PIMS
The Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring System
To manage National Forests effectively, Forest Planners must understand how any proposed action will fit within a landscape context of previous management actions. Where has previous work occurred? What conditions were those actions intended to create? Given the history of previous forest management actions, where is the priority for future work?
It is important to understand how previous management actions inform lessons learned and future priorities.
A core tenant of land management is continual learning and adapting from previous management actions. Yet, despite dozens of projects planned, authorized and implemented on any National Forest, a systematic, cumulative view of the history of management action across our National Forests is lacking.
The potential solution is a new tool called the Planning, Implementation and Monitoring System (PIMS), a systematic, informed, workflow through which Forest managers plan, implement, and monitor forest management actions. Importantly, this workflow requires three elements:
- Improved data stewardship to represent Project Boundaries, planning decisions, and Treatment Accomplishments historically and transparently.
- Specific Geospatial Tools to render a common operating picture of the history of Forest management actions to inform proposed future treatments.
- Standard direction and training for Project Planning.
PIMS is a conceptual workflow to improve how projects are planned, implemented and monitored through a transparent and intuitive vantage, informed by the cumulative history of Forest management actions.
What will PIMS DO? What will it accomplish?
- Render all authoritative agency data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
- Render historic Project Planning data (PALS)
- Render historic Project Implementation Data (FACTS, TIMS, INFRA, WIT, etc..)
- Compare Planned Projects with Implemented treatments
- Access and integrate monitoring data
- Equip planners with a common operating picture through which Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring of Forest management projects would occur.
What might PIMS look like? How would it behave?
The Interface for PIMS would be a simple and intuitive website accessible to all authorized USFS users.
The design takes advantage of standard, industry best practices for interface design:
- The HOME button zooms to the national extent of the map viewer. Users can zoom in or out by scrolling.
- The LAYERS button will allow users to turn relevant map layers on or off.
- The BASEMAPS button allows users to toggle among satellite or aerial imagery, topographic, navigational, or other reference basemaps
- LEGEND button will display an active legend for only visible data layers.
- SLIDER button will allow users to compare Planned treatments with Implemented and accomplished treatments.
- RESOURCE button will allow users to view data according to only specified Resource Areas (Archeology, Hydrology, Fire, Recreation, Timber, Lands, Range,..).
To demonstrate a use-case scenario, let's zoom to the Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Resource managers have identified an area West of Challis that could benefit from wildland fuel reduction and restoration from a recent invasive species infestation.
By drawing a polygon around a potential project area, the Data Extract Tool returns an inventory of authoritative data available to resource managers, who can access the data directly.
Planning
The first step in any Forest management action is to review where previous management action has advanced resource management goals. Have previous efforts been successful? Where have they been situated?
PIMS integrates project polygon boundaries from PALS, a corporate database documenting all NEPA projects on Forest Service lands.
Importantly, PIMS would also equip Resource Managers to add future planned Project boundaries directly into PALS.
Planning
In this case, by drawing a polygon, users have identified two legacy NEPA projects, identified in PALS, that have occurred within the delineated red project area.
The Resource button will allow users to view maps according to all resource areas together, or only for specified Resource Areas, in this case, Fire and Lands.
The Layers Button lists the map layers available to display. They vary according to the stage in the PIMS workflow (Planning / Implementation / Monitoring)
However, a map representing the cumulative history of Forest management must include more than only NEPA project boundaries from PALS.
Planning
A key component of PIMS' Planning Phase is a comprehensive view of forest management actions that have been, or are, planned within Project boundaries.
Here you can see where fuel reduction treatments have been planned within the Project Area.
Users can also access and integrate USFWS tools for planning and monitoring.
Although NEPA projects are documented and stored in PALS, the associated management actions, or treatments, are typically stored across various independent corporate databases, depending on the Resource area.
For example, forest restoration treatments may be documented in FACTS. Timber sales are tracked in TIM. Watershed improvement treatments are stored in WIT, while road improvements or decommissioning are stored in INFRA or MVUM.
A significant challenge in developing a common operating picture of Forest management is integrating treatment data from various independent databases (FACTS, INFRA, TIM, etc.)
Such an effort would require improved agency-wide data stewardship across program areas.
Implementation
Once a project area has been identified, PIMS users can access the Implementation Phase of the PIMS workflow to view the cumulative history of specific management actions and design projects accordingly.
Implemented treatment data can be displayed comprehensively or separately according to the Resource Area selected on the left.
Here you can see where fuel reduction treatments have been accomplished under the Fire and Lands resource areas within the Project Area.
Monitoring
Resource managers need to monitor the status of any ongoing NEPA project and evaluate the effectiveness of each management action. Most Forest management actions take multiple years, not only to conduct the required NEPA analysis, but also to administer the treatments themselves across various field seasons, contractors and staff availability.
As a result, there is often a gap between management actions that have been NEPA Planned and approved, but have not yet been implemented.
Monitoring
For example, this view of PIMS displays a slider bar that compares Planned Treatment types (on the left of the slider bar) with Implemented and Accomplished Treatments (on the right of the slider bar).
Users can distinguish Planned treatments with treatments that have actually been contracted, implemented, and accomplished.
In addition, the Monitoring Phase of the PIMS workflow will render any existing monitoring data that overlaps the proposed project area. By gaining access to existing monitoring plans, resource managers can learn from previous efforts.
System
By presenting comprehensive data that inform the Planning, Implementation and Monitoring of projects across the landscape, PIMS will equip resource planners with a systematic common operating picture through which decisions can be made and justified.
PIMS will also include a System tab that reports the system of human resources, stakeholders, and decision-makers who influence decisions.
In this example, this organizational chart lists the Ecosystems staff who would be responsible for various components of project Planning, Implementation and Monitoring. By providing known points of contact, PIMS could leverage improved collaboration.
To explore a more detailed sample of potential PIMS data, tools and functions, explore the links below:
1. Access authoritative agency data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW):
2. PIMS Sample Resource Area Functions:
3. Investigate Planned vs Implemented Treatments
Summary Report:
Task 1: Project 21 – Review of data and process to decide on Categorical Exclusion
In 2018, the Salmon-Challis National Forest decided a Categorical Exclusion (CE) from NEPA was justified under the Farm Bill to accomplish a fuels reduction project, South 21. This project served as the focus of our investigation to understand how various landscape data informed the process to justify a NEPA decision, in this case, a Categorical Exclusion.
Our team conducted a series of interviews and completed a comprehensive survey of ID Team members to learn how GIS data informed the development of the South 21 Project, its boundary and resulting fuel reduction polygons. Although we assembled and reviewed all GIS data stored in the South 21 Project folder, and other enterprise data, in addition to the CE decision itself, we found no direct link between any GIS dataset and the resulting project area boundary nor the resulting treatment areas identified by the ID Team.
None of the relevant documents referenced by the ID Team in the questionnaire was in a geospatial format. Rather than ‘data’ that informed the decision, the ID Team referenced ‘Documents’ (pdf's, doc.'s, .jpeg's etc.), not the component geospatial data that informed the documents. As a result, the ID Team had only an indirect understanding of available geospatial data used to inform the decision. Respondents to the questionnaire referenced documents, rather than the geospatial data that was used to develop these documents.
What we learned -
An Inter-disciplinary (ID) Team consists of various resource specialists, who work together to develop resource specialist reports that inform a collaborative decision-making process. Resource specialists took good advantage of available geospatial data to develop the reports that provided defensible rationale for the project overall. However, the shape and size of the Project area and the treatments themselves were designed through an internal, collaborative process unique to this ID Team. It is unclear how, or if, any landscape data were used to design the project itself or its treatment boundaries.
A common challenge across the agency is that authoritative GIS data are not applied consistently, nor systematically, to inform shared objectives. This impedes the identification of efficiencies and best practices.
Rather than facilitating individual planning efforts that are unique to each Project and Forest, PIMS would rely on a common operating picture that is accessible from any National Forest. The development of such a common operating picture will leverage more authoritative USFS standard data. By leveraging authoritative standard data consistently, Forest managers can develop lessons learned and best practices for identifying high-priority targets for management action. Furthermore, such a consistent mapped view of standard data would improve standard, metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of various forest management practices across multiple scales.
Recommendation: Rely on Data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
- Regional Leadership should urge Forest Supervisors and Planners to rely on shared, enterprise data that are easily discoverable from the EDW. Such data are governed nationally, but updated by local Forest data managers.
- If local data are more relevant and accurate than EDW data, Resource managers should explore how to publish local data as authoritative webmap services through the EDW.
- Where possible, Planners should reference relevant analysis results directly, and geospatial data specifically, rather than Resource Specialist reports, which may or may not include specific datasets.
All data, results, maps and documents for Task 1 are available here.
Task 2: ArcGIS Pro Demonstration of any potential workflow efficiencies
The Forest Service currently uses ArcMap as its desktop GIS environment for data analysis and presentation when evaluating categorical exclusions. Each section of the final CE document maintains a different folder of data where base data and analysis results are stored. These folders also contain ArcMap documents (.MXD's) which contain layouts that correspond to figures used in the final reports. Data in the ArcMap documents can pull from these folders or from common SDE databases available from a centralized data source. The file geodatabases outside of SDE are in some cases stored by the chapter they were used in while others seem to be project-wide. By contrast, there is a common folder which holds MXDs that may appear in different sections of the CE document.
The migration from one desktop GIS solution to another can be accomplished using ArcGIS Pro’s built in tools. Maps can be imported from ArcMap documents (.MXD's) into a new Pro project. Each data frame in an imported MXD is converted to a new map within the ArcGIS Pro project. Multiple MXDs are imported into a common ArcGIS Pro project resulting in one centralized container for GIS data and layouts. This conversion process maintains links to the GIS data and keeps all layout information intact for a seamless transition to the new environment.
Recommendation: The Standard Advantages to ArcGIS Pro
PIMS does not require ArcGIS Pro. However, GIS data managers who participate on Forest ID Teams can benefit from standard efficiencies available in ArcGIS Pro. It provides a single workspace where all GIS resources for a project can be held. In contrast to ArcGIS Desktop, it can keep track of folder and database connections on a per-project basis instead of a per-user basis. This provides advantages when working in a project-focused environment such as a Categorical Exclusion determination/analysis. For example, an author working on a National Forest Management Act report mapping anadromous fish habitat could make that map available and reusable to the author of a Fisheries report in chapter 8. This would eliminate the need to maintain two separate MXDs depicting the same data.
By providing a common set of resources, an ID Team with multiple authors can operate more efficiently and reduce the duplication of effort for common analysis and mapping practices. The finished product will also become more consistent because commonly-repeated elements pull from the same source across multiple layouts. This would be useful if, for instance, a vicinity map was found to have an error that needed to be corrected. ArcGIS Pro allows users to make that change once and have it propagated automatically across all layouts instead of editing each MXD separately.
All data, results, maps and documents for Task 2 are available here.
Task 3: Displaying NEPA projects authorized and implemented over the past ten years
PALS is available as the corporate database of record for every NEPA project on Forest Service lands. Nevertheless, ID Teams are not required to load any spatial data representing the Project area boundary and this may cause problems for documenting the agency's work.
To better understand how the Forest Service reports and documents project decisions and accomplishments, we queried the PALS database for projects implemented under Categorical Exclusion decisions within the last 10 years. We discovered 219 projects. Next, we searched for any spatial data associated with those projects.
We searched for project boundaries and project treatment polygons. We searched primarily across FACTS webmap services published by the Enterprise Data Warehouse and various T:/Drive folder locations within the Salmon-Challis National Forest project directories, and additional sources recommended by the South 21 Project ID Team members.
Of the 219 Categorical Exclusion decisions issued on the Salmon-Challis National Forest within the last 10 years, spatial data were available for only 64 Projects (29%), mostly scattered among independent project folder locations within the Forest's internal virtual server, the T:/Drive. (See line number 4 in table below)
Authoritative data stewardship is best exemplified by the governance and availability of webmap services from the Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). Of the 219 Categorical Exclusion decisions issued on the Salmon-Challis National Forest within the last 10 years, less than 12%, only 26 projects, had Project Treatment data, represented in FACTS - the authoritative agency database representing Forest Activities. (See line number 3 in table below)
Of the 219 CE projects authorized in the last decade, there were only 47 Projects (21%) that maintained a Project Planning boundary. Only 67 Projects (30%) maintained actual Forest Activity polygons in FACTS.
Recommendation: Data Stewardship Assessments for Pivotal, Standard PIMS Datasets
Data stewardship represents the most significant obstacle to rendering a common operating picture that depends on a view of the cumulative history of management actions undertaken by the Forest Service. To address this significant data stewardship challenge, we recommend comprehensive data stewardship assessments for key, strategic data layers, such as PALS, FACTS, and other NRM applications.
A data stewardship assessment of specific strategic data layers, will document how data are currently managed, identify where improvements could render more useful, geospatial data products to be shared across the agency. Such data stewardship assessments could also develop a protocol for managing corporate data through required NRM applications, while also rendering useful maps for informing the Planning, Implementation and Monitoring phases of the PIMS workflow.
All data, results, maps and documents for Task 3 are available here.
Task 4: Narrative Summary - Conclusions and Recommendations (this Story Map)
PIMS represents a future vision for a common operating picture through which Forest management actions are validated, decided, documented, and monitored - spatially. Below are listed our primary findings and recommendations:
A map of the cumulative history of forest management actions is essential to PIMS, but it is only possible through improved data stewardship.
Resource managers need to understand the cumulative history of forest management to plan, implement and monitor Forest projects efficiently. Even mapping recent Project boundaries proved challenging. In fact, the large majority of projects (~80%) conducted on the Salmon-Challis National Forest within the last decade had maintained no discoverable spatial data. Furthermore, data for most projects are typically stored in unique project folders specific to an individual Forest, rather than consistent, authoritative, and discoverable webmap services that are published from the EDW.
Similarly, Project Treatment data are not integrated into a common map. This is due to the lack of geospatial data stewardship of various, independent corporate databases (PALS, FACTS, INFRA, WIT, TIM, ..) that require custom permissions and Natural Resource Manager (NRM) Applications.
Recommendation: An investment in data stewardship is required. Historic project boundary data could include a geospatial requirement so that PALS can better represent not only the tabular attributes required by PALS, but also geospatial project boundaries where those attributes apply. A minimal geospatial requirement, developed in collaboration with PALS application managers and users, could improve the utility of PALS as a supplier of project boundaries for PIMS. In addition, a data stewardship assessment for additional strategic corporate datasets could identify where improvements could deliver a better integrated view of historic forest management actions.
Summary Recommendations:
- Urge ID Teams to rely on authoritative data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse
- Standard ArcGIS Pro efficiencies are helpful, but not required for PIMS.
- Engage in strategic data stewardship assessments for pivotal PIMS datasets (PALS, FACTS, TIM, WIT, INFRA..).
- Urge ID Teams to make spatial analytical results, typically embedded in Resource Specialist reports, more directly available to substantiate Planning decisions.
- Collaborate with Planners and Ecosystem, Management and Coordination (EMC) staff to identify required steps in a standard workflow so that common investigation, analysis, and reporting tools can serve these purposes more efficiently, consistently and authoritatively.
- Once a functional prototype (PIMS 1.0) is supplied, an education campaign will be needed to broadcast the availability, the utility and efficiency of the PIMS approach.