But until recently, there has been no organized coordinated effort for sharing the massive collection of natural resources information essential to make informed decisions.
To improve science-based decision-making, the California Biodiversity Council has created a Science Coordinating Committee (SCC) that is developing a system for sharing natural resource information.
“Inadequate coordination of information leads to duplication of effort, unmet research needs, data thatšs incompatible or inaccessible, and ultimately to less effective decisions,” said Susan Cochrane, chief of the Natural Heritage Division of the California Department of Fish and Game.
Cochrane chairs the SCC, which is working closely with the state’s on-line data system CERES—California Environmental Resources Evaluation System—to coordinate research information and make it readily accessible. The SCC is on-line at ceres.ca.gov/biodiversity/scc
On-line access to high quality, up-to-date information at local, regional, and statewide levels will benefit not only government agencies but local land-use planners, managers, and public, private, and nonprofit groups and individuals.
Two-Way Street
Besides sharing research and data among themselves and making it accessible to everyone else, the SCC envisions receiving information from local sources such as the 475 watershed groups, which have particular expertise in their communities.
“So far, the information flow is mostly from the center out,” said Jim Quinn, a professor and head of the Information Center for the Environment (ICE) at UC Davis.
“Increasingly, wešre getting interest from county offices, extension agents, and watershed groups,” Quinn said. “Our challenge is to start the information flow coming back in the other direction A feedback from local knowledge will improve the central information and statewide and federal processes.”
Quinn says it’s part of the university’s role to help integrate information and provide technical analysis and tools. But university researchers havenšt been able to analyze data on a bioregional or statewide scale effectively enough because information is held at so many government agencies.
For example, Quinn said, information about the effect of mines upon water, leakage into waterways, and effects on salmon must be gleaned from three different agencies: one that deals with pollution, another with mining, and the other with fish.
The SCC is developing a process to make information appropriately held by an agency, but needed by others, available through a coordinated system.
Besides coordinating information, the SCC is improving the extent to which data-gatherers take the same approach to collecting, storing, and exchanging it. The program also intends to develop an information exchange with local watershed groups.
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University of California, Department of Fish and Game, California Resources Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Park Service, California Coastal Conservancy, CERES, Department of Conservation, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Department of Parks and Recreation, California Department of Transportation, Department of Water Resources, and the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts. |
Stine said the BRD is working with state Fish and Game to collaborate on maintaining records of rare and endangered species that would involve all Council members.
“We agree it makes sense to use a common approach,” Stine said. “In the past, records were maintained individually, so we have numerous systems that may be overlapping.”
Council members are signing a memorandum of understanding agreeing to collaborate.
“Wešll be able to pool our efforts and create something we haven’t been able to do individually,” Stine said. “With collaboration, the data base will be a more efficient, more thorough and better product.”
The Broader Picture
Coordinating scientific information is a broad undertaking for the Council. Last year, its members created the Natural Resource Project Inventory (NRPI) to make regional and statewide information about more than 1,000 conservation and restoration projects accessible on the World Wide Web.
NRPI, initiated with a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, was designed to consolidate and coordinate a wide array of information that will enable users to share knowledge, reduce costs, and avoid duplicating efforts.˛
The ICE unit at UC Davis is coordinating information for the NRPI, which is part of the information inventory of CERES at ceres.ca.gov