The National Park Service

1. Inventory & Monitoring The National Park Service Bert FrostAssociate Director, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Jon Jarvis NPS Director George DickisonCenter Director, Natural Resource Program Center, NRSS Steve Fancy I&M Program Leader Margaret Beer I&M Program Data Manager Gary MachlisScience Advisor to the Director Today’s Panel:

2. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center Inventory & Monitoring Networks 10-year Anniversary George Dickison NRPC Center Director

3. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center NPS Natural Resource Challenge Revitalize and expand the natural resource program within the park service and improve park management through greater reliance on scientific knowledge

4. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center NPS Natural Resource Challenge “Science for Parks - Parks for Science” • AccelerateInventories • Design/Implement Vital Signs Monitoring • Collaboration with Scientists and Others • Improve Resource Planning • Enhance Parks for Science • Assure Fully Professional Staff • Control Non-native Species • Protect Native and Endangered Species • Enhance Environmental Stewardship • Expand Air Quality efforts • Protect and Restore Water Resources • Establish Research Learning Centers

5. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center “In just a few short years, the I&M networks have become known as a key source and supplier of reliable, organized, and retrievable information about parks that was formerly unavailable, misplaced, or lost to managers and others who needed the information for sound decisions or sound science.” NRSS Report to Congress

6. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center Multi-disciplinary Collaborative Effort Air Resources Division • Air Quality Inventory • Air Quality Related Values Inventory • Air Quality monitoring • Water Resources Division • Water Quality and waterbody location/ classification inventories • Benthic Habitat Mapping • Water Quality monitoring • NPStoret • Natural Resource Condition Assessments • Resource Stewardship Strategy

7. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center Multi-disciplinary Collaborative Effort Biological Resource Management Division • Vegetation Inventory • Exotic Plant Management Teams • Geologic Resources Division • Geologic Resources Inventory • Soil Resources Inventory • Paleontology Inventory • Monitoring: Soil dynamics, cave and karst resources

8. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center Multi-disciplinary Collaborative Effort Climate Change Response Program • Enhanced Climate Change Monitoring; 13 I&M networks serving 94 parks • NRInfo Integrated Data System Development Social Science Division Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division Environmental Quality Division Office of Education and Outreach Research Learning Centers Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units

9. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center • Data and information sharing and integration are the key to collaboration within NPS and among DOI bureaus and their many partners in addressing today’s significant challenges for managing park resources. • Develop effective means to find, retrieve, use, and share the best available data and information. • NRSS is the lead for the Department of Interior on modernization of data systems using reusable and sharable building blocks (“web services”) based on DOI and industry standards to allow data exchange across multiple data systems.

10. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center 2004 Interviews with Stakeholders Stakeholders “I don’t know what information is out there” “Significant time and effort to enter information with little usefulness” “[IT systems are] Not designed with field in mind, WASO-centric” “The systems are too hard to use” “The information is not in a format or synthesized to use for my purposes” “When employees retire, the information goes with them”

11. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center October, 2006 NRPC Data Management Policy “ NRPC systems will transition to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This transition will strategically position NRPC to better deal with future changes in technology…” “…NRPC will create a central web portal, a single sign-on system, and develop a common user interface for all natural resource applications…” “ NRPC will integrate all applications, eliminate redundant data storage, and streamline standard functions...”

12. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center http://nrinfo.nps.gov Welcome GDickison

13. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center DOI-Wide Climate Change Strategy • Secretarial Order #3289 (September 14, 2009) • “Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change on America’s Water, Land and Other Natural and Cultural Resources” • Requires that critical data be shared among managers, planners, and scientists from many different organizations and disciplines • Established Data System Design Team and Integrated Observations Team to figure out how to implement

14. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center “ [NRInfo Portal] has been identified as having the core capabilities upon which the enterprise solution can be based. “

15. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center NRInfo Integrated Data System • Architecture enables data sharing and exchange with other systems, agencies, cooperators, organizations • Web-based access to natural resource data and tools; common look and feel regardless of information source • Provides security and longevity of data and information

16. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Natural Resource Program Center Thanks To Your Efforts • The I&M program has raised the bar for all of us • Science literacy in NPS is higher than ever. Role of science in decision making is increasingly critical • Data management becoming part of NPS culture • Information systems developed to make information accessible are being emulated by others. • Science communication efforts are paying off • Crises come and go – we are building and organizing the long term data sets that will be our legacy in the future