The Chugach National Forest Plan Revision Process and New GIS Technologies to Support Collaborative Planning

Alan Vandiver, USFS, John Stroud, Esri, David Neufeld, Esri,

Gary Sherman, Esri, and Karin Preston, USFS.

June 2, 2000

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines a new planning process used for the Chugach National Forest Plan Revision Process and highlights the importance of the Forest Service as an “Information Broker”.  It describes the partnership between the Forest Service and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) to cooperatively develop and test new Internet and CDROM technologies in a planning environment.

We describe recently developed Internet (ArcIMSä) and CDROM (MapObjects^â) technologies and how they provide innovative techniques to access planning documents and associated spatial data in a simple digital interface. The two projects that were tested are as follows: a CDROM application to access National Forest Management Plan documents with links between text documents and dynamic mapping, as well as spatially referenced comment tools; and an Internet application with the same functionality as the CDROM but accessible over the web using industry standard browsers. 

INTRODUCTION

In 1997, the U.S. Forest Service began revising the Forest Plan for the Chugach National Forest, the second largest forest in the United States.  To emphasize public involvement and participation throughout the planning process, the Forest incorporated Collaborative Learning into the revision plan.  In order to efficiently engage the public, a variety of information dissemination techniques were used to compliment collaborative learning.

Early in the process the planning team identified a need to distribute information to revision participants with Internet and CD-ROM applications.  The Washington Office, of the Forest Service, identified the Chugach as a national pilot for implementing the process and contracted with Esri to develop the applications.

The Internet site will include access to National Forest Management Plan documents hosted at the forest, with links between HTML documents and dynamic mapping.  The site will include links to a web forum that will allow discussion of various forest management alternatives by forest stakeholders, including local industry, recreation enthusiasts, and environmental groups. Client-side “markup” functionality will allow users to draw points on to the map, as well as add comments for that spatial location.  The comments will then be submitted electronically to the USFS for review in the forest plan update process.

The CD-ROM based application will allow Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to be directly integrated with full, text-based documents, all in one windows based desktop application. In other words, the CD-ROM Template is a simple Wizard driven GIS data and html viewer combined into a single application.  This is a particularly useful tool for the distribution of completed documents in a digital fashion that incorporates spatial information, which is vital to natural resource agencies.

BACKGROUND

The Chugach National Forest is similar to other national forests across the country in that many social and ecological changes have occurred since the initial Forest Plans.  The following are some of the changes since the initial Forest Plan in 1984:

·        In 1989, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill occurred in the Prince William Sound.  The majority of wildlife species affected by the spill have not yet fully recovered

·        Cruise boats are docking in communities around and within the Forest at unprecedented rates.  The demand for recreational activities in the Forest is increasing yearly.

·        A new road is opening this year accessing the western Prince William Sound.  This opens new recreational opportunities for the 250,000 residents from Anchorage and many nonresident tourists.

·        Over 100,000 acres of previous National Forest lands have been transferred to Native Corporations.  A significant amount of land is under new ownership.

·        One of the fastest growing areas in Alaska is the Kenai Peninsula.  This area also has a resident population of brown bears.

·        Half a dozen communities are trying to maintain subsistence lifestyles.

Many Forests across the nation have significant issues such as these.  The Chugach National Forest determined that the traditional planning process was inadequate for addressing current issues.  The Chugach process utilizes collaborative learning where participants learn from each others diverse ideas to address complex resource issues.

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

The traditional revision process has a limited amount of public involvement.  The public generally has two primary opportunities to provide input: once when the process is initiated and then two to four years later when the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is complete (See Figure 1, Traditional Planning Process).  The Chugach National Forest approach is based on collaborative learning between the Forest Service and the public at practically every step in the process (See Figure 2, Chugach Planning Process).  As information is learned, initial steps are reviewed and improved.  To effectively implement the new process it is imperative that software technology and large amounts of resource data are available to the public and Forest Service.  The Forest Service serves a primary role as an “Information Broker” by providing technology and data to revision participants. 

Figure 1. Traditional Planning Process

Figure 2. Chugach Revision Process

ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT

The core of the revision process was the formulation of forest management alternatives.  To develop alternatives, the collaborative learning process emphasized early incorporation of public comments and continued public involvement.  A key component of the collaborative learning process was opening Interdisciplinary Team meetings to the public.  The open meetings were very successful; therefore, the Forest Supervisor also opened his leadership team meetings to the public. 

As required by NEPA, alternatives were developed using an Interdisciplinary Team.  Because of the extensive public involvement, it is important to understand each participant’s role in the revision process (See Table 1, Revision Participant Roles).

Table 1. Revision Participant Roles

PRIMARY COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES

To encourage participation by a local and national audience and to implement alternative development, three primary communication techniques were used:

·       Periodic newsletters were sent to those who expressed an interest. 

·        A series of open Interdisciplinary Team meetings, collaborative learning workshops, and community meetings were held in various communities in South-central Alaska. Over 100 meetings were open to the public. The Interdisciplinary Team held collaborative learning workshops in all Chugach communities three times throughout the process.

·        A Web site was developed to disseminate information and provide further opportunities for people to participate.

Using these communication techniques, local communities and people from across the country participated throughout the alternative development process. Often, updated documents and maps were posted quickly on the website, based on updated input from the public meetings. Obviously, the Internet became an important form of communication with the public.

ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT STEPS

The alternative development process involved six primary steps (See Figure 3, Alternative Development).  Participants were given an opportunity to provide review and input at each step.

Steps 1-6 required three years of intensive collaboration to complete the products (i.e., Interests, Situations, Management Prescriptions, etc.).  Each step represents months of open dialogue and discussion.  The open atmosphere facilitated a direct link from the initial 3,000 public comments to the development of six draft Revision Plan alternatives. As with all Draft Forest Plans, it is the Forest Supervisor’s discretion to identify the Preferred Alternative. In fact, the Chugach National Forest Supervisor was able to build the Preferred Alternative from the six alternatives the public assisted in building. 

Building Alternatives

The Interdisciplinary Team knew from the onset that the public was interested in being involved in the revision process although the participation far exceeded their expectations.  To effectively involve so many people an “Alternative Development Toolbox” was constructed.  The idea was to provide access to an array of resource information for people to build realistic alternatives based on current information and data (i.e., GIS data, management prescriptions, interests, other ownership strategies, templates for alternative development, verbal input from CNF staff).  The “Toolbox” provided equal access to information and a standard alternative format so all alternatives could be compared on equal footing.  Again, once the “Toolbox” was in the hands of the participants, utilization of the tools was extensive by the public. The public subsequently submitted alternatives in the form of updated CNF GIS maps. Most of the submitted maps were marked-up paper maps and a few were digital ArcView^â projects.

Once the “Toolbox” was complete participants went to work building their respective alternatives.  Alternatives were developed in Interdisciplinary Team meetings, collaborative learning workshops, and community gatherings throughout various South-central Alaska communities.  After six months of work, thirty comprehensive alternatives were developed.  Table 2 conveys the level of interest to build alternatives by a variety of individuals and organizations.  A few groups spent hours building their alternatives but most spent weeks or months.  The Forest Service became an information broker in this process.  As people needed information, Forest personnel determined the best way to provide the information (i.e., Database, GIS products, Web products or hardcopy). Again, it was clear the most efficient manner to disseminate continually updated information was via digital mediums. The weakness of digital dissemination at this stage was a simple, integrated, coherent, and free application for the public.

Figure 3. Alternative Development

Table 2, Primary authors by alternative

When the alternatives were complete the Forest Supervisor directed the Interdisciplinary Team to review all thirty alternatives and to recommend a manageable number that addressed the range of situations.  This presented quite a challenge for the Interdisciplinary Team because most groups had much ownership in their alternatives.  The Interdisciplinary Team decided to use three techniques to narrow the range:  Cluster analysis, GIS analysis and extensive Collaboration.

Cluster analysis, a statistical procedure for detecting natural groupings of data, was used to determine alternatives that were similar.  Based on the analysis the alternatives clustered into six groups.

As all of the alternatives were described by their authors, some groups were adamantly opposed to other similar alternatives.  To highlight the similarities and provide an atmosphere for collaboration, a GIS analysis was completed to disclose similarities and differences between alternatives in the same group. This analysis focused each group’s efforts on first showing areas of agreement and then resolving the differences.  At this time, an opportunity was provided for the Interdisciplinary Team, all alternative authors, and members of the public to work together with similar alternatives to find common ground and produce one composite alternative for each group.  Resource information was also reviewed to insure that all alternatives could produce the resources desired (i.e., timber was present in areas identified for Resource Development).

When the collaboration was complete the thirty alternatives were reduced into six composite alternatives.  The Forest Supervisor reviewed the composites and determined they represented an adequate range of alternatives.

Throughout this process the Forest Service utilized a variety of techniques to distribute information to the public, but soon realized that it lacked the means to distribute large amounts of data and information. It is clear that digital dissemination tools can further enhance the collaborative learning process.

DIGITAL DISSEMINATION TOOLS

Most, if not all, aspects of any forest planning process use digital tools and information. The output from the current system is a printed-paper document. While the paper document is useful and many people are accustomed to this medium, it is increasingly important that the Forest Service begin using CD-ROM and Internet mediums in the planning process. Digital publication of Forest Plans can reduce dissemination costs, increase transfer speeds to stakeholders and assist in improving the planning process.

The current forest-planning framework has the goal of building a paper-based document. Over time, given the changes in public expectations, the need has arisen to publish digitally. With the knowledge that forest plans will be published digitally, it is crucial to adopt a new digital planning framework that is consistent with both the CD-ROM and Internet formats. Without this, much time and effort will be expended unnecessarily on format conversion exercises. A digital planning framework would assist in the development of future Forest Plans by improving efficiencies in the collaborative planning process. 

One example of how the digital planning framework can improve efficiencies is the ability to receive digital geo-referenced comments from document reviewers. Not only can Internet map servers be integrated with forest plan documents to reveal the information in a geospatial format, but it can be used to automate capturing and reviewing public input. Once captured digitally, this input data can be used directly within the planning framework that builds the forest management revision plan.

ArcIMSä and MapObjects^â software are two of the technologies being evaluated for the new digital planning framework. The Internet and CD-ROM applications provide access to a virtual Revision Plan where the public can review the document and interact with intuitive GIS maps. The text portion of the document uses hyper-links to ease the integration of text to map linkage. Both the CD-ROM and Internet applications await the Draft Revision Plan to go into production. Both applications were developed to be independent of the data. This allows text and maps to be updated from the draft and final versions with no additional programming needed to make the updated version(s) work. This same concept will allow for the transference of the applications to other forests with minimal additional programming.

The virtual plan format of hyper-linking text directly to interactive maps allows easy connections from the subject matter to the mapping data associated with it. For example, if someone wanted to know where wild and scenic rivers are located, a word search tool is used to identify the string “wild and scenic” and a list of hyperlinks is returned directing users into the textual document. Once found, the word “wild and scenic” may be hyper-linked to the “wild and scenic” map for a visual representation as shown in Figures 4 and 5 below.

The Chugach National Forest will be incorporating this new technology into the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Forest Plan this summer.  The Internet application will be available late summer at http://arcticsun.wr.usgs.gov/website/chugach/.

Figure 4. CD-ROM Application in the Text view

Figure 5. CD-ROM Application with in the Map view

Figure 6. ArcIMS (Internet) Application

SUMMARY

The Chugach revision process showed that complex resource issues could be addressed in an open public environment.  It also revealed that the process is “Information Critical”.  To keep the collaborative learning environment productive, the Forest Service needs to be an efficient information broker.  Many digital tools were used to create and provide information yet, inevitably, future tools will need to be developed. Integrating Internet and GIS technologies allow for a robust digital forest revision plan to be created and disseminated on both CD-ROM and Internet. A digital framework has begun with this pilot project that incorporates new planning methods and technology to capture and disseminate forest revision plans.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

John Steffenson, Esri –Denver and Wanda Hodge, USFS.