Integration of National-Level Geospatial Ecological Tools and Data (2014)

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1The purpose of this report is to document the methods and results of the C40A project, Integration of National-Level Geospatial Ecological Tools and Data. This project was carried out under the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2), within the Capacity focus area. The primary objective of the project was to develop an integrated, geospatial ecological screening tool for early transportation planning that produces results that can carry through and inform the environmental review process. To meet the objective, the team completed several tasks to determine the needs for the tool, develop a vision, design the tool, coordinate with potential users and related research projects, build and test a beta version, and update the tool based on feedback. The resulting product of the research was the Eco-Plan website. Eco-Plan is a central resource for current, national geospatial data that can be used to identify and avoid conflicts between ecological assets and transportation plans before the National Envi- ronmental Policy Act (NEPA) process begins. Eco-Plan supports transportation planning by providing prepared maps of national ecological data sets that can be used to avoid and minimize transportation impacts. Eco-Plan can be used to • Review maps of national ecological data sets. • Find data and other useful geographic information system (GIS) information. • Upload or draw a planning area or transportation network. • Allow novice users without GIS skills to explore conservation priorities. The team also implemented Eco-Plan Advanced, a separate website hosted by Esri ArcGIS Online (AGO), which provides all of the information available through Eco-Plan as well as the (AGO) capabilities to • Add any data set to the prepared maps of national ecological data. • Set up groups to save, share, and comment on maps. • Conduct GIS analysis and create reports. When the project was completed, ICF participated in both a conference presentation at the 2014 GIS for Transportation (GIS-T) conference in Burlington, Vermont, and a SHRP 2 Tuesday webinar on Eco-Plan. Considering the results of the project and the feedback received at those two events, ICF has drawn the following conclusions: • There is a wealth of existing GIS data and tools, but they are hard to find. Through research and discussions with the user group and beta test group, ICF has concluded that there are numer- ous federal data sets that would be useful to planners. However, GIS data and tools are owned Executive Summary

2and managed by various federal agencies without centralized management and are there- fore difficult to find. Tools like Eco-Plan and the Environmental Protection Agency’s new EnviroAtlas do help to consolidate references to many of the existing GIS web services. • Eco-Plan does meet many of the needs identified early in the project for smaller state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). At the first Technical Expert Task Group (TETG) review meeting, the group decided to primarily target the smaller state DOTs and MPOs without significant in-house GIS resources. This decision informed the future design and functionality of Eco-Plan and resulted in a website that provides interactive maps, references to authoritative data sources, and links to supporting GIS tools. • Eco-Plan is easy to use and useful. The beta test results show that more than 75% of the users felt Eco-Plan was easy to use, useful, and navigable. • Local data are still key for in-depth analysis. Users still prefer local data over national, federal data when available for detailed analysis. Users expressed concern at solely relying on national data given their high geographic scale, frequency of updates, and accuracy. • Architecture decision appears to be in line with the direction of many states. The research team struggled with designing an architecture that met users’ needs, would be accepted by state DOTs and MPOs, and did not place a large administrative or cost burden on the future system owner. After much analysis, the team designed an architecture built around AGO. The decision to use AGO appears to be in line with the direction that many state DOTs, especially those in the grow- ing American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Technol- ogy Implementation Group (TIG) program, are taking to manage and publish GIS data. To support full adoption of Eco-Plan, the following activities are suggested: • Continue the search for a final system owner. The Federal Highway Administration has been investigating options for a final system owner. It would be desirable to find a viable system owner that uses a sustainable hosting model, which will allow Eco-Plan to grow and evolve. • Define the role of the future system owner. The role of the future system owner needs to be defined and documented to set expectations. Ideally, the role would include more than just hosting the website. It would be best if the system owner could continually find new data sets and tools and update the website appropriately. • Finish the ecological screening tool prototype. During the temporary hosting period of the research project, the ecological screening tool prototype was limited to six states and three main data sets to save disk space. The system owner may want to consider loading data for the remaining states. • Add more data sets to the ecological screening tool. The ecological screening tool uses the critical habitats, wetlands, and protected areas data sets. Eco-Plan would be enhanced if additional data sets were added to the tool to better inform users during initial project screening. • Add official state, regional, and local data sets. The scope of the research project was to focus on national data sets. However, many official state, regional, and local data sets are currently used in transportation planning. Adding those to Eco-Plan is a viable option for the system owner to increase the website’s value as an authoritative source for transportation planning data. • Implement some of the user-recommended changes. The beta test group made several recom- mendations for changes. The future system may want to review these and implement the cost-effective changes.