cases, we believe that the benefits of geospatial technologies are best realized when brought closest to those making decisions about the land - local officials, active citizens, interested businesses, public agency staff, and others involved in decision-making. Our research is aimed at determining what technologies and approaches work in various circumstances and for different issues. Beyond that, RGIS is ready to help with the education, training, application development, and demonstration projects needed to take advantage of geospatial technologies for rural economic development, environmental management, land use planning and management, and a broad range of other issues.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

50%

Developmental

50%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
101	0199	2060	20%
132	0199	2060	20%
133	0199	2060	10%
311	3499	2060	10%
608	6099	2060	20%
805	6099	2060	10%
903	7210	2060	10%

Knowledge Area
805 - Community Institutions, Health, and Social Services; 133 - Pollution Prevention and Mitigation; 311 - Animal Diseases; 132 - Weather and Climate; 608 - Community Resource Planning and Development; 101 - Appraisal of Soil Resources; 903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
3499 - Dairy cattle, general/other; 6099 - People and communities, general/other; 0199 - Soil and land, general; 7210 - Remote sensing equipment and technology;

Field Of Science
2060 - Geography;

Keywords

gis, technology transfer, land use, farmland protection, water

quality, gps, remote sensing, decision support systems

Goals / Objectives
The National Consortium for Rural Geospatial Innovations in America (RGIS) carries out its goals and objectives through eight regional centers, including five public universities, one private college, a tribal college, and a regional development authority. The entire consortium has several collective activities such as a website, technical bulletin series, software evaluation and development, technical workshops, regional conferences, and development of educational modules for stakeholder capacity-building. In FY2006, RGIS will continue and expand this research, development, and transfer of GIS technology to local and tribal governments and non-governmental organizations through applied research, publications, conferences, hands-on workshops, distance education, and development of internet and web-based technologies. The overall mission of RGIS is to eliminate the digital divide facing rural America by promoting the transfer of geospatial technologies to under-served rural areas by: - developing geospatial tools and technologies to empower local and tribal governments, organizations, and citizens to understand and participate in decisions that affect their environment, economy, and quality of life; - educating and training a cadre of people to apply geospatial technologies to rural issues; - supporting the development of appropriate local land information systems, as well as linkage to and cooperation with state and national spatial data infrastructures. Common objectives of the entire project, carried out by individual sites include: - developing and implementing geospatial software, analysis methods, and models to empower local governments, organizations, and citizens to understand and participate in decisions that affect their lands, resources, economy, and quality of life; - developing and evaluating tools to enhance rural security by using information technologies to enable more effective emergency response and disaster management, and by stabilizing and building local economies through eight regional community demonstration projects; - educating and training people in the use of geospatial technologies for rural issues through workshops and programs, through creation of educational modules, web resources, technical assistance guidelines, printed bulletins, and videos; - demonstrating state-of-the-art solutions for local land information systems through implementation of GIS and related web-based technologies for information access and dissemination to support the use of spatial data in rural issues; - fostering linkage to regional, state, tribal, and national land information systems and cooperation with agencies and organizations involved in their development and use, including promoting the use of federal initiatives such as National Spatial Data Infrastructure and related components.

Project Methods
RGIS is managed as a consortium. Activities take place at eight sites around the country under the direction of a site director (also a project co-director of the overall project) at each site. Decisions on activities and policies are made by a Coordinating Committee comprising one representative from each site. Other than sub-agreements for funding transfer, no formal institutional agreements exist between the sites. In addition to individual site objectives, the consortium identifies common and collective activities. Common activities are objectives that are identified for the entire group and carried out with separate activities at each of the eight sites. Examples include creation of articles for the bulletin series and rural security related special projects at each site. Collective activities are objectives that all eight sites participate in together. Satellite broadcasted workshops, RGIS web resources, and the 2005 RGIS conference are examples. In most cases, these collective activities have a lead site, with contributions from all of the sites. The overall objectives and activities of RGIS are developed collaboratively by the Coordinating Committee. The Project Director and University of Wisconsin-Madison support staff, with the advice of the Coordinating Committee, manage day-to-day responsibilities, including overall proposal preparation and grant administration. The Administrative Office of RGIS provides a single point of contact for liaison and coordination between the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), the RGIS Coordinating Committee, and member sites of the consortium. The primary objectives of the RGIS administrative offices are: - Coordinate the RGIS Program - Conference Participation and Support - Support Technology Transfer to Native American Communities - Prepare and Distribute RGIS Bulletins - Update and Maintain RGIS Web Page (http://www.RuralGIS.org) - Coordinate and Guide Development of Education Module - RGIS Product Catalog Update - Stakeholder Assessment and Impact Evaluation Most RGIS activities take place at the individual sites. Each site participates in collective activities such as bulletins, training, websites, a rural security special study, and the development of educational modules, along with activities unique to the site. The proposed investigations and techniques for every site are described in detail in a proposal submitted to USDA-CSREES. Details of methods and progress are provided in an annual report (see http://www.ruralgis.org/publications/viewCatalogueItem.asp?id=92&rgis Site=9).

Progress 09/01/06 to 08/31/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The activities of the RGIS include technical assistance in GIS implementation; pilot project demonstrations; data automation and database development; consultation and advice for local and tribal governments; software evaluation and development; model development; software and GIS application training; satellite telecasts; educational video production; public, conference, and other professional presentations; technical and lay audience publications; and provision of information and technical resources through the RGIS website. These are carried out by eight sites across the country. The RGIS website is maintained by the RGIS-Chesapeake Pennsylvania State University (http://www.ruralgis.org). Here, links are provided to each site where extensive documentation of outputs are available. In addition, it is possible to download a 266 page annual report with these details from the "Publications" page of this website. Site goals include two activities carried out by every site for the common good. Since its inception, RGIS has published a bulletin series intended to support geospatial technology transfer. The main purpose of the bulletins is to provide guidance to local governments on many issues they face where geographic information systems and related spatial technologies provide benefits in efficiency or effectiveness. Since the bulletins are written in lay language for non-technical audiences, they also work as educational media, as a way to introduce new audiences and decision-makers to a new approach, and as a way to promote new approaches to the issues facing rural governments. Technology transfer is an important component of the RGIS mission. It is not possible for the limited number of RGIS staff to provide training and education in all of the activities we are involved in for all of the potential audiences. However, through our set of education modules we intend to significantly extend the reach of RGIS. We start with the observation that every site cannot have expertise in all the applications across the RGIS consortium, but each site does have staff that is very conversant in geospatial technologies and generally knowledgeable about the activities and applications at other sites through our bulletins and semi-annual meetings. Given this, we have created a series of materials that will allow any given site to provide workshops and training drawing on material prepared from the in-depth expertise of another site. Each module is a set of materials including a lesson plan, PowerPoint slides, other lecture and discussion materials, background readings and websites, and as appropriate, data and software for hands-on exercises. Each module is reviewed for content and style by at least one sister site and one other reviewer before distribution. Many of these education modules have been shared among sister sites and delivered as workshops. The RGIS education modules are now available on the RGIS website (http://www.ruralgis.org/education/educationalModules/index.asp). They are intended for use by instructors with at least some knowledge of the subject matter, though we have no specific restrictions. PARTICIPANTS: The following are PIs and senior affiliates at the 8 sites: RGIS-Ches/Wilkes: Dale Bruns, Tom Sweet RGIS-Ches/Penn State: Rick Day, Stewart Bruce RGIS-Great Lakes: Steve Ventura RGIS-Great Plains: Leon Osbourne, Scott Kroeber RGIS-Mid-South: Fred Limp, Brian Culpepper RGIS-Pacific Northwest: Anthony Gabriel, Chris McColl RGIS-South Georgia: Vance Roberts, Chris Strom RGIS-Tribal Technical Center: Jeff Hamley, Denise Chavez TARGET AUDIENCES: The National Consortium for Rural Geospatial Innovations in America (RGIS) was created to help bring the benefits of geographic information systems and related spatial information technologies to rural and tribal America. Eight sites across the United States conduct projects and technology transfer activities in their regions to support a common mission. The entire group has several collective activities such as a website, technical bulletin series, on-line educational modules, software evaluation, and Train-the-Trainer workshops. Each site contributes unique expertise and the experience from regional activities to the collective accomplishments of the organization. The activities of the RGIS sites include technical assistance in GIS implementation; pilot project demonstrations; data automation and database development; consultation and advice for local and tribal governments; software evaluation and development; model development; software and GIS application training; satellite telecasts; educational video production; public, conference, and other professional presentations; technical and lay audience publications; and provision of information and technical resources through the RGIS website. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: No Project Modifications information reported.

Impacts
This summarizes the outcomes/impacts of the Great Lakes site only. Many additional activities transpired at the other seven sites; these are summarized in the 2006 Annual Report at http://www.ruralgis.org/siteDownloads/downloads.asp Provided geospatial analysis for two state initiatives: the Wisconsin Buffers Initiative, which resulted in new agricultural nonpoint source pollution rules for the state and the Working Lands Initiative, which is revising the state's farmland protection policy. Organized local, regional, tribal, and private organizations in northwest Wisconsin that are focused on preservation and protection of riparian resources in the Chippewa and St. Croix watersheds. We provided detailed mapping and spatial analysis of potential land tenure conflicts and helped link disparate efforts to conserve the resources. The outcome thus far has been identification of several islands with ambiguous ownership and resolving these. Provided technical assistance and planning support for six rural towns and one village in the Kickapoo Valley region of southwest Wisconsin, one of the most impoverished and resource dependent areas of the state. The outcome is a successful land use planning process which should lead to better land management. Evaluated the use of public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) methods in the City of Madison. The result has been to diffuse a politically contentious situation and opening the siting process to more effective public participation. Enhanced an on-going project to study groundwater infiltration and the potential impacts of development on aquifer recharge by incorporating GIS-based data and analyses of development patterns and growth projections. Conducted a statewide survey of planning and GIS professionals to ascertain barriers to use of decision support software and other spatially-oriented planning tools. Survey results were passed along to the University of Wisconsin-Extension to guide development of training programs and for more effective targeting of direct assistance. Evaluated the reliability and accuracy of coordinate data in the Wisconsin Livestock Premises Identification System. Determined that these data were not of sufficient quality to be useful in some kinds of emergencies and provided recommendations for improving the database, resulting in action by state agriculture department to rectify deficiencies. Helped lead the Wisconsin Geographic Information Coordinating Council work group. A proposal has been made to create a statewide coordinating council and we are shepherding this through political and bureaucratic processes.

Publications

• Shanley, L., Helgeson, J., Galetka, S., Ventura, S., Privacy and Internet Access to Public Land Records, Paper, Proceedings for the URISA Annual Conference, Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, Washington, D.C., August 20-24, 2007.
• Kishor, P., Ventura, S., What Can GIS Learn From FLOSS, Paper, GSDI-9 Conference Proceedings, EUROGI, Santiago, Chile, November 6-10, 2006.
• Shanley, L., GIS Data Sharing for Emergency Management in Wisconsin, White Paper, http://www.wlia.org/resources/gisinfopolicyforem.pdf, pub. Wisconsin Land Information Association, 7 pp., Wild Rose, WI, 2006.
• Shanley, L., Ventura, S., Mockert, D., GIT Governance: Models and Best Practices, Paper, Proceedings for the URISA Annual Conference, Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, Washington, D.C., August 20-24, 2007.
• Shanley, L., GIT Governance: State Models and Best Practices - A Report in Support of a Geographic Information Coordination Council for the State of Wisconsin, http://www.sco.wisc.edu/wigicc/, pub. Land Information & Computer Graphics Facility, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 140 pp., Madison, WI, June, 2007.
• This summarizes publications of the Great Lakes site only. Many additional activities transpired at the other seven sites; these are summarized in the 2006 Annual Report at http://www.ruralgis.org/siteDownloads/downloads.asp
• Chi, G., Ventura, S., A Spatio-temporal Examination of Population Change: Demographics, Livability, Accessibility, Desirability, and Developability, Population and Environment, In Review 2008.
• Wiegand, N., Garcia, C., A Task-Based Ontology Approach to Automate Geospatial Data Retrieval, Journal article in Transactions in GIS Special Issue on the Geospatial Semantic Web, v. 11, no. 3, p. 355-376, 2007.
• Yahn, J., Ventura, S., DEM Creation from Wisconsin County Elevation Data for NRCS Purposes, Report, to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service-Wisconsin, pub. Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 17 pp., Madison, WI, 2007.
• Carrel, A., Sledge, J., Ventura, S., Clark, R., Peterson, S., Allen, D., Measuring Aerobic Cycling Power as an Assessment of Childhood Fitness, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, v. 21, no. 3, p. 685-688, 2007.

Progress 09/01/06 to 08/31/07

Outputs
CHESAPEAKE WILKES UNIVERSITY: Facilitated participation in regional university-industry-community technology task force in Homeland Security; Catalyst for county GIS users group - tech transfer support and training agreement; geospatial applications to regulatory oversight on mining operations and reclamation. CHESAPEAKE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY: Expanded outreach, education, and technical assistance to a variety of user groups for agriculture, land use planning, environmental assessment, and local governmental needs; Enhanced AgMAP, a direct marketing website for Agri-business to interactively locate and describe their products and services; Developed FarmMap, SoilMap, and CentreMap. GREAT LAKES: Provided suitability analysis for farmland protection, ecosystem services, landscape amenity, and affordable housing as input to comprehensive planning in Dane County, WI; Created ranking of over 1,400 watersheds statewide in terms of their likelihood to respond to buffer technologies based on likelihood of response in in situ biota, nutrient and sediment loading, and water quality in downstream lakes. GREAT PLAINS: Provided pathfinder applications and technology transfer for the use of climatological and real-time weather databases, expressed in a geospatial framework, for the purpose of water quality, radar precipitation estimates, and education; Promoted greater inclusion of geospatial technologies in routine daily activities in academia and local government across the affected area above. MID-SOUTH: Performed horizontal and vertical accuracy assessments for local image acquisition programs; Hosted and expanded the metadata holdings within Arkansas' statewide geospatial data distribution system, GeoStor, and provided an online metadata entry system for rural/small community data developers. PACIFIC NORTHWEST: Expanded modeling capabilities to assess environmental problems associated with rapid development; Developed High-resolution LiDAR surfaces; Applied GIS-driven models to a number of river channel change, salmon habitat, and soil erosion,; Used emerging technologies such as CommunityViz to enhance stakeholder participation in planning meetings and scenario creation. SOUTH GEORGIA: Directed the adoption of Mobile GIS by patrol divisions of local law enforcement agencies;Provided analysis support for EMS response planning; Developed parcel based geospatial data in two local governments; Hosted the South Georgia region's only GIS user group forum; Provided vital spatial support for analysis of West Nile Virus in two rural Georgia counties. TRIBAL TECHNICAL CENTER: Implemented a new training class to further RGIS-TTC's outreach to the Tribal economic and small business communities; Provided hands-on training to over sixty tribal members in geospatial technologies, via six summer short courses; Researched land use/land cover changes in the Albuquerque Metro Area with emphasis on how the Urban Heat Island is impacting adjacent tribal lands;

Impacts
The activities of the RGIS sites include technical assistance in GIS implementation; pilot project demonstrations; data automation and database development; consultation and advice for local and tribal governments; software evaluation and development; model development; software and GIS application training; satellite telecasts; educational video production; public, conference, and other professional presentations; technical and lay audience publications; and provision of information and technical resources through the RGIS website. We believe that RGIS has been effective in its goal of assisting agencies and organizations deal with land-related issues in rural America through implementation and use of advanced geospatial information technologies. As a result, we have helped improve the quality of life, environmental health, and economic competitiveness of rural communities. Today, local units of government are building key components of the information-technology infrastructure. RGIS helps disseminate innovative solutions from region to region and bridges local efforts with those of state and national agencies, such as the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. RGIS helps citizens in rural areas implement and apply geospatial technologies to the many land use, resource protection, and economic development decisions involved in creating sustainable rural communities. RGIS is bringing the benefits of the information age to rural America, where land is fundamental to resource-dependent economies and ways of life.

Publications

• Knudson, J. and T. O. Sweet. 2006. What the World Knows about you - Privacy is More Than Just A Technology Issue. Pennsylvania County News. July/August Issue. pp. 10-11.
• Stroble, R.O., Robillard, P.D., Shannon, R.D., Day, R.L., and McDonnell, A.J. Water quality monitoring network design methodology for the selection of critical sampling points: Part I. (accepted in Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 2006. available online)
• Stroble, R.O., Robillard, P.D., Shannon, R.D., Day, R.L., and McDonnell, A.J. Water quality monitoring network design methodology for the selection of critical sampling. Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 2006
• Arrington, K.E.; Ventura, S.J.; Richardson, M.S.; Mackay, D.S. (200x) Establishing Regulatory Watershed Boundaries in Low-relief Areas with Internal Drainage. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, submitted.
• Ventura, S.J. (2006), Crossing the Divide: A Case Study of the Penetration of Spatial Information Technologies in Middle America. GIS Development 10(5): 28:33.
• Zhou, N.; Harrower, M.; Ventura, S. (200x) Using Latent Non-spatial Information and Derived Spatial Knowledge to Measure Geographic Categories Semantic Similarity. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, submitted.
• Cothren, Jackson; Limp, Fred; Payne, Angelia; Herrmann, Jason; Barnes, Adam (2006). Integrating Terrestrial LIDAR Point Clouds and Independent Close-range Images. Proceedings of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing National Conference, Reno, NV.
• Cothren, Jackson; Schaffrin, Burkhard (2005) Reliability Design for Imagery from Data. Proceedings of the International Cartographic Conference, A Coruna, Spain.
• Rakocevic, Lucia; Dixon, John; Cothren, Jackson; Dixon, Jan (2006) Digitization and Webaccess of a historic collection of remotely sensed imagery. Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, League City, Texas.
• Stahle, D.W.; Cleaveland, M. K.; Griffin, R. D.; Spond, M. D.; Culpepper, R. B; Patton, D. (2006) Decadal Drought Effects on Endangered Woodpecker Habitat. EOS, TRANSACTIONS, American Geophysical Union.
• Limp, W. F., 2005 Data Curation, in H. Maschner and C. Chippendale (eds.) Handbook of Archaeological Methods. Altamira Press. Pp: 1270-1305.
• Limp, W. F., 2006 The tyranny of tools: advantages and pitfalls in geospatial analysis and visualization methods for archeological analysis. In press. In S. Branting (ed.) Analyzing space in time: New directions for GIS in archaeology. Oxford. Archeopress.
• Steve Schill; D. Rundquist; A. Fillipi; Ken Kvamme; Jackson Cothren; Jason Tullis; (2005) In-situ Sensors and Field Methods. American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Manual of Remote Sensing.
• Aggett, G, and McColl C., 2005 Evaluating Decision Support Systems for PPGIS Applications: Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 77-92.
• McColl, C., and Aggett, G., Land-Use Forecasting and Hydrologic Model Integration for Improved Land-Use Decision Support: Journal of Environmental Management, Accepted June 29, 2006.