Midwest GIS News
Spring 2008
Midwest GPS Training - May 2008
ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 5 now available
New LIDAR for Effigy MoundsContact MWAC for more info.
North American Environmental Atlas
DNR Garmin 5.3.2 now available
Sponsor an intern at the MW GIS Support Center
Call in for ESRI Tech Support - Free! (NPS only)
One-Day NPS GIS Training Materials
New Habitat Analysis Tool from NOAA
Download ArcGIS (NPS only)
Map of the Quarter:
LAN connection types and speeds
GIS TIP: Save older coverage and raster filetypes as Geodatabases before sending to collegues. A Geodatabase acts as a one-file container for the data unlike older filetypes that require accompanying file folders such as the "Info" directory.
Midwest GeoFact: The midwest region of the National Park Service contains 56 park units, including nearly 83,000 acres of National Scenic Riverways.
Training: Spring into GPS, Fall into GIS
The Midwest GIS Support Center will be conducting spring GPS training in late May in Madison, WI. The 3-day course will focus on Trimble GPS products and cover project workflow, system setup, data dictionaries, setting background images, data transfer and hands-on field exercises. The course will also introduce ArcPad for use on Trimble devices. Visit the Midwest GIS training page to read a full syllabus and sign up for the course. The GIS Center plans a follow up course in the Fall that will focus on GIS: "Spring into GPS and Fall into GIS".
NPS GIS Conference Held
The NPS GIS/Data Management Conference, took place the first week of April in Ft. Collins, CO. The meeting was held in conjunction with the Inventory & Monitoring Data Manager's meeting. The GIS Council will organize and hold the conference every two years in Ft. Collins and generally do it in conjunction with other major NPS programs. A favorite of the conference was the "show'n'tells" which are 2-5 minute presentations made at each morning's plenary session. It's a great way to quickly learn about lots of work going on around the Service. Read more about the conference in Doug Wilder's blog (NPS only). All presentations from the meeting are available here.
Service: Remote "keyless" Installs
Since the "keyless" version of ArcGIS became available in 2006, the Midwest GIS Support Center has performed 32 remote installations on MWR workstations. Contact Reese Hirth if you'd like ArcGIS setup on your computer or need a set of the media (2 DVDs). Note: The license agreement the NPS has with ESRI allows unlimited installation of ArcGIS on NPS computers.
Incident Response Grid (SLBE)
The Midwest GIS support office recently completed production of a 174-page map series depicting a locational index grid for Sleeping Bear Dunes NL. The map series with index grid overlay speeds and enhances communication among park personnel and local emergency responders.
Historic Landscape Disturbance (APIS)
Staff at Apostle Islands are working with the Midwest GIS support center to apply GIS and remote sensing tools and data to identify human-impacted areas of the islands. The goal is to provide park managers with data to better focus ecologic restoration efforts. A presettlement vegetation map and map ranking areas' potential for natural vegetation are primary products of this work. Contact Peggy Burkman for more information.
Enterprise GIS for the Midwest
A central effort of the Support Center is establishment of a "regional dataset" for GIS. Over the years, the Center has compiled a wealth of GIS data for the region. While these data are available on the NPS Data Store, the aim is to enliven these layers by serving them to the NPS as "map services". The strategy follows the lead of the Resource Information Management - GIS Enterprise project out of Denver and will allow parks to access data from either a desktop instance of ArcGIS or a web-mapping interface that includes Microsoft Virtual Earth base imagery. Parks will have the option of adding to their own web pages "maplets" that can tap into the Midwest regional dataset.
Park GIS Conference Calls
Each month (roughly every second Thursday), GIS-minded employees in the NPS hold a conference call that's open to anyone. You can join the call by dialing 877-989-1671 (code 894050). Topics range widely but are always engaging and you can expect to come away better informed about GIS goings on in the Service. Contact Ben Zank for more info.
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Get Involved in GIS
Undergraduate Internships: Complete a GIS internship in our office with a sponsor from a park. Currently we have two students participating in internships at Badlands National Park. There are additional opportunities for internships at Pea Ridge National Military Park.
Graduate Students: Use a Midwest park unit as your
research topic for thesis or
dissertation. If you are an undergraduate who is thinking of continuing on in graduate school don't forget to consider one of our park units as your venue of research.
Faculty: We can assist in administering research in one of our 56 park
units. As faculty you can count on our support.
Grant Opportunities
NPS Midwest parks and the GIS Support Center are continually searching for ways to support reseach in the parks. Each year, budget allocations are reassessed near the end of the federal fiscal year (September 31) and new budgets are determined. The NPS is committed to supporting research in the parks and eager to learn about your research interests. The GIS Support Center has staff dedicated to matching research interests with park needs. Please contact Janice Baudewig-Poehlman (jlpoehlm@wisc.edu) to learn more or alert us of your research interests in Midwest parks.
Recent UW Work in the Parks
Amalia Balwin, M.S. Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Isle Royale National Park
Amalia Baldwin is a M.S student in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Amalia is researching environmental history in Isle Royale National Park from 1920-1940. Combining evidence from the social and environmental history of Isle Royale from 1920-1940, Amalia argues that the island's unlogged forests, the emerging wilderness movement, and the National Park Service's desire for control of American recreation all Contributed to Isle Royale becoming the first wilderness national park. In this case, the use of "wilderness" as a defining factor for national park status was both constructive and destructive to the island's cultural and natural environment.
Isle Royal National Park is located In Lake Superior and is the largest wilderness island national park.
Shelley Crausbay, Ph.D. Department of Botany, Haleakala National Park
Shelley Crausbay is a PhD student in the Dept. of Botany. Shelley is researching climate change In Haleakala National Park in the Hawaiian Islands. Although Shelley's research is not in a midwest park (near and dear to our hearts) we are happy to encourage and support Shelley as much as we can, including GIS technical support and identifying which national park service offices she can count on, like the pacific region GIS office.