Coastal GIS Quarterly Activity Report

David Hart

October to December 2002

Coastal GIS Advisory Services – Madison Office (A/AS-1-DH)

Submitted a 2003-06 work plan on coastal GIS applications to the National Sea Grant College Office.

Submitted a grant proposal to the NOAA Coastal Services Center on October 4 concerning the development of a “dynamic and distributed GIS” to support integrated coastal management along the Lake Superior coast of Wisconsin. A dynamic and distributed GIS is one where custodians, whether they be local, regional, state, federal, academic, or non-profit, maintain and provide access to the most current spatial data and multiple remote users can access and integrate data in real-time from multiple sources. The first task involves the development of web mapping interfaces and tools to support public access to local government GIS data. It extends the prototype developed for Bayfield County to other local and regional government organizations along the Lake Superior coast. The second task concerns the implementation of web mapping services that allow integration of disparate GIS data across political boundaries. Rather than developing stand-alone local government web mapping sites, the project will draw upon the principles and protocols of the Open GIS Consortium (http://www.opengis.org) to link local web mapping services and build an interoperable, “bottom-up” coastal GIS. The third task builds upon the Sea Grant/LICGF coastal GIS training program to teach local government professional staff, citizens, and other coastal constituents how to use these integrated web mapping services through workshops and web-based tutorials.

Provided a copy of a triangulated irregular network (TIN) developed from digital contour mapping for the four coastal townships in Ozaukee County to Damon Anderson and Jill Hewitt for use in a wetland restoration inventory project.

Supervised work by Ted Quinby and Kiran Manchicanti on the development of websites to serve GIS data for the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior coasts of Wisconsin.

Restored the Orthoserver website after a server crash and continued work on enhancement of the site to better distinguish between dates of digital orthophotos.

Provided technical assistance to Mike Silich of Racine County on tiff world files (.tfw) for new digital orthophotos and USGS 7½ min. topographic maps maps for the county. October 2.

Provided technical assistance on GIS data for the Lake Superior basin to Chris Babiarz of the Environmental Chemistry lab. November 14.

Provided technical assistance to Scott Kiley of the Dane County Parks Dept. on finding lake maps for Dane County in digital vector format. November 22.

Began writing a tutorial on including Wisconsin County Coordinate System parameters in ArcIMS web mapping services.

Implementation of Comprehensive, Dynamic GIS for Coastal Management: Linking Agencies for Better Decisions and Public Information about the Coastal Zone (A/AS-49)

GIS and Coastal Smart Growth. Supervised work by Lea Shanley on the use of GIS to support smart growth in coastal areas.

Participated in a conference call with Mark Walter of the Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission to discuss the “Web-Based Tools for Development Impact Assessment and Comprehensive Planning” project on December 11. As a result of the conference call, the focus of the project was switched from the Town of Liberty Grove to the Town of Gibraltar in Door County. The Town of Gibraltar is in the early phases of a “Smart Growth” planning project with the assistance of the Bay-Lake RPC. Requested GIS data for Gibraltar from the Bay-Lake RPC.

Participated in conference calls with NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC) staff on coastal smart growth November 11 and 26. NOAA CSC is conducting a survey of Smart Growth activities in coastal states.

Coastal GIS Training Models. Supervised work by Brea Lemke on coastal GIS training models and the use of distributed web mapping services to support coastal management.

Developed tutorials for using web mapping services to analyze environmental issues. The first utilizes Arc Explorer – Web Services Edition with web map services for the Boston area. The second utilizes ArcMap with web map services in Wisconsin to view floodplain data.

Searched for local and state government ArcIMS sites that are coded with coordinate system parameters and that could be integrated “on-the-fly” projection transformations. Expanded and enhanced a list of Wisconsin internet mapping sites to include more technical information about each site.

Developed PowerPoint presentations and GIS training exercises for a “GIS Tools to Support Stormwater Management” workshop at the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance Stormwater 2003 Conference on March 6, 2003 in Green Bay.

Use of GIS to Support Decision-Making About Coastal Management

Along the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior Coasts of Wisconsin – Wisconsin Coastal Management Program (A/AS-1-GIS Outreach-1)

Met with WCMP staff to discuss project administration and progress on October 11 and October 31.

Developed a poster depicting Wisconsin Great Lakes lighthouses that was displayed at the Capitol during GIS week from November 18-22.

Participated in a conference call with state coastal management directors and OCRM staff to discuss coastal performance indicators on December 19.

Worked with Alberto Vargas and Karen Tuerk on a presentation on “Using GIS to Measure Performance Indicators for Coastal Management in Wisconsin” for the Coastal GeoTools ’03 Conference to be held in Charleston, SC from January 5-9, 2003.

GIS Implementation at WCMP. Installed DNRView2 on a laptop used by the WCMP.

GIS and Performance Indicators for Wetlands. Supervised work by Karen Tuerk on use of Wisconsin Wetlands Inventory data to produce summary statistics for wetlands in coastal counties. Met with Don Reed, Bob Biebel, and John McDougall of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) in Waukesha on November 8 to discuss GIS and performance indicators for coastal wetlands and coastal hazards in southeastern Wisconsin.

GIS and Performance Indicators for Public Access (Karen Tuerk). Supervised work by Karen Tuerk to use DNR managed lands data and local parcel data to produce summary statistics of public lands in coastal counties. Met with Heather Kelley of the Department of Natural Resources on October 14 to discuss the GIS data collection for a Great Lakes beach monitoring project.

Data Acquisition and Integration for Coastal Hazard Damage Assessment—Corps of Engineers, Detroit District

Produced historical digital orthophotos for Kewaunee, Racine, and Kenosha Counties using the Orthomapper software developed by Prof. Scarpace. Quality control for the 1956 orthophotos for Milwaukee County uncovered errors and the digital orthophotos will need to be re-done. Continued work on the delineation of the bluffs toes and tops from historical orthophotos for Kewaunee, Racine, and Kenosha Counties.

GIS Training

Conducted an “Introduction to ArcView” training course at LICGF on November 19-20. 2 attending.

GIS Presentations

None.

Meetings/Conferences

Attended the Wisconsin Land Information Association (WLIA) regional meeting in Wausau on October 3-4.

Participated in a meeting with Chip Hankley, A.J. Wortley, Woody Wallace, and Puneet Kishor on October 9 to develop a session for the WLIA Annual Conference in February on open source web mapping titled “Web Mapping…Done Dirt Cheap.”

Was appointed by the Dean of Letters and Sciences to the Committee on State Cartography on October 8 and participated in the fall meeting on October 10.

Attended Geology Seminars on the Oliver landslide on October 11 and the Lake Superior bluff stability study on November 15.

Attended the UW-Madison, Spatial Information and Analysis Consortium lecture by Prof. Mark Harrower on October 15 titled “Map Color for Dummies: Online Tools for Helping Non-experts Select Good Color Schemes.”

Attended the Waters of Wisconsin Forum in Madison on October 21-22.

Attended a meeting of the Wisconsin Land Information Board, Elevation Data Task Force on October 23.

Attended the Spatial Information Analysis Consortium (SIAC) campus spatial data coordination meeting on November 4.

Attended a Lake Superior GIS coordination meeting in Ashland on November 5. The meeting featured a presentation on GIS for Lake Superior tributaries in Wisconsin.

Met with Sue O’Halloran and Nate Hudson of UW-Superior on the Lake Superior Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) project on November 6.

Participated in the Creating a Collaborative Research Environment (CCRE) program starting October 7. CCRE works with small interdisciplinary groups to broaden perspectives of inquiry, consider possibilities beyond traditional boundaries, and explore assumptions about research. Attended lectures on collaboration conducted by Jeffrey Spahn on November 11 and 25.

Attended a meeting to discuss NOAA Marine Protected Areas with state and federal staff in Madison on November 13.

Participated in a meeting to discuss the structure of the UW Sea Grant Institute web site in Manitowoc on November 17-18.

Participated in the Coastal Hazards Work Group meeting on November 21.

Met with Lindsay Anderson of the UW-Madison Geology Department on November 25 to discuss the use of GIS in the Lake Superior Bluff Stability study. Met with Prof. David Mickelson and Lindsay Anderson on December 9 to discuss a grant proposal to the Great Lakes Protection Fund.

Met with Nancy Wiegand on November 27 to discuss the Digital Government project on “Integrating Metadata Development, XML, and DBMS Search and Query Techniques in a State of Wisconsin Land Information System.”

Met with Prof. Rich Bishop and Rebecca Moore of the UW-Madison Agricultural Economics Department on December 3 to discuss the use of digital parcel mapping to better understand the impacts of water quality on property values along Green Bay. Met again with Rebecca Moore on December 19 to discuss the same topic.

Attended the Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission GIS Users Group meeting in Green Bay on December 4.

Attended the Geography lecture on landslides by Prof. A-Xing Zhu on December 6.

Attended the Wisconsin Wetlands Joint Venture meeing in Madison on December 12 to hear a presentation by Jill Hewitt on a wetlands restoration inventory for Ozaukee County. Provided a laptop with ArcGIS for the presentation.

Met with Helen Sarakinos of the River Alliance of Wisconsin on December 17 to discuss the use of GIS to analyze dam removal in the Lake Michigan watershed.