Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, University of Arkansas

Fiscal Year 1998-1999 Annual Report

Research

Each year, CAST staff are involved in numerous major research projects, training programs, and other cooperative efforts with a variety of governmental and business organizations. These projects include GIS applications, data development, technology transfer, software evaluation, remote sensing applications, and similar efforts. Cooperative research or teaching efforts are also in place with off-campus faculty at the University of Arkansas, Monticello, the Arkansas Archeological Survey, Arkansas State University, and Arkansas Tech University. A selection of CAST’s projects for FY 98-99 follows.

National Center for Resource Innovations (NCRI) Program. NCRI-SW, located at CAST, is one of seven regional centers located throughout the United States whose mission is to transfer GIS technology to county and local governments. In 1991, when NCRI-SW became part of CAST, it brought together the considerable expertise of a network of researchers with a long-standing history of GIS development that has been beneficial to both. The NCRI mission includes technology transfer, demonstrations to introduce GIS to county and local officials, needs assessments, assisting in pilot projects, research to develop new analytical and technological delivery systems, and development of accessible digital databases; all aimed toward aiding local and county governments in their service to the community. CAST is currently funded to create a common web site that would be available to link all National Centers for Innovation web pages.

FGDC Clearinghouse. In September, the Center was awarded a grant from the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to create an on-line clearinghouse of digital geographic data. This one-year project is directed towards establishing a network accessible inventory of digital geodata from Arkansas and maintaining this archive in a standards-compliant format consistent with that established by the FGDC. When the project is finished early in the year 2000, a permanent node in the Clearinghouse network will be established to provide an index of sorts to the geographic data that has been collected at the Center. Over time, this catalog will be expanded through additional entries.

Seamless Warehouse of Arkansas Geodata (SWAG) Project. CAST has initiated a collaborative research and technology transfer project with a focus on delivering stable framework and corporate geodata into a diverse user community using existing Internet tools. This effort is based on CAST’s existing statewide, comprehensive spatial database and emerging commercial software products. Under this initiative, CAST is working with a network of partners to build a comprehensive, open standards-compliant warehouse that supports vector and raster data, attribute information, and descriptive metadata. The SWAG project demonstrates the use of an enterprise approach to managing and providing digital geodata. SWAG provides a bridge that spans distributed data, applications, and user domains, thereby empowering all levels of government with geospatial data and infrastructure. Additionally, it represents a working instance of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure that can be replicated across governmental components.

SWAG Project Receives Smithsonian Award. In March, due in large part to the efforts of CAST's Technical Director Jim Farley, CAST's SWAG project was nominated for the Computerworld Smithsonian Award. The SWAG project will become part of the Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The primary source material submitted by the University of Arkansas will enrich the National Museum of American History's growing collection on the history of information technology, and contribute significantly to the museum's on-going efforts to chronicle the Information Age, said Spencer R. Crew, Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Each year, the Computerworld Smithsonian Chairmen's Committee nominates individuals, organizations, and businesses that use information technology to the benefit of society. On behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, the American people, and future generations throughout the world, for whom we hold these historical sources in trust…I congratulate you for the quality of your work, and thank you for your contribution to the history of information technology, said Daniel Morrow, Executive Director of the Computerworld Smithsonian Program.

Nationwide Partners in Flight Habitat Mapping Project. While working on this nationwide habitat mapping project for Partners in Flight, CAST's Dr. Jim Taulman has created maps of vegetation and other characteristics in 60 physiographic areas throughout the U.S. and Canada (graphic below). These maps include combined forest types, non-forests cover types, individual maps of each habitat type, maps of lands under state and federal ownership, roads, and maps of physiographic area boundaries. Habitat maps have been created from national digital databases acquired from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis branch, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing. Land ownership data were acquired from the University of California-Santa Barbara. The final task in this project is the creation of a web site to exist under the CAST umbrella in which all map products will be available in several different electronic formats to any interested party.

Arkansas GAP Analysis Project. The "GAP" Analysis project is a nationwide effort using GIS and remote sensing to develop wildlife habitat distribution maps and models. Maps are compared to public land ownership maps to detect "gaps" in management of environmentally sensitive areas. The "GAP" approach involves compiling a digital biodiversity database in a GIS. The principle layers are landcover, animal species distribution, and land stewardship. A variety of GIS and remote sensing data sources including satellite imagery, soils maps, elevation maps, and many other data sets that provide much needed ground-truthing information have been utilized in the development of statewide landcover and wildlife distribution maps. This project not only identifies Arkansas’ biodiversity, but lead to the development of totally new digital data relevant to Arkansas and the region including a complete and uniform vegetation classification system and species-based wildlife habitat distribution models. The final Arkansas GAP in-state cooperators meeting was held at the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commissions in Little Rock on July 30, 1998. Participating cooperators included staff from Arkansas Forestry Commission, Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, University of Arkansas-Little Rock, Nature Conservancy Field Office, US Forest Service, and University of Arkansas-Monticello. An overview of the Arkansas GAP project final report is available on-line. The completion of this project represented many years of intensive efforts by CAST staff. Below is an example of a GAP map, the Public Land Ownership Map, available on CAST web pages.

Arkansas HARN Project.. From 1993 to its completion last year, CAST has provided support to the Arkansas HARN Project. The HARN Project is part of a nation-wide effort to re-adjust the NAD-83 geodetic network using the capabilities of GPS total stations to achieve station accuracy of 10 to 100 times greater than previously existed. Surveyors and engineers use these stations for geodetic control and accuracy checks for their projects. These stations were available for use by the summer of 1997. Construction of the monument set on the University of Arkansas campus was in 1997.

Global Positioning System Base Station. CAST, through its cooperative agreement with Trimble Navigation Ltd., has maintained a community base station on an almost continuous basis since late 1992. This base station offers public access to end users within 300 miles, which includes large portions of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Access to base station data files is available via CAST’s web site, anonymous ftp, and bulletin board. During this fiscal year, approximately 6,000 users have accessed CAST’s GPS base station web site. This community base network offers those who use GPS technologies an inexpensive, accurate, and easy to use tool.

CAST Cooperation with the Archeology and Ethnography Program of the National Park Service (NPS). Since its inception, CAST has assisted NPS with its mandate to provide archaeological information to its local offices and other federal agencies to meet the cultural resources management requirements set by various Acts of Congress. In order to achieve this, NPS now has three sets of data currently available to the public via the web. NADB-Reports is a database of more than 250,000 archeological reports. NADB-NAGPRA provides the full text of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, up-to-date information on regulations and guidance, and summaries of inventory and repatriation activities. NABD-NACD (Native American Consultation Database), the latest addition, is the result of a partnership between the National Park Service and the U.S. Air Force. It provides an easy way to identify contacts for each of the 771 federally recognized Indian tribes, Alaska Native groups, and Native Hawaiian organizations. Contacts can be searched by name, tribe, reservation, state, country, and military installation. This information is crucial to organizations who must comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. In November of 1997, NPS and CAST made substantial improvement to the web interface to both NADB-Reports and NADB-NAGPRA and doubled the amount of citations made available via NADB-Reports. A web interface to the NABD-NACD database is accessible by the public.

Automation of Arkansas' Legislative District Boundaries and Geographic Information System Needs Assessment for the Secretary of States Office. CAST was requested by the Arkansas Secretary of State's office to develop a plan for applying GIS technologies to legislative district mapping procedures. The Secretary of State's office is responsible for maintaining Arkansas' House and Senate boundaries as well as distributing this information to the state's 75 county clerks. Traditionally this task has been completed manually, and was very time consuming. CAST was tasked to develop a digital methodology for creating and updating this information and transfer that technical methodology to the Secretary of State's staff. The digital data and its development methodologies are just the first step in an on-going cooperative effort between CAST and the Secretary of State's office. These digital map products will serve as the base maps for statewide redistricting of the House and Senate boundaries in year 2001. They will also provide the groundwork for the long-range goals of implementation of geographic information systems' technologies within the Secretary of State's office. CAST has continued to assist the Secretary of State’s office in determination of appropriate information technologies to be incorporated during the 2001 redistricting of Arkansas’ House and Senate districts. Several of the staff from the Secretary’s office have received GIS/GPS training from CAST staff. All of the map products produced during this project are currently available to the citizens of Arkansas via the Internet at no cost. Anyone may view these maps from a web browser via CAST’s home page or from the Secretary of State’s home page.

Development of a Web-Based Soil Survey for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Arkansas Office. This project is composed of three phases to design a web-based atlas of soils available to any Internet users for browsing. The data made available will be exactly the same as those contained in the Soil Survey books that were historically published by NRCS. This first version will allow the user to select a quarter-quad from an index sheet. The returned quarter-quads include a grayscale orthophoto and labeled soil type boundaries. Descriptions for the latter are accessible by clicking in a specific area. A prototype serving a subset of the Soil Survey maps for Woodruff County is currently accessible from CAST’s web site. NRCS headquarters is interested in using our method to publish Soil Surveys for all counties in the U.S.

USGS Center for Biological Informatics Cooperative Efforts. In February, Dr. Ralph Root, Dr. Maury Nyquist, and Mr. Mike Frame of the USGS Center for Biological Informatics (CBI) met with CAST's Director Fred Limp and CAST's Technical Director Jim Farley. The purpose of the meeting was for both CBI and CAST to share information concerning their respective missions, programs, and current activities and to explore specific areas where partnerships and cooperative programs are likely to be productive and mutually beneficial. These discussions are already producing beneficial byproducts in the Aurora Partnership and the emergence of the CADIS project.

National Park Service System for Historic Information Preservation. Among other things, the National Park Service (NPS) is a custodian of many of this nation’s most precious cultural and historic resources. To maintain information on known properties and to obtain information on previously unknown properties, the NPS depends on a network of state and local custodians and on basic information technology that this network can use to document new information and inform NPS officials. CAST staff worked in cooperation with NPS officials and representatives of the Alabama and Virginia State Historic Preservation offices to develop new applications programs to be used to expedite and integrate the process of historic property recording and documentation. The new software conforms to emerging standards for open programming interfaces, database connectivity, and object-oriented program design.

Digital Data Archive. One of the most essential components of a GIS is digital data. CAST staff continues to upgrade the digital data archive. Initial efforts focused on acquiring digital data sets for Arkansas, but CAST also maintains an extensive library of global, continental, and regional data sets. Additional data are being acquired constantly, and staff members work closely with major federal, state, and local data providers. CAST also provides information on commercially available spatial data, though such data are not directly available through CAST. The available data are maintained on two server systems and are accessible via the net. CAST also maintains the Arkansas Digital Spatial Data Catalog containing a listing of the digital spatial data available at CAST for the State of Arkansas. Presently, there are over 150 listings of spatial data created by federal, state, local, and private agencies available for distribution, and listings will be added as additional spatial data are acquired. This catalog is available via the CAST homepage or in hardcopy. Following is a sample page from the on-line version of this catalog.

NASA Web Project.. Working with NASA, CAST staff have integrated an extensive digital geodata archive, a small footprint geoprocessing engine, a web-based user interface, and the delivery power which is inherent on the net to create a maps-on-demand server for Arkansas imagery and other geodata. The simple, easy to use interface to this mapping environment guides the user through a series of steps or decision points where data layers, map composition, and presentation options are resolved. Output products are provided to screen viewers, or these output map products can be directed to the user in a compressed format via email. Also in cooperation with NASA, CAST staff are working to improve the way in which geographic information is located, evaluated, and delivered. Using the comprehensive statewide digital data archive for Arkansas, which has been assembled at CAST, CAST staff members are assembling a prototype platform for publishing and delivering geospatial data over the web. In addition to standard web technologies, new content-rich database technology based on the hybrid object-relational model for database design is being used to create an environment where users can query, evaluate, prospect, and obtain digital data to support their applications.

Wildland/Urban Interface Project. CAST and the Arkansas Forestry Commission are cooperating on development of data sets that will help map hazards within the wildland/urban interface areas of Arkansas. One of the growing problems, from a fire-fighters perspective, is the trend of development of wildlands into residential housing. Long a problem in the western states, the problem is now becoming a local one. Some wildland/urban interface problems facing local and state fire-fighters are unknown location of houses, narrow and winding roads, little or no water supply, and a continuing buildup of fuels in the wildlands. Presently two different groups are responsible for protection of wildlands. The Arkansas Forestry Commission maintains a statewide presence for detection and suppression of wildfires, but they are neither trained nor equipped to fight structure fires. Rural volunteer fire departments are responsible for suppression of structure fires, but when the fire occurs in the wildlands, they become much less effective. These rural fire departments are also restricted to the distance they can travel to reach a wildfire, usually five miles. CAST is presently developing several digital products to aid the Arkansas Forestry Commission: a state-wide fuel map, a statewide hazard map, an interactive dispatch system for helicopter water pickups, and a statewide rural volunteer fire department database.

Arkansas Source Water Protection Project. In conjunction with the USGS office in Little Rock and the Arkansas Department of Health, CAST is participating in a Source Water Protection project, under a national mandate by the Environmental Protection Agency. CAST will provide 1,565+ maps of all of Arkansas’ public water intakes and the potential sources of contamination adjacent to each source. Various GIS data and map products will be developed during this two-year project. In July of 1998, Brian Culpepper attended the Source Water Protection Project Cooperators meeting in Little Rock to provide GIS information to aid in the development of assessment models for all public water sources for Arkansas. The goal of this model is to define and rank the relative risk of contamination of each of the Arkansas public water sources.

Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission's Mississippi Alluvial Valley Land-use/Land-cover Mapping Project. Nearly all of Arkansas' agricultural crop production occurs in the eastern contiguous counties of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) commonly known as the "Delta." This area also displays many of the problems associated with large-scale agricultural production. In 1997 the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission (ASWCC) provided funding to the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas to develop digital land-use/land-cover maps focusing on agricultural land-use for the 27 Arkansas counties within MAV. Combined with existing spatial data, the information produced from this project serves as a basis for the formulation of water, soil, and farm management policies and practices.

Early Hominid Research in South Africa and Botswana. CAST researchers are working with an international team of scientists who are conducting research in South Africa and Botswana. The research group is lead by Dr. Lee Berger, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa, and includes Dr. Peter Ungar, UAF; Dr. Steve Churchill, Duke University; and Dr. Tom Green and Jami Lockhart of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey (AAS). CAST and the AAS will develop GIS data sets on the geology and environment of the areas from a number of digital and map sources and satellite imagery. This data will be used to guide fieldwork in the area which is focusing on the discovery and analysis of archaeological and paleoentological sites. Field work conducted at the end of 1998 emphasizes the development of data recording and analysis methods to be used to support a major field effort in 1999. The field crews will be linked to the computer systems in Fayetteville via a satellite communications linkage.

Development of a Desktop GIS Toolbox for Well Log Data Entry. The Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission (ASWCC) is in the process of transferring data from original hard-copy well drilling logs to an on-line database. Part of this process involves converting the location of each well from a section/township/range (Public Land Survey System) format to latitude/longitude coordinates. Previously, this conversion process performed manually. As the number of well logs being entered is somewhere around one hundred thousand, this has been a slow, expensive process, with much opportunity for error. CAST has developed an inexpensive, user-friendly system to automate the well log data entry and conversion process, greatly improving both the speed and accuracy of this process. The existing well log database was built in Microsoft Access software. By using other OLE-compliant Windows-based tools, such as Microsoft Visual Basic and Intergraph Corporation's GeoMedia software, ASWCC's existing investment in both technology and personnel was preserved. The well log database will become more useful, containing usable spatial attribution, and will serve to equalize old and new data.