Spatial Data Taxonomy

1. Spatial Data Taxonomy Pam Keller Bureau of Land Management March 2011

2. SDT is a comprehensive framework for organizing and standardizing geospatial data. Photo credits-Bureau of Land Management, Burns District Office, Mark Armstrong & others

3. Fencing Recreation Sites Watershed Climate Wildfire Chemical Treatment County Vegetation Land Status Urban Zoning Cultural Sites Prescribed Fire Plant Survey Wilderness Harvest Fauna Energy Potential Roads Water Sampling Geology

4. Fuels GIS Realty GIS Timber GIS Range GIS Recreation GIS Water GIS Harvest Vegetation Recreation Sites Water Sampling Land Status Wildfire Roads Fencing Wilderness Watershed Prescribed Fire County Chemical Treatment Cultural Sites Climate Urban Zoning Fauna Land Status

5. Fuels GIS Realty GIS Timber GIS Range GIS Range GIS Water GIS Recreation GIS Wildfire Land Status Vegetation Vegetation Vegetation Harvest Recreation Sites Prescribed Fire Wilderness Watershed Watershed Chemical Treatment Fauna Vegetation County Water Sampling Climate Climate Climate Watershed Wilderness Energy Potential Fencing Fencing Fencing Water Sampling Climate Cultural Sites Roads Roads Water Sampling Water Sampling Chemical Treatment Roads Roads Urban Zoning Cultural Sites Harvest Prescribed Fire Prescribed Fire Chemical Treatment Recreation Sites Land Status Land Status Urban Zoning Chemical Treatment Chemical Treatment

6. Design Flaws • Perspective too narrow—designing for current data and uses • Complex data structures, hard to maintain • Software dependent, not robust over time

7. SDT Design Principles • Well-defined and understood data • Holistic organization • Store once, use many • Simplify

8. Philosophy behind the SDT What is a taxonomy? A system for describing and representing similarity of properties, behaviors, relationships and constraints within a particular domain (group).

9. What is spatial data? Both the location & data about the location. • What is geography? Study of the earth & its lands, features, inhabitants & phenomena. • Branches of geography • Human geography • Physical geography • Environmental geography Translate to high-level categories of the SDT

10. SDT Resources Physical Geography Boundaries Human Geography Activities Human Geography Environmental Geography

11. SDT Domain is Natural Resources

12. And their Management

13. Philosophy of Categorizing Data • Haecceity: discrete, unique properties, the ‘essence’ of a particular thing (John Duns Scotus) • Quiddity: universal, shared qualities, the ‘whatness’ of a thing • Somewhat like species and genus (Aristotle) • Essence is the set of attributes that make an object what it is, without which it loses it’s identity (Leibniz) • Ontology: formal representation of knowledge by a set of concepts within a domain (Heidegger) • These concepts are important in identifying the lowest level of SDT, the elemental,atomic entities

14. The Essence of Data Entities in SDT • What – inherent rather than interpreted or derived • What -- rather than who, how, when , why • What -- the definition of a thing • What -- inclusivity and mutual exclusivity • What – includes the characteristics that make it a particular thing and those that it shares Drives the SDT structure & feature classes

15. Fencing Recreation Sites Watershed Climate Wildfire County Chemical Treatment Vegetation Land Status Cultural Sites Urban Zoning Prescribed Fire Plant Survey Wilderness Harvest Fauna Energy Potential Roads Water Sampling Geology

16. GIS Activities Resources Vegetation Chemical Boundaries County Climate Harvest Energy Potential Wilderness Prescribed Fire Watershed Land Status Roads Cultural Sites Recreation Sites Fencing Wildfire Urban Zoning Water Sampling Fauna

17. SDT Overview Three categories at the highest level. Resources : physically existing raw materials of natural resource management. Activities: human activities (physically manifested) associated with natural resources. Boundaries: human constructs (concept or description) with no physical existence, bounding areas of regulation/restriction on resource management.

18. Vertical/Inherited Relationships Resources Activities Boundaries Species Occurrence Treatments Political Landscape Cover Structures Administrative Potential Resource Survey PlanningDesignations Water Sampling Land Status Climate Terrain

19. Other inherent data qualities • Basic who/how/when/why attributes • Spatial characteristics • Creation and use of the data • Update frequency (dynamic vs static) • Accuracy needs Similarities group naturally within the SDT hierarchy and already defined atomic entities

20. Horizontal Relationships: Cause&Effect Interdependence “Business Cases” Activities take place on, in or with Resources inside some Boundary

21. Horizontal Relationships between Feature Classes Species Occurrence:Survey ID Sample ID Survey: Survey ID Sampling: Sample ID Landscape Cover: Current Veg Sample ID Treatments: Trtmt ID Plan ID Structures: Trtmt ID Plan ID Planning Area: Plan ID Special Designation Area: Plan ID

22. Relationships between Feature Classes and External Databases Resources Activities Boundaries Species Occurrence Treatments Political Landscape Cover Structures Administrative Potential Resource Survey PlanningDesignations Water Sampling Land Status Climate Basic - Detailed Relationship Terrain

23. Master -- Derived Relationships Overlay of Weeds Chemically treated in County X on BLM. Species Occurrence Weeds Treatments Chemical Political Boundaries County X BLM Surface Jurisdiction Land Status

24. Example Implementation: OR/WA BLM • Called the Oregon Data Framework, ODF • Taxonomy represented in UML • Lowest levels (feature classes) automatically inherit from higher levels (abstract classes) • Domains shared among many feature classes • New data standards quickly implemented • Includes creation of the feature classes and population from scattered data sources • Full framework more than half implemented

25. Benefits • Simplified data structures make maintenance easier • Reduced redundancy and inconsistency • Improved accuracy and currency • Better defined data and data analyses • Data more accessible and sharable • Robust when HW/SW changes

26. The art of ranking things in genera and species is of no small importance and very much assists our judgment as well as our memory. You know how much it matters in botany, not to mention animals and other substances, or again moral and notional entities as some call them. Order largely depends on it, and many good authors write in such a way that their whole account could be divided and subdivided according to a procedure related to genera and species. This helps one not merely to retain things, but also to find them. Gottfried Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, 1704 The world of spatial data is in need of systematic taxonomy. The spatial representation of geographical entities, as a whole, and according to their inherent qualities is still lacking.

27. Questions or Comments? Contact: Pam Keller (541) 573-4486 pkeller@blm.gov

28. Resources Subcategories Species Occurrence - Specific locations of plant and animal species and change over time. Overlapping polygons . Core attributes include species, discovery date, revisit date, a link to survey area, accuracy, season of use for fauna and % cover for flora. Water – Inland water on the surface of the earth. Points, lines and polys. Core attributes include USGS name, local or special name, flow, fish presence, riparian condition, water quality, link to water rights data. Landscape Cover – Entities that can be thought of as covering the surface of the earth from “wall to wall” such as soil and plant communities. Ecological Potential (Soil and potential plant community/ecological site) and Current Cover (dominant plant community). Wildfire – Wildland fire started through natural, accidental or malicious causes. Overlapping polygons and points for ignition points and very small fires. Core attributes include name, incident number, date, cause code. Geology – Formations , Faults Climate – Precipitation isolines and zones, Lightning, Air Quality, Wind Zone, Temperature Zone, Solar Insolation Cultural Sites – location of archeological finds Terrain – Entities describing the shape of the earth’s surface. Elevation contours and zones, Landform, Viewshed, Aspect , Slope, Hydrologic Unit (watershed), Physiographic Province Potential Resource – Group of entities for predicting the natural world when direct measurement is not possible. These are futures or past oriented: what we think the physical resource looked like in the past or will look like in the future. Does not refer to a representative model. These are new entities created from two or more other entities. Mineral potential, Energy Potential, Wildlife Habitat Potential, Fire Behavior, Cultural Site Prediction, Flora Site Prediction, Visual Resources Inventory, Wilderness Characteristics Inventory. Core attributes include date and method.

29. Activities Subcategories Treatment – Deliberate human action for the purpose of natural resource management that results in alteration of the landscape. Overlapping polygons track multiple treatments through time. Core attributes include name, method, agent, purpose, target, date, and links to the authorizing plan and planning databases. Prescribed Fire, Harvest, Mechanical, Revegetation, Chemical, Biological and Protection with feature classes for both completed and proposed treatment. Proposed treatments have an attributes for status. Survey – Location of deliberately searched areas . Overlapping polygons track repeated surveys through time. Core attributes include name, date, method, surveyor, survey target, found flag. links to Species Occurrence if found. Flora Survey, Fauna Survey, Weed Survey, Archaeology Survey, Reforestation Survey. Sampling – Deliberately collected data recorded at specific point locations. Specific data and methodology details and repeated measurements through time are kept in external, linked tables. Point data. Includes vegetation sample plots, timber stand exams, soil pits, stream sample points, prism (climate) plots, wildlife observation points, treatment monitoring points and many others. Could all be combined on one feature class. Core attributes include XY coordinates with projection, general sample type, sample identifier, method, last sample date, direction, accuracy, and links to resource feature or treatment feature. One feature class. Structures – Human-built structures, construction. Two feature classes, Lines and points. Existing and proposed. Polygons created from lines or points if necessary using radius attribute. Lines created from points if necessary with side length attribute. Core attributes include name, special name, structure type, date constructed, maintenance responsibility, closure status, easement flag, condition, material, agent, and links to the authorizing plan and to maintenance and budget databases. Line structures include roads and trails, pipelines, fences. Point structures include gates, culverts, water development, towers, toilets, quarries, buildings, boat ramps, airstrips. Smaller structure features (picnic tables, signs, spigots, etc) kept in XY tables.

30. Boundaries Subcategories Political & Administrative – Boundaries related to public policy and law or to the management of government entity jurisdictions. Core attributes include name and information about the authorizing instrument. Feature classes include Wilderness, declared Roadless Areas, National Historic Districts, Wild & Scenic River Corridors, National Monuments, Endangered Species Critical Habitat, Grazing Allotments, Wildhorse Herd Areas, Urban Growth Boundary, BLM Resource Areas, National Forests, Counties, Congressional Districts and Census Blocks. New Political & Administrative boundary proposals are relatively rare. Special Management Area – Boundaries for special areas created or updated through land use planning efforts. Core attributes include name, special values, management restrictions, plan name. Wall-to-wall designation zones for OHV, Mineral Stipulation, Land Tenure, Right-of-Way Avoidance, Visual Resource Management, Fire Management. Selected areas for Riparian Preserve, Forest Preserve, Wildlife Management, Special Recreation Management, Research Natural Areas, Special Products. Feature classes for proposed SMA boundaries are created when a new plan is initiated and include an additional attribute for planning alternative. When the plan is approved Proposed SMA boundaries are incorporated into existing SMA boundary features and then archived. Land Status – Entities containing official description of land parcels and the legal rights and restrictions on land parcels. All features are snapped to the Geographic Coordinate Database points (survey grid). Feature classes include Township/Range/Section/¼ ¼ , Surface Jurisdiction, Subsurface (mineral estate) Ownership , Easement/Right-of-Way areas and lines, Withdrawals, Claims and Leases , and Land Tenure Transfer (history of acquisition and disposal). Core attributes include type, right holder name or code, and case file (serial) number that links to the legal record. Proposed Land Tenure Transfer updates Surface and Subsurface ownership as well as existing Land Tenure Transfer. Encumbrances (easement/right-of-way, withdrawal, claims, leases ) also have feature classes for proposed and include an attribute for proposal status. Plan or Project Boundary - Any area where a multi-year plan for specific action or set of actions will be analyzed and perhaps undertaken. Many overlapping polygons. Core attributes include plan name, date, stage, and identifier used as the link to treatments, surveys, structures and special management areas authorized by the plan.