FINAL PROGRESS REPORT

Title: Spatial representation of subsistence data in Alaska—A mapping interface of the

Community Subsistence Information System.

Financial Assistance Award: FY13AP00767

Date: October 1, 2013–December 31, 2014.

Lead LCC: North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative; POC: Mary Mahaffy,

mary_mahaffy@fws.gov, 360-753-7763

Partner LCCs:

Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative; POC: Joel Reynolds

joel_reynolds@fws.gov, 907-786-3914

Arctic Landscape Conservation Cooperative; POC: phillip_martin@fws.gov, 907-456-

0325

Other Partners:

David Koster, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, david.koster@alaska.gov, 907-267-2371

Davin Holen, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, davin.holen@alaska.gov, 907-267-2807

Public Summary

The Community Subsistence Information System (CSIS) hosted by the Division of

Subsistence, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) provides harvest data for over 270

communities. The Division of Subsistence has been collecting harvest data since 1981 for

resources harvested by each community including large land mammals, marine mammals and

migratory waterfowl. Data are organized by community and year of study with different levels of

data available for each rural community. The partnership between ADF&G and Alaska’s

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) has made data available as a searchable, map-

based interface. By creating a spatial interface for the CSIS database, managers and stakeholders

will be able to more easily compare trends in subsistence harvest not only through time but

across the landscape. The result is an intuitive, geographically explicit interface to a wealth of

subsistence information that can be used to inform the research and management planning efforts

of a variety of organizations including federal, state, tribal, and private entities. Among the

potential applications of this product are: demonstrating the value of essential ecosystem

services, projecting food security and community resilience under climate-change scenarios,

assessing potential exposure to contaminants, and identifying potentially vulnerable or sensitive

watersheds.

Executive Summary

The goals of this project were to integrate a map-based interface into the CSIS to provide for

simple navigation, and represent the availability of information by type, time series, and location,

as well as begin building a framework in which a spatial representation of use areas could be

distributed to the public. These goals have been achieved; however the intent of having this as a

completely open and public system has not come fully to fruition due to concerns over server

capacity. Instead, a public review draft has been deployed

(http://extra.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/CommunityObserver/), and a wide range of users have been

provided with the web address of the system. A full roll-out of the system is planned for June

2015.

A key to the success of this project has been involvement of stakeholders outside of ADF&G.

They have provided valuable user stories, upon which the key elements of the system have been

built. Without the funding and support of the NPLCC, the goals of this project would not have

been realized. The funding has provided a platform upon which the Division of Subsistence’s

data has increased in visibility and is presented in a more useful format. With the searchable map

interface in place, stakeholders can quickly and easily identify and extract information for a wide

range of applications. All management agencies, LCCs, and researchers across the spectrum of

public and private organizations will be able to quickly identify relevant time-series data to

extract. The statewide gap analysis this system provides has demonstrated an immediate

improvement to management and research activities. Some of the research areas that will benefit

include food security, resilience, vulnerability, impacts of climate change, resource development,

health impacts. It will also benefit management of fish, game, and marine resources. This tool

will help advance researchers in other fields by ensuring subsistence data is readily available and

easy to find.

Purpose and objectives

The goal of this project was to produce an interactive map interface for the CSIS. This goal

would be accomplished through meeting these sequenced objectives:

1. Design and map for the CSIS using ArcGIS online

2. Identify and, if necessary, create appropriate metadata for GIS layers

3. Integrate the query functions of the CSIS into ArcGIS online

4. Design a webpage for the map interface

5. Test the webpage on the internal ADF&G website

6. Launch the map interface (including the gap analysis information) on the ADF&G public

website

The target audience is management organizations, policy makers, as well as both public and

private researchers.

METHODS, ORGANIZATION AND APPROACH

The project attempted to include a wide range of potential users in the definition of necessary

product functionality. A design proposal was created based upon this feedback, including

priorities for implementation. Further design considerations were included to enhance the system

over time to provide even more valuable information to managers and researchers. This

document was transformed by the programmer into a design specification that has become the

guide for creation and subsequent planned enhancements of the product. The product was tested

internally, presented in multiple venues. The public review draft has been distributed to a wide

range of users and is also distributed whenever a data request might be better addressed through

the system. This process will continue with feedback, additional refinements to the design, and

additional enhancements.

PROJECT RESULTS

Objective 1: Design a map for the CSIS using ArcGIS online.

After a scoping session was conducted with non-agency representatives, programmers, and

partners, a detailed requirements document was produced. This document was followed-up by

programmers with a detailed design document. The design and requirements documents

recommended the use of existing ArcGIS server resources and the ArcGIS API for Flex from

ESRI as the most efficient and effective platform for this interface, instead of ArcGIS. The

selection of a platform other than ArcGIS Online was made only after considering performance,

flexibility, future enhancement capability, and available department infrastructure. Using

existing Department infrastructure allowed for the production of a consistent looking, high

quality interface requiring less development time. Furthermore, in using the ArcGIS API for Flex

moves the Department closer to long-range goals of greatly enhanced spatial data sharing.

This objective of creating a map for the CSIS has been met with the creation of a statewide series

of maps with 10 levels of zoom ranging from 1:4,000,000 to 1:2,400. These maps have 3

viewing modes: topo map, imagery, or no base map. Each scale level contains point symbols

representing the information available for the community found at that point. At each zoom

level, placing the mouse pointer over a data point gives a pop-up information box containing a

snapshot of most up-to-date overall harvest information available for the community. From the

third level of zoom to the highest resolution, names of communities and surveyed Census

Designated Places (CDPs) are displayed. Roads and major waterways are also included as

default layers on all of the maps. Optional selections allow the user to display borders of

subsistence regions, game management units (GMUs), watersheds, and boroughs. See Figure 1.

Figure 1.–Statewide view of available CSIS data with legend.

Objective 2: Identify and if necessary, create, appropriate metadata for GIS layers.

GIS layers for subsistence regions, game management units (GMUs), watersheds, and boroughs

were either created or adapted for use in this product. The metadata in the Community

Subsistence Information System (CSIS) were reviewed, corrected, and enhanced to supplement

each of these layers. Additionally, other elements of metadata were created in order to support

the visual look of the information being displayed graphically. This includes project type, most

representative year of data, and classification by age of the available information.

This objective has been met with the creation of metadata used to implement the look and

display of point data on the map. Additionally, metadata for regions, GMUs, watersheds, and

boroughs were generated and integrated into the current system. See Figure 2 for a sample of this

functionality.

Figure 2.–Western and Southcentral Alaska with watershed boundaries turned on.

Objective 3: Integrate the query functions of the CSIS into ArcGIS online

After integrating initial feedback from users on desired functionality of a map-based, searchable

interface, the desired search functionality was established. Some items identified would require

more work than the scope of the project could support and were designated as future

enhancements such as the ability to retrieve and display layers depicting hunting and fishing

areas. The remaining desired search functions were prioritized with the help of user feedback to

designate a target product that would incorporate essential functions and as many additional

features as possible. These were written into the requirements and design documents. The key

searchable features were identified as: searching for available community information by visible

extent, subsistence regions, GMUs, watersheds, and boroughs. With this information identified,

further refinement of information was to be done using a text-based information box. This box

contains information on years available, with links to download pages for tabular data as well as

PDF versions of available reports.

This objective has been met through the implementation of searchable functions on the map

interface according to the feedback provided by users. These functions provide links to the text

interface, which provides a better interface for displaying detailed data and functionality for

downloading the data. See Figure 3 for a sample of this functionality.

Fig 3.–Selection example of a watershed with detailed information selected for a single

community.

Objective 4: Design a webpage for the map interface

The initial scoping meeting established several parameters for how the application would look

once embedded into the ADF&G website. These included buttons, symbology, legend, and basic

user interactions including how users would gain access to the data indicated by symbols on the

map. The interface was largely designed according to how users initially described its desired

functionality.

This objective has been met through the creation of a web-based application. The current testing

version runs exclusively in a web-browser and will be capable of launching from the ADF&G

website when moved to the public facing site.

Objective 5: Test the webpage on the internal ADF&G website.

The initial testing product was released in early spring of 2014. It has been in place for several

months and circulated to key staff for use and testing. This product continues to be the testing

platform for all new enhancements and bug-fixes. Problems identified through testing are

referred to programmers for remediation or reworking.

This objective has been met through testing and evaluation by internal ADF&G users.

Information used to supply data to the Boards of Fish and Game has been produced through the

use of this site, as has ad-hoc gap analysis used for various information requests.

Objective 6: Launch the map interface (including the gap analysis information) on the ADF&G

public website.

The interface has been launched as a public review draft and is scheduled for full public launch

in 2015. Additional enhancements will be in ongoing development after this launch to continue

to improve the user experience and provide additional tools and information for users. Figure 4

demonstrates the basic gap analysis utility of the application.

Figure 4.–Basic gap analysis showing the available data for the Galena watershed.

LESSONS LEARNED

While the project has been a success, having produced the desired tool, development of the

interface met a number of challenges, resulting in slower than anticipated progress. The original

design of the CSIS did not provide a data layout consistent with the needs of a spatially explicit

interface or gap analysis. While these issues were expected, the full extent of the problem was

not clear until design began. The original CSIS dataset was organized as a year and community

snapshot. This data had to be reorganized for the interface and display. Another, more difficult

situation was the re-definition of places over time. There are several instances where survey

areas cover two communities, or cover places that have since been split into multiple CDPs or

communities. This issue was solved by developing metadata tables to relate places where these

overlaps occur. These issues did not prevent implementation, but did result in a slower

development timeline than anticipated, and reduced the number of features available in the initial

delivery of the final product.

One of the key lessons learned, however, is just how much additional value is added to the

historical dataset by making it spatially explicit. More than one researcher interested in

subsistence topics has remarked that this tool highlighted patterns present in the data that would

not be obvious otherwise. For example, patterns in subsistence uses change from communities at

the mouth of a river from patterns found further upriver. Being able to quickly identify these

patterns can have a huge impact on how managers look at changes in resources, such as salmon.

The next steps of this project are to continue following the original design document to continue

enhancing functionality, and to begin work on realizing the goal of using the interface as a

platform for delivering spatial harvest and use area information.

MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS AND PRODUCTS

This product is intended to help inform a broad array of management decisions, rather than

influence or inform any one specific management effort. Both state and federal regulatory

processes for natural resource management and resource development activities require

consideration of subsistence uses. This interface is expected to help improve that process and

more quickly identify gaps that may need to be addressed before decisions can be made.

Additionally, this data can help to inform land-use decisions, public health research, and climate

change scenarios. The map interface is expected to be used largely by researchers and analysts

involved in the preparation of materials for management processes, so the majority of contacts

were made with those individuals rather than the decision makers themselves. These individuals

were expected to have the best perspective on what would make for a useful tool. Most of the

contacts were identified from past collaborations or those who had requested information. The

role of these contacts was largely advisory with the intent of providing user stories to be used for

identification and prioritization of interface features. Individuals involved in this process include

Division of Subsistence staff, Division of Sport Fisheries programmers, Fish and Wildlife

Service Anthropologist, Pippa Kenner, anthropologists with Steve Braund and Associates, Susan

Georgette with the National Park Service, Tobias Schwoerer at ISER, UAA, and several other

researchers. The feedback they have provided has been used to design an effective user interface,

as well as plan out future enhancements.

PUBLICATIONS AND OUTREACH

ADF&G CSIS Map interface workshop, November 2013—Several user organizations were

invited to send users, including statewide ADF&G Division of Subsistence staff, Bristol Bay

Native Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Steve Braund and Associates, Western

Alaska LCC, Arctic LCC, North Pacific LCC, and Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands LCC.

Division staff were also asked to invite individuals from other organizations to supply comments,

but were unable to solicit further input.