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Im' 51 EC Ci5 59 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT Property of cSC Libraryj Workshop Sponsored by The Center for Ocean Management Studies University of Rhode Island University of Rhode Island W. Alton Jones Campus _ i 0 Li * at~ W 4- t 4 r ,.C , 0 -d ~ C I) -C: -C In Wt 0 - d: i 64 June 22-23, 1978 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NOA, COASTAL SERVICES CENTER 2234 SOUTH HOBSON AVENUE CHARLESTON, SC 29405-2413 3r1 `0 ,.0 d' q~ PREFAC E On ~June 22-23, 1978, a workshop on Information Systems for Coastal Zone M4anagement was sponsored by the University of Rhode Island's Cen- ter for Ocean Management Studies with partial funding from the Envi.ron- mental Science Information Center, Enviroomental Data and Information Services of NOAA, under contract No. 01-8-MOI-2959. The workshop was hel'd at the University's W. Alton Jones Campus and included a small group of people with highly diverse backgrounds in information systems, coastal zone management, and data analysis and processing.' The objectives of the workshop were to discuss: 1. The role of existing management systems in coastal resource planning and management. 2. [How information systems may be designed or modified to help states meet their legal, technical, and economic goals for coastal zone management. 3. Why certain systems are successful and others fail to meet the planner's needs for information. 4. The extent to which information systems provide interagency/ inter-disciplinary cooperation. 5. The potential long-range benefits of information systems. 6. How much, what kind, and in what form is inf ormation needed. The agenda for the twqo-day workshop was designed to develop an overview of the information systems that presently exist on the local, state, regional and national scale. * In an effort to provide a common framework Around which information systems could be discussed, speakers were asked to follow a set of guide- lines when presenting their particular system. The guidelines were as follows: 1. Goals and objectives of system - Identification of users - Determination of data needs 2. M~ethodology and procedures used 3. Admninistrative and operational framework 4. Implementation of system iii 5. Interfacing between information-system-users 6. Problem areas 7. Prospects for the future The following collection of papers reflect the discussions at the workshop. We hope that they will provide a basis for further discussions on information systems for coastal zone management. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several.people c'ontributed to this effort. First and foremost, a special thanks to Malcolm Spaulding, Peter Cornillon, and Connie Knapp who initiated the idea of a 14orkshop on Information Systems and served on the planning committee. Charlene Dunn, Robert Freeman, and Cheryl Alexander also provided valuable assistance in planning the program. Several individuals at the University provided logistical and tech- nical support in organizing the workshop and preparing this' volume. Lance Brockmeier editedand summarized contributions from the W4orkshop partici- pants. Leslie Ames, Elaine Ranone, and Carol Dryfoos typed the papers and handled distribution. Virginia K. Tippie Executive Di rector Center for Ocean Management Studies iv SUMMAR Y It is becoming increasingly obvious that as one attempts to mianage the coastal environment, the need to understand how the ecosystem, in its broadest terms, functions is a critical component in the decision- making process. Information in the form of environmental, political, sociological, and economic data as well as predictive tools define the basis of our understanding of this complex interacting system.. From this information and the skill we show in interpreting 'and applying it comes the foundation of our decisiohs. With the trend to employing in- creasing amounts of this information for decision making, it has become critical to collect, organize, and analyze this information in the most efficient manner. One of the strongest consensus to be reached at the workshop was that there exists entirely too much useless and irrelevant data. A primary goal of any information system is to tailor the information' collected to address a specific, well-defined problem. System devel- opers must keep in mind that the size of the data base does not deter- mine the ultimate worth of the system. It was also stressed that one must assure an interdisciplinary view towards this information- collec- tion effort such that diverse points of view and concerns are ad'equately. addressed. Another point to emerge was that how information is packaged, han- dled, and presented to the user-community is critical to its ultimate usefulness. Data that is analyzed and synthesized in a series of well- defined chunks so that it is easily assimilated by people using the sys- .tem is likely to be used extensively and provide useful input to.manage- ment decisions. Incremental additions of data and methodologies receive the greatest acceptance by system users. Through this technique, an in- creasing amount of information can be brought to bear on the decision- making task. A major problem with many systems is developing system credibility. In othet words, developing trust ih the information contained in the system as well as how the data is processed and presented. To accom- plish this task, it was concluded that the system user should be inti- mately involved with the development, structure, and'implementation of the information system. This interface between system users, system developers, and the information is extremely critical. The failure to demonstrate the accuracy of the data and the assumptions of predictive models and processing techniques has caused many otherwise well- con- ceived information systems to be abandoned. Additional efforts.to al- leviate this credibility problem include developing the system so that it educates its user, formulating the input and output of the system in simple, non-`computerese` language, carefully designing the information output to meet the users needs, and housing the system so'that the in- formation can be easily accessed. V IAlthough not stated explicitly during the workshop an emerging con- cern was to assure that information systems are designed to be as cost effective as possible. The design process would include the appropriate .selection of system software and hardware and how the system would be in- tegrated into the overall administrative structure of the organization. Flexibility in system growth and maintenance, as well as changes in struc- ture brought on by changing management strategies, were also noted as key elements in maintaining the necessary financial resources for information systems. Throughout the workshop presentations and discussions, there were a multitude of definitions as to who the system "users" were and what their needs were. For every different system there appeared to be a different target audience. While no general consensus was reached by the workshop participants as to a single definition of the user group, it became clear that the design of each information system was based more on the administrative structure within which the system operated than on any general principles of information transfer. Probably one of the most difficult tasks in implementing an infor- mation system is dealing with the many interfaces between the system ,developers, system users, and the actual data and processing techniques contained in the system. This general problem of getting a diverse group of people with differing backgrounds and experiences to focus on designing, developing, and implementing a system to access a wide array of data and predictive tools is common to many other areas. The emer- ging consensut of the workshop participants was that while this is an extremely difficult task, early and continuous involvement of each group in the conceptualization stage of system design and having a clear view as to what the objectives of the system are were the most important con- siderations. Through this time-honored process of design, construction, and redesign, with each new step undergoing critical interdisciplinary review, allows an information system to be constructed on which rational management decisions can be based. While the foregoing paragraphs attempt to summarize the general con- .clu sions of the workshop and an idea as to the range of problems addressed, the interaction both in discussion periods and in informal conversations was invaluable in communicating the experiences of the workshop partici- pants in incorporating and working on information systems. At the end of the two-day period, it was concluded that both the for- mal and informal exchange of ideas and experiences on coastal information systems, both in their design and use, had been extremely useful. It was suggested that additional workshops with a greater representation from the coastal zone management community be held.to address several questions in considerably more detail. It is hoped that planning will soon commence to hold these additional meetings. Malcolm Spaulding, Connie Knapp Kingston, Rhode Island TABLE OF CONTENTS I ii i Preface Acknowledgements Summary Introduction, Robert R. Freeman I. Systems: Issues and Problems Donald B. Straus Niels West Cary Rea II. State Information Systems .M. Spaulding, P. Cornillon, C. Knapp: Paul H. Templet: Louisiana John B. Pleasants: Virginia Ernest Hardy: New York Alan Robinette: Minnesota iv V I 7 8 14 27 31 32 41 48 53 57 Rhode Island III. Regional Coastal Information Systems Charlene Dunn: Northeast Robert Holton: Northwest Nancy Huang: Great Lakes 63 64 67 69 71 72 77 84 89 91 94 97 IV. National Information Systems John D. Buffington, L. Milask: UPGRADE Harvard Holmes: SEEDIS Dennis M. O'Connor: COUIRS Betty M. Edel: National Sea Grant Depository Dan Hoydysh MIichele Tetley V. Appendix: List of Participants MARINE AND COASTAL INFORMATION NETWORKS Robert R. Freeman Environmental Science Information Center Environmental Data and Information Service Nati'onal Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Rockville, Maryland 209852 The Environmental Data and Information Service is please-d to join with the Center for Ocean Management Studies in sponsoring this Work- shop on Information Systems for Coastal Zone Management. The Workshop follows immediately on the heals of the Center's annual conference, which had as its theme the limits to rational decision-making in ocean management. From EDIS's point of view our purpose in holding this work- shop is to explore with a diverse group of experts in information systems, coastal management, and natural resource management the problems and pos- sibilities for improving the flow of information on which rational deci- sion-making is based. Over the past 10 years a variety of new Federal programs have made it possible for, and even required, the states to collect and use. information for environmental and natural resource decision-making. Examples include the National Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, and the National Sea Grant College and Program Act of 1966. Owing to this growing emphasis on interdisciplinary coastal and marine planning and management)and the increasing Federal partnership with the states in working on these problems, there is a demonstrated need for timely, pertinent and easily accessible coastal and environmental information at the state and local levels. I A threefold problem is apparent in attempting to meet the information and data needs of coastal and marine resource planners, managers, and scientists: (1) the lack of any information responsive to some needs, (2) the lack of a well-de-veloped infrastructure for providing convenient availability and easy access to needed information, and (3) the lack of linking mechanisms for synthesizing the. diverse type-s of needed inf or- mation into a form that can be comprehended and used. Producing new knowledge to fill known deficiencies is the goal of numerous research an d development programs such as the National Sea Grant Program. But knowledge only becomes information if it can be delivered when, where, and in the form it is nee-ded. Delivery System Deficiencies .There are no established networks for information dissemination for coastal resource management activities. This is not to say that infor- mation resources do not exist, but generally the required information is'scattered and organized to serve other purposes. For example, the efforts of many Federally-sponsored programs have resulted in problem-oriented collections of published information, data, and graphical presentations whic h have been utilized largely within the context of research, planning, and policy formulation, within specific staties. These i-nformation collections exist in very heterogeneous forms, media, and formats. This variability has created many problems even 2 though the usefulness of sharing information on an intra- and inter- regional basis has frequently been acknowledged. Compounding the problem, the Federal Government's vast data and information resources applicable to the interdisciplinary needs of coastal and marine management and planning are often thought of as remote and inaccessible. These conditions indicate the lack of an adequate delivery system. What is needed is special expertise to maintain an awa reness of existing resources, to know how to gain access through efficient search techniques, and to be able to make Lhe information available even though it may be found at a distant location. In short, this means a set of focal points, known to those who need information by frequent.contact, and possessing the special skills of the information broker. Fitting the information to the need Both the information and the user in marilne and coastal resource management differ from the model of the scientific information system. The community is heterogeneous .in the extreme and oriented toward public decision-making rather than research. Marine and coastal resources management requires scientific informa- tion and data, but also a variety of land use data, resource informa- tion, demographic data, information about on-going activities and pro- grams, and graphic information such as conventional maps and remote sensing and aerial photography. The difficult task is to synthesize 3 this interdisciplinary collage and to package it in a form that e-ffectively meets the needs of the heterogeneous user community. One Solution: Regional Coastal Information Centers. InIresponse to this problem, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is sponsoring the development of Regional Coastal Information Centers (RCIC's). Three components of NOAA ... the Environ- mental Data and Information Service, Office of Coastal Zone Management, and Office of Sea Grant ... are cooperating in this effort, coordinated by the NOAA Marine Advisory Service (NMAS) program. Strategically placed in key Sea Grant Programs throughout the coastal states and coordinated at the national level by NMAS, the RCIC's could interface to create a network of specific regional information and data resources available both at the state and local levels and to national institutions. While operating under national guidelines, each Center will acquire the subject specificity of its region and match its ser- vices to the particular needs of its users. Initially the RCIC's efforts are following the more traditional methods of information identification and di:ssemination. This will enable them to establish a strong base and a close communication with the user com- munity. As the users are identified and basic services are established, each Center will begin to add new services, tailored to meet the expressed needs of their region. 4 Creating a network. More- is needed to move from a set of isolated regional information centers toward the full use of available national information resources. More sophisticated services will be required which will entail extensive use- of computerize-d systems and will necessitate the development of now mechanisms for handling the inLerdisciplinary nature of coastal resources planning And management. Developing a national network of RCIC's within the context of e-stablishe-d national and local environmental, land use, and natural resources institu- tions raises complex questions of network design. Among the problems to be. addressed by this project are the following. What is the optimal mix. of information resources, products, and services at each level and specifically for the regional level? What, communication patterns should be established? What new data base-s are required to support the. needs of, a regional community? What computerized capabilities are required to use the data bases effectively? These questions must be resolved prior to implementation of the network. The project will examine the feasibility, optimal structure, and poten- t~ial benefits of an information utility to support a national network of regional coastal and marine resource information centers. The information utility concept as applied to these regional centers is based on the no- tion that powerful information technologies of significant potential bene- fit to natural resource managers and scientists are available for use if economies of scale can be achieved through a resource-sharing network. 5 N'one of the proposed regional centers alone would be large enough to comt- mand the availability of the technology, but together it may be feasible. Specifically, the project will investigate and suggest a design for a system that would provide access to each of the regional centers, through computer terminals and telecommunication facilities, the capabilities of + a data base management and information retrieVal package + a text-editing system (e.g., ATS or WYLBUR) + a computer conferencing pr electronic message switching system + Simulation and gaming packages appropriate to natural resource planning Each of these technologies is already developed. To various extents, each has been tested within a network context. Consequently, it is pri- mar ily the linking of the four and their application to the particular needs of coastal and marine resource planning that requires testing. The impact of a successful outcome would be to add considerably to the national capability for rational natural resource decision-making. In most parts of the United States, the'resources for marshalling and analy- zing data and information for planning are spread so thin that much valu- able information goes to waste through lack of proper dissemination. Placing the data processing power of a computer utility of the type sug- gested in the hands of this community will amplify the capabilities of each member. 6 Systems: Issues and Problemis The major problem in existing information systems is ineffective in- terfacing between the system and the users. Frequently systems have been developed before the user was consulted as to how the information was to be used. This has resulted in an information packaging problem - the sys- tem produces the data but not in a form that the user can utilize. On the other hand, system developers often are requested to provide a system be- fore the user is correctly identified. For example, systems developed for planners have often been utilized primarily by political decision-miakers. Additional related problems discussed in the papers include the fol- lowing: - The user group often becomes too sharply defined when in fact the information should be utilized by a broad range of users; - Due to a language barrier inappropriate formatting can develop re- quiring an interpretive step between the system and the user; - Due to the inability of a system to readily answer the users' needs, the users' required information is camouflaged in worthless data; - Systems are often not used effectively. Users do not understand the system. 'lany of,these problems can be obviated-through better planning and earlier user participation. 7 TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS DELIVERED BY DONALD B. STRAUS AT INFORMATION SYSTEMS WORKSHOP June 22. 1978 First: what is the American Arbitration Association? It is a non- prbfit corporation approximately 60 years old. Our mission is to settle disputes, not only through arbitration but by a number of techniques in- cluding: running conferences, bringing the parties together, various forms of mediation, and many others. I will not, in spite of the name of my or- ganization, be talking today about arbitration which is the role of a third party picked by the parties to make a decision for them. Arbitration is not applicable, at least at thie present time, to environmental disputes and I am sure all of you would agree with that. The theme of our conference is the handling and use of data, and my assignment is the resolution of disputes. Let me start by suggesting that, from the viewpolint of a mediator, it is just as bad to have too much data as to have too little. In environmental mediation, complexity is one of the greatest difficulties with which we have to contend, and an over-load of data adds greatly to complexity. Based upon my limited experience and also from what I have already heard thus far in this conference, there seems to*be a tendency to s.pend both money and time in gathering data before the nature of the problem is fully under- stood and, as a corallory use to whi'ch the data will be put is clearly defined. It would also appear that, in many of our coastal zone management programs, data is gathered before anything else is attempted. Perhaps it would be use- ful to reverse both the order and the emphasis in the following way: Place first priority of time and money on trying to identify the issues and the par- ticipants who will be concerned with the solution, and then get the partici- pants involved in deciding what data needs to be gathered and to what use it .will be put. Of course, I am not referring,here to base-line data which will have gen- eral Use for all decisions that can be anticipated. I am referring to data "that miay be needed for resolving a particular issue. It seems to me that based on what I have heard this morming, that those of you who are in the computer and data game have long since learned how to gather, store, and model data. All this seems to be technically possible, and can be done in many forms with the output appearing in many ingenious ways of display graphics, tables, and text. What is difficult, or seems to me, is this very complex data capability in making decisions and solving problems. 8 As somebody who came out of a background of labor mediation, I am used to handling data. But usually it is data for two clearly defined parties: a management and a union. And compared to the data banks that have been described here, labor relations data are extremely simple com- pared to what you are confronting., Furthermore, the outcomes of wrong decisions usually last not more than one or two years and are not catas- trophic, whereas what you are dealing with can be catastrophic., Therefore, clearly those of us from the mediation fraternity,who are newcomers to this field need to find new tools for the,handling and use of this data overload. Notebooks, slide rules (and believe it or not, I grew up in an era where slide rules were used), file cabinets: this was the "technology" that I grew up with. Today it is obsolete and inadequate, if unassisted, in dealing with data in large environmental issues. So those of.us who are in the software part of this have to learn how to interrelate, identify, communicate, and use the mtore sophisticated tools which are being fashioned by those,of you around this table. This morning I seemed to hear general agreement that "Yes" you do have to identify the users as soon as possible. I think I heard, but maybe this is my own prejudice in wanting to hear, that you also agree that you have to get the users to participate in deciding what data will be useful and in what form it should be. I am sure I heard all of you agree that before you use the data or even start to model it, you have to define what the problems are. Nor can yourdefinition satisfy only you- the data experts, nor even just the planners, you have to get some general agreement of. all the major participants that the data will help resolve the previously identified issues. Only then do you start to gather the data., When possible, you get it from data banks that already exist, com- piling additional data with original research only to fill the,ga- ps. And finally, it seems to me we have to keep the participants working together as a team, seeking consensus on using the same body of data rather than having each party split off to work with their own data, buildilng their own models, and entering into what I have called "the battle of the print- out" with competing computers and models pitted against each other rather than using this powerful too] to solve the problem. Now, if.these are indeed desirable objectives, then mediation skills can be helpful in accomplishing them: skills in listening to what people say, trying to phrase what they say to each other in ways that will be understandable to those who are their opponents, trying to fashion meetings so that they will be productive rather than counterproductive, assisting in communication, and suggesting alternative solutions for getting around an impasse. We heard, for example, that maybe the regulatory agency should not be the place for keeping and issuing data, that perhaps it should be housed in a neutral place. Clearly the American Arbitration Association is not a data housing facility but we have had some experience in being able to mediate disputes over data and, through joint participation, giving the data the stamp of acceptability and credibility. Even data that origi- nates from a source as "suspicious" as a regulatorY~ agency can be made ac- ceptable through such procedures. 9 .We don't need much data to grasp the notion, for example, that dril- ling for offshore oil will have an almost infinite number of identifiable impacts, some good and some bad, unless, however, we can understand all of the impacts, or at least the major ones, our opinion will be based upon those impacts that support our first impression, or prejudice about the issue. But the verbal means of communicating these impacts, and that is really the way people do communicate, is capable of describing them in bundles of only a fewq at a time. We simply cannot verbally communicate everything at once that you can put into a computer and have it understand- ,able. We have to think in terms of human bundles of information. We need to find a way -to increase our ability to consider a large number of variables with a large number of participants and still retain the human quality of interpersonal verbal interaction that i.s the basic way we humans go about solving problems and settling *disputes. In our search thus far, we have developed just two very simple methods for doing this. One we have called "data mediation" which simply means trying to identify who will be the participants in a particular issue to be resolved, and then persuading them to agree on some general groundrules for validating the data that they will use. The other method, and thus far we have not yet been successful in doing this in any large scale situation, although we have in some small scale situations, is to get the parties to agree to use the same model and therefore avoid what we call the "battle of the printout". Once again, ground rules are needed to govern who should have access to the information and when, how you safeguard what is considered either proprietary informa- tion or secret information and still have access to the information neces- sary for a decision. Even if you can get agreement on the data and on a model, there re- mains the even more difficult task of extracting what we have called "human sized chunks" of information, getting them discussed in some reasonable way, getting some consensus on the sub-issues to which they pertain, and then feeding back into the model the sub-agreements that have been reached so that they will have the agreed-upon impact on the total model. While trying to wrestle with these problems, I asked five questions of George Miller, a distinguished professor of psychology at Rockefeller University. Some years ago, Dr. Miller wrote an absolutely charming, sniall essay titled, "The Magic Number of 7 Plus or Minus 2". Part of his message was that the normal human being can handle seven variables at the same time. If he is a genius he can handle nine and if he is an idiot he can handle five. The only difference between a genius and an idiot, ac- cording to this particular research, was whether you can handle five or nine variables. I asked Dr. Miller the followiing questions: 1) "What do we now know about the working of the m-ind which will help us feed data into a comnputer and model the computer in a way which would be compatable with helping our mind function better? I suppose another way of asking the same question I1 0 would be this: How would our mnind work if our capability for intergrating information, were 15 plus of miinus 2 or even some higher number? 2) "Are there iiiore constructive ways for retrieving information.from the *computer so'that it will better conform with our 7 plus or miinus 2 capabil- 3)-"Assuming that there are some answers to the above two questions, how can we then feed back into the computer the sub-decisions reached in a way that will influence- the model as they would our mind if we had more capa- bility for simultaneous consideration of larger bundles of information?" 4) "If individuals with different interests and values were to participate in decision-making using a common computer model and negotiating over hu- man-sized questions with rapidly available 7 plus or minus 2 bundles of information, would this help the process by producing more rapid consent and more rational decisions, or wqould it hurt the process? By rational decisions I guess I mean decisions based on all of the available, informa- tion and an examination of all of the possible solutions." (Now, paren- thetically, I have been told by many who are self-styled practical men; don't be silly, ratilonal decisions are not the way these things are done. They are done by emotional feelings, by political considerations, by short- run considerations and by interpersonal cronyism. I understand that, but I also think that unless those of us around this table try to make the pro- cess a little but more rational, what the hell are we doinq here? I am not a bloody optimist but it seems to me this is what we are about, and anyway, it is fun trying!) 5) "What can we teach mediators about the human mind-so that.they can make the best use of acomputer program with a 7 plus or minus 2 capability?"i Another question I might have asked, but didn't is this: "lHow can the computer be used to help movte citizen decision making from binery votes on entire issues to incremental binery votes on step-by-step movement toward a consensus decisions?" Now let me explain what I P-.ean by that last question by referring to the recent "Proposition 13" referendumi in California. In my view, it is making a mockery of citizen participation to ask voters whether br not they approve of drilling for offshore oil, or whether they want to allow builders to mnuck UP awetl and. Because these are binery decisions that can be made only after a long process of studv and deliberation, with suib- decisions lead- ing to a final dec-ision. If we a-re truly talking about citizen participation, it seems to me we have to break down decision-making,,just as I have sug'gested we have to break down the mass of data into "human sized" chunks. If citizens are to participate, they must be helped to move toward a decision in incremen- tal steps if they are to understand what they are voting for. The computer can help us do this. The only reasons we cling to a simple "yes-no" vote on complicated issues is tradition. The only voting "tools" available to our founding fathers were a piece of paper, a pencil, and some people to count the ballots. You couldn't, in those days, nor did you need to, go into all of the little steps toward a big decision. You prefer Jefferson or Burr? You want to throw the tea from England into Boston Harbor?. These were-'rela- tively simple questions which could be asked on a binery basis and if the ballots became more complicated you couldn't handle them anyway. With the aid of computers and with modern commnunications, if we are serio'us about citizen participation, we could admit the public into incremental decision- making rather than present the voter with a single vote at the end of the process. 11 ,Here is the answee I got back fromn Dr. Miller: "It is true (I believe) that people deal with information overload by organizing it hierarchically. The research in the "7+2" paper was.too specialized to justify such a broad conclusion, but it has considerable plausibility on other grounds. The trick, however, is to construct viable chunks. The dimension of the prob- lem that your questions did not explore is what, in addition to how much, should go into a chunk. In other words, not how much should be in it but what it should be. I believe that there is a structure to mnost complex problems. I don't see how we could cope with 100 variables simultaneously unless we could de- compose them into groups of variables that interact tightly with one another and loosely with everything else. Herb Simon once wrote a little book "The Sciences of the Artificial" in which the moral was that it is much easier to solve ten 10-variable problems than one 100-variable probleni. So a basic question is how to identify the parts that can be resolved more or less independently. Here is one way to think about it. Make a list of all the things that could go wrong (it always seems easier to think of what could go wrong than of what would be right), and then use it to construct a matrix, with one cell per pair of problems. Go through the ma- trix one row at a time, asking yourself at each column, "If this went wrong, would it have any obvious implications for that?" If so, put a mark; if not, leave it blank. When you have filled out the matrix, give it toa computer to search for clusters of problems that interact with one another. If you are lucky, the overall problem will resolve into five or six smaller problems that you can deal with independently. This should dictate the first level of chunking. Then take each problem and repeat the whole procedure to analyze it, continu- ing until you have reached your own mental atoms and can't go any further.'" Now to conclude. My colleagues and I at the American Arbitration Asso- ciation believe that we could add an important new capability to our media- tion skills if we could learn how to use the computer's varied capabilities of handling a large volume of data, and of increasing the speed and accuracy of testing a large number of alternative solutions. But before we can do this, we must learn a number of things, among them the following: - To steer between a fear and distrust of the computer and a simple-minded faith that it can do everything. - To communicate our needs and knowledge as practitioners of the human art of agreement-making to the programmners and designers of computer data banks and mnodels. -To extract from the computer human-sized chunks of information that will aid in reaching a consensus on sub-issues. -To feed back into the computer consensus reached on sub-issues in a way that will have the agreed-upon impacts on the total model. -To assist parties to play a game of "what if" with the computer model in a way that will give them a synthetic but realistic "experience" of the consequences and different proposals and solutions. 12 - To develop ground rules for access to the computer rules that will preserve confidentiality of queries passed by each participant, that will not be too costly, and that wiill provide the desired inforniation in a form that can be understood by the users.* 1 3 Several different approaches may be used to discuss the user needs. The traditional three-sector approach (public, private and research) will not be used here, since considerable overiap exists among the three. Thus, similarities exist among the objectives of the private sector which, in some instances, ;parallel those of the public sector, while the procedures and objectives of the research community often correlate with those of both the public and private sectors. While the end users may use and interpret environmental information differently, it is assumed that all a re attempting to maximize the utility of the available environmental resources (basic research being th e possible exception). This goal may be accomplished on several different levels, each of which is likely ,to have a unique informAtional requirement. The~ manager's demand for data and information differs from the needs of the policy maker, even when the concern covers the same resource.1 A simplified conceptual flow diagram of the resource conversion process is depicted in Fig. 1. The lines describing the rela- tionships among environmental agents (planners, managers and ipolicy makers) in the environmental resource conversion process I1n this context, it should be recognized that the divisi-on among the end users expreBBed in this paper may not be clearly defined. Thus, resource managers may on occasion engage in.both basic and applied research in addition to formulating policy, while planners may on occasion act in the context of policy makers. The distinctions in this paper are made for the purpose of discussing the nature of the informational demand.. in reality, the distinctions are considerably blurred. 1 5 PROCESS RESOURCE CONVERSION SOCIO- ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT -PLANNING 4- RCE CONVERSION PROCESS POLICY FORMULATION Fig. 1 16 illustrate the case of the idealized informational demand' The socio-eiivironmental resources are highily dynamic, comprising the sum total of past interactions between the physical environment and the natural and social forces acting upon it.' No attempt has been made to segregate the physical i(natural) from the social environment. To pian or modify the physical environment without taking into consideration the social and economic forces acting upon it is likely to result in environmental decisions which are less efficient than wouia otherwise be the case. By the same token, to aiscuss social change without taking into consideration the physical environment is likely to lead to inefficient plans from a social, economic, and environmental point of view. The resource conversion process contains four aifferent components: (a) research, (b) planning, (c) management, and iad) use. Two additional comments need to be made. First, the four components are found in activities under the jurisdiction of both public and private sectors. Secondly, while one or more of the individual components may be relatively more important during the various stages of the project, ~each will eventually occupy a relatively stable niche in the functional hierarchy in the resource conversion process. In 1By resource conversion process is meant any use of the environment, whether used in an active or passive mode. Fishing and sightseeing are examples of resource conversion processes. Both involve the use, and in some sense the consumption of the environment. Both processes require data describing the physical and social processes involved in the resource conversion process. *1 7 :The types of variables required by the end users in the past have been limited to either physiQal or social parameters. Considerable scientific research, is still limited to either of these categories; an increasing amount of apDplied research involved wit h environmental planning and policy formulation includes both physical and social variables. Consequently, it is clear th,at the ideal DIS wQuld have to consider parameters within both the social and physical variable set. The importance of the temporal dimension has long been recognized, particularly in those areas involved with straight line time projections. While numerQus base line studies have been done involving social and physical parameters, the value of continuous and regularly c,ollected socio-environmental variables is indispensible, to predictive studies when time series are the- only information incorporated in the prodictive model. The last dimension is probably the least understood and concerns the geographiQal location and spatial processes which have been identified by major users, Spatial (environmental) data can be categorized into three major groups: point, linear and areal. Each of these may bze analyzed according to.its distributional characteristics, of which three are generally recognized (clustered, even, and regular) . These distinctions are important from an environmental data design point of view, since the user objective may call for specific sampling tech- niques. These requirements may not be satisfied unless the technical design of the system is sufficiently flexible to 1 8 'Other words, research and planning may be relatively more important during certain stages--usually the earlier one--of-the resource conversion process, although their relative importance may decline later in the process. Each of the components is identified in Fig. 1. As ,depicted, the resource conversion process may be initiated by lany of the three sectors. in an unregulated situation, the process. may begin as a result of the problem coming to the attention of the manager/operator. The demand for date and information may require both socio and environmental information, but it generally covers a relatively smaller geographical area. In the common case, questions requiring information may be initiated within the research sector, among the general public, or as a result of work conducted within the planning sector. Soeof these questions may be required to reduce or eliminate environmental conflicts, while in other instances an environ- mental policy may be formulated in anticipation of such conflicts. Policy and management directives may be geographically open-ended d-ictated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 1971) ,or may be limited geographically to the passing.of local zoning !ordinances governing the specific use of a community's beaches. A policy statement may be based on information which has been developed as a result of specific research conducted in the area by public or private researchers, or planners, or may be problems identified coincidentally by managers directly involved in the resource conversion process. 19 incorporate random and systematic sampling procedures which take into consideration the aforementioned distributional patterns. An attempt has been made to graphically illustrate the relationships between information users and the informational constraints imposed by costs and frequency of sampling. The functional user classes have been identified on the y axis (Fig. 2); the individual variables segregated into social and physical on the xi axis. The temporal dimension is depicted on the z axis, such that the present is framed by the box separating the future from the immediate past. These are depicted as extending towards the lower left portion of the diagram. The dat a collected in the past (historical information) has been extended towards the upper right of Fig. 2. Strictly speaking, the diagram is "dynamic" in the sense that the present frame is immediately replaced by part of the immediate future, which immediately becomes part of the historical data set. Attempts to illustrate the spatial constrai,nts appear on both the x andy axis. The former shows the two through 'In" dimensional pattern, while the y1 axis depicts the clustered through random continuum. The preceding discussion is simply a brief attempt to organize environmental information which takes into consideration the specific requirements of the user. There are two additional considera tions which are likely to significantly influence the informational system.. One isirelated to the need to make pre- dictive statements; in this case either linear, temporal or multivariate models are required. The informational need must 20 ,<4,/'- S ISOCIAL / PHYSICAL 0of'~ BAS/C i E5t>86 gAPPLI/ED POL /CY //PLANN/ING ,p .t\c- RESOURCE MANAGEMENT / /ESEA RCH a DEVELOPMENT PLANNING MANAGEMENT POINT / LINIER / AREAL/ N c/ ./INCREASING AREAL SIZE kg. Models Fig. 2 21 be based on historical information concerning the specific characteristic or several variables hypothesized to be function- ally related to the dependent variable. The second consideration concerns the different functional needs of the several sub-users, or more specifically, the objective goals of these user groups. The environmental decision making process is hierarchical in the sense that the information required to make the decision usually moves from very detailed information, which provides answers to very specific questions, to an ordinal rankihg of the decision alternatives. Since the policy maker is apt to make decisions on the basis of ordinal information, it is clear that much of the specific information collected on lower levels of the environmental decision hierarchy is lost. Consequently, the specific technical requirements of the DIS identified on the various axes in Fig. 2 are much less crucial for the policy maker. Environmental conflicts may be identified by planners, resource managers--and one might include environmental arbiters in this category, most of whom will operate in a context where information is more detailed than that required by the policy maker, but still coarser than that of the researcher directly involved in identifying and isolating specific environmental problem areas. The informational requirements, in terms of area coverage,, frequency of collection, and the number and types of variables collected, obviously affect the cost of environ- mental surveillance as well as the quality of the individual reports. Considering the fragile nature of the coastal zone and 22 nearshore marine environment, and present and future social impacts on this environment, it is obvious that some extremely, hard choices will have to be made concerning the development of a suitable DIS. F-rom the foregoing, it is clear that the.DIS requir ements aiffer between the research community (particularly the basic researchers), the planners, and policy makers. Since the demand for data by basic researchers is much more directed and. specific, it is unlikely that any comprehensive system can be devised,to serve the needs of most environmental researchers. While the utility of a comprehensive DIS for this sector may be marginal, 'it is clear that the findings developed by the basic researchers are of utmost importance to policy makers and planners. This constraint is not present in determining the need for a comprehensive coastal management and planning DIS. At least two considerations are important in this context. The first relates to the need for a continuous surveillance of the environmental parameters. The second concerns the geographical coverage, type of sampling or informational network, and the 'variables considered most important in surveying the social and environmental characteristics. The sampling frequency may vary from one brief survey to virtually a continuous record of specific variables. The inform- ation collected by the Interstate Sanitation Commission (a federally sanctioned water po llution compact operating in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Estuary) bas divided its efforts 23 in this manner. A portion of the surveillance budget is spent on short-term intensive data collection efforts in specific stretches of the estuary, usually for a one or two-week period. The specific water body may not be re-surveyed for years. Other parts of this agency's surveillance budget is spent o-n a small number of automatic monitoring stations which have been strategic- ally located in the estuary and which measure between six and ten physical.environmiental variables every ten to twenty minutes. There are obviously serious problems with both approaches. This and other agencies have rarely surveyed the user needs for those parameters which may have some:signi.ficance to the users or the physical environment. While it is difficult to specify a sampling frequency which would serve all users equally well, it is clear that most information must be collected more fre- -quently than every ten years, as has been the case with population and housing information collected by U.S.B.O.C. What is important to remember.is that the purpose of this information is to (a) monitor existing resource conversion operations in the coastal and marine environment, and (b) to provide the planners with sufficient information to upgrade ekisting plans and enable new alternatives to be developed. The sampling program and a real coverage ought to be flexible enough to incorporate existing ongoing efforts by both ,the public and private sectors. As previously suggested, such a system should be able to handl-e interval (field) data, as well as information summarizing studies covering points, linear, and areal .2 4 patterns. By devising such a system, it would be possible to incorporate the massive data files developed by the U.S.B.O.C. covering both business and social information. In such a system, it should be possible to incorporate summary information as well, as long as the findings are defined geographically. 1Such non-parametric information would be of particular value to the policy maker, and would have the added attribute of being incorporated into an overall socio-environmental master file. The last consideration which should be touched upon is related to costs. It is obvious that any changes in existing environmental surveillance are likely to result in increased costs. Such increases have represented a fraction of the increased benefits which an efficient data system is likely to generate. Because of the very specific and often intensive data requirements of the research community, most of this information is not likely to be of universal value and should not be directly incorporated into the system. While this recommendation may appear contrary to past data system proposals, there appears to be some very persuasive reasons for leaving these data sets out. The U.S.D.O.I. STORBT system is an example of an effort to develop a data system from governments and research institutions. While the list of parameters included in the system is impressive, this data is of only limited value as few efforts have been made to verify the validity and laboratory procedures used for each of 25 the data sets incorporated into STORET. A more rational approach from the point of view of research, planning and policy making would be to develop a reference system to enable the users to locate the findings and conclusions from scientific research. It is recognized, of course, that several library search programs have been developed during the past couple of years, and more are being added yearly, however, most of these are not spatially referenced by any of the standard coordinate systems commaonly in use. The proposed geographical sampling system can be consider- ably coarser than that required by most researchers, thus, considerable savings may be obtained if a coastal and marine environmental DIS is developed with planners, managers, and policy makers as the principal users. The DIS should have the capability of locating both regular and irregularly spaced poly- gons to accommodate unique spatial distributions. Finally, the system should have the internal capability of integrating multi- variate sets to produce integrative map overlays and to model specific socioenvironmental changes over space and through time, besides being able to project such changes into the future. While these suggestions may appear to be a tall order for an activity which is still in its infancy, this paper has been written in an attempt to formulate the need for a DIS as per- ceived by a broad spectrum of environmental users. Such a system should not be shaped by mere technical. capability, but rather by the needs of the end users. 26 UVAIS - The University of Virgini& Coastal Information System: A Data and Model Index Designed for the Office of Naval Research, Geography Programs Cary Rea 1. System Design - Data Management At the University of Virginia, we are designing and implementing a-data referral system for coastal data .sets. The University of Virginia Information~ System (UVAIS) pro- vides maximum accessibility to the relevant data sets. Because the inventory contains references to data sources within a restricted operational area - the coast - it is pos- sible for trained technicians to evaluate'the sources and tailor the referral entries so that little extraneous infor- mation is produced by a query. Primarily for this reason, the system is superior to the big multipurpose-data access systems with diverse goals. The referral system provides two types of services: a data inventory and a file of geophysical models. Computerization of the coastal information system is essential for efficient storage, retrieval, and update of the large volume of material involved. We are using a Navy system called Ship Analysis and Retrieval Program (SHARP) which is a generalized data base management system developed at Naval Ship Research and Development Center (NSRDC), Carderock, Maryland. SHARP allows on-line and off-line access to data bases. Nontechnical persons can easily define, build, main- tain, and interrogate their own data bases using a user oriented English like language for retrieval and report generation. This language is highly suited to interactive use from remote terminals. Variable length records and multiple record types are allowed within a single file. Finally, coded input data carn be translated to plain language on output, 27 and tutorial retrieval programs can be written for use by per- sons who have no knowledge of the system. A tutorial search mode was programmed specifically for UVAIS, providing an easy means of access to the UVAIS system for the new or inexperienced user. It allows formation of a question based on geographic location, environmental vari- ables, and data collection program status. Users of the tutorial feature are given the option of receiving an infor- mation section. This service provides background information for users who are not-familiar with the literature and data collection methods of a particular parameter. The information sections also refer the user to recognized experts in the field and to other data indices which contain coastal information. 2. System Design: Inventory The UVAIS coastal inventory considers only physical, geologic, and meteorologic coastal variables. For the purposes of this project, nearshore (transformation zone) and beach variables are most �ignificant; some offshore observations, however, such as waves, must be included. Measurements within small bays, sounds, and estuaries have been given a lower priority. Primary variables are those generally recognized by coastal investigators to be of major importance in determining the nature of the coastal environment, including dynamics. These include driving forces (wind, waves, tides, and currents), and those geological/morphological factors (bathymetry, shore and bottom geology) that determine the reaction of the coast- line to the driving forces. All other variables are classed as secondary. Data records are also classed as primary or secondary depending on the parameters measured. However, any record can be placed in a third category (complementary) if the length or quality of the data recorded is such that it would be of little value for prediction purposes by itself 28 but could be used as a complement to a longer or-higher quality record of the same variable at the same or a nearby location. Variables and records'in.UVAIS are also classified as real and synthetic. A real variable/record refers to an actual measurement of-a physical variable. A synthetic variable/record represents an estimate, using a data gener-. ating scheme., of a measurement similar to those classed as real. There are also derived variables/reco'rds which are' obtained by manipulation of real.or synthetic data. The se are.reported in UVAIS.only if the-derivation.is unique, costly or time consuming, or if the data required to perform the derivation are not available through our system. For example, three-day means of wave height are not included, because the original data are available and the manipulation required is trivial. On th'e other.hand, storm track data are included, because they are derived from ptessure observations at many stations, not all of which are included in the UVAIS. Sources of data are entered into the data inventory in two'forms: 1) general study information, with one record per study,- which includes information such as the name of the principal investigator, the cost of obtaining the data, and a list of publications; and 2) site specific records containing detailed information about the location of each data collection site, the variables measured, methods use'd, and dates of operation. 3. System Design: Geophysi-cal Model File JA user of the data inventory will not always locate a suitable data set; however there may be other types of data available which could be~_ run through a model to get the desirod result.' Therefore we have produced a prototype model inventory f ile to be used in conjuntion with- the data inventory. Since the business of science is primarily the design and testing of mod'els, clear quidelines were necessary to avoid encompassing in UVAIS the entire body of scientific thought. 29 We have therefore chosen the following criteria for selection of geophysical models: conceptual and physical. models are ex- cluded, but models of the numerical, mathematical and simulation varieties will be included.in our system. Many mathematical models exist only in published form as sets of equations. This type of model (the bulk of the available source material) is~ in general to be excluded from our-system. We are left with numerical," 8imulation, and some maathematical modeis., along with hybrids of these types,.,which depend on digital (or perhaps analog) computing equipment to produce synthetic data of the same type as the data stored in the UVAIS inventory Simple models using graphical or tabular,methods (such as the SMB hindcast model) are also to be includ ed. A further requirement for the inclusion of models in our file is that they be readily available in usable form. Many models exist for which there is little or no documentation, and which are useless except in the hands of the des-igner. Models of this-type can be included in the system, but an appropriate notation is required. Models are described in a third record type within UVAIS. Model records contain most of the same information found in the general study records of the data inventory plus additional ,information about the input and output characteristics of the models, the types of data generated, and the key control variables. 30 State Information Systems -These systems are constrained by economi.cs, and are, therefore fre- quently, very efficient. In state systems, emphasis is placed on getting the information to ithe user in a form that is easily understood and uti- lized. In addition to other information packages, many states have relied heavily upon a map format for final information presentation. Many of the state systems do not rely on the user to correctly interpret given information and therefore use a variety of means to convey the information. An important aspect of state systems is the education of the users and the public. The system operators must aid users in defining their lheirarchy of values in relation to specific problems, and in interpreting the data pertinent to those problems. Also initially all systems will, have a limited user group and wqill achieve increased use.only when the public becomes aware of the system Considering these points, one can see why state systems would not be applicable on a regional basis. Such individuality would probably not be possible on a larger scale. 3 1 A COASTAL ZONE INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR RHODE ISLAND M. Spauldingl P. Cornillon2 C. Knapp3 Introduction As the pressure increases for the development of land and other resources along our coastal zones the need to properly manage these areas has become increasingly evident. !With that realization has also come a need to collect, organize, and analyze information about these resources in order to shape an effective management strategy. This paper describes a system presently under development in Rhode Island to assist the coastal management community in that process. Objective Stated concisely the objective of the proposed system is to develop a procedure to allow the coastal zone management community to access predictive tools, environmental data, data analysis procedures, literature, and other information to assist in making management decisions for the coastal zone. System Requirements In the design of a coastal information system for Rhode Island, a series of system requirements were outlined based on the needs of the 1Associate Professor of Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. 2Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. 3Research Assistant, Marine Affairs Program, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. 32 Rhode Island coastal management community and the experience of other states and organizations in developing similiar systemns. It was con- cluded that the key to system success iiust be that it is simiple'to use so that personnel with little detailed information retrieval knowledge or computer programming experience cbuld readily use the system. Ad- ditional system requirements were formulated and are 'included in Table 1. TABLE I-SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS -Simple to Use -.Rapid Response -Flexible Easily Updated Responsive to Changes in Management Strategy -Cost Effective -Educates the User/Self Learning -Meets Users Needs Conceptually Input/output Level of Confidence - Matches Data Processing Requirements to Needs - Input/Output Simple to Understand - Assist in Preparation of Reports Methodology The methodology was to design an information system using a mini- computer system, more specifically a Tektronix 4051 Interactive.Graphics Terminal and Minicomputer to provide the coastal zone manager with access to a wide variety of information and predictive tools. As developed, the minicomputer terminal is located in the office o-f the coastal zone plan- ner to access environmental data, administrative review procedures, pre- dictive models, literature and other information resources. The storage of the data and models can either be done on the minicomputer system it- self or a mnuch larger computer as the need dictates. Figure 1 gives an overview flow chart of how the system functions. 33 iCOASTAL PLANNER I I MINICOMPUTER WITH INMTERACTIVE GRAPHICSI i MAIN COMPUTER| I . I PREDICTIVE TOOLS I a I ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES PERMIT REVIEW SYSTEM I LITERATURE I PEOPLE RESOURCES I ENVIRONMENTAL DATA I DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES .I i I ' i i MODELS OF COASTAL LAND USE FISHERIES OTHER PROCESSES a a - n n 4(A t WAVE ENVIRONMENT I POLLUTANT TRANSPORT I BIOLOGICAL/ ECOLOGICAL OI SPILL MODEL OIL SPILL MODEL CIRCULATIO N CIRCULATION FIGURE 1 - FLOW CHART FOR THE RHODE ISLAND COASTAL INFORMATION SYSTEM Administrative Framework Key to designing any informiation system is the decision as to who the "target audience".or user community personnel are and the aldministrative framework within which the system is to function. Under present Rhode Island legislation the coastal zone management community is broken down into roughly three groups. The Department of Environmental Management and its Coastal Resources Division is responsible for review, field in- vestigations, record keeping, and enforcement of the coastal alteration permit system, while the Coastal Resources Management Council establishes coastal management policy and acts as a jury in deciding permit requests. The development of long term planning and management policy is performned by the Coastal Resources Center. These three groups operate in close cooperation and coordinate with the Rhode Island Statewide Planning of- fices and local city and town planners as well as federal agencies to assure a consistent and effective mianagement policy. The proposed information system has been designed within this ad- ministrative framework and the user audiences are the Department of En- vironmental Management (DEM), Coastal Resources Division and the Coastal Resources Center (CRC). Impl ementation Since the system is in the early stages of development, the imple- mentation of the system hias not progressed very far. But with the small amount of experience gained to date, it appears that the critical heed in implementing the system is to establish credibility with the user community. Although this may appear to be obvious 'at first glance, the need to continue working on thi's area needs to be constantly stressed. This is particularly true when one is developing predictive techniques' for the coastal planner. Other important considerations in system implementation are to pro- ceed in a carefully planned step by step manner with user involvement being continuously incorporated in system formulation. It is also im- portant to establish a well defined advocate in the User community such that critical feedback can be focused and addressed. Appl ications The permit application information system evolved concurrent,with the development and implementation stages of the Rhode Island Coastal Management Program. The final design of the system has both affected and been affected by the permit application review process. A standard information sheet was devised in cooperation with the Coastal Resources Division of DEM and the Coastal Resources Management Council to consolidate qoanttfitable perTmiit informati'on i,nto ah easily retri- evabI6/useable format. 35 The information sheet was specifically constructed to meet current and anticipated information requirements of the coastal managers. It pro- vides rapid access to information on a spatial and temporal basis, in- cluding the nature of particular appllications, trends in the permit- granting process and indications of development pressures and relative effects of the management program on the above factors. Methodologies used in data analyses and presentation are the di- rect result of consensus among the system users and developers. Out- put techniques are developed incrementally and on a priority basis. Current needs to monitor long-term permit-granting activities have been met through the capability to generate time-related summaries of final decisions on applications, in general, or applications involving specific projects or sites. The software for accessing permit application in- formation allows a great deal of flexibility in .the ultimate organization and presentation of the information. Figure 2 gives a flow.chart de- scribing the permit application information system. Throughout the development of the information sheet, in particular, the CRMC developed a more systematic approach in handling applications than previously followed. Increased attention to the relationship be- tween the management program and the permit review process can also be considered a secondary benefit in developing this sub-system, particularly in light of the recent award of federal implementation monies to the State. An interactive oil spill model has also been incorporated in the system to help coastal planners develop management strategies and appro- priate responses to marine oil spills. Figure 3 outlines the organiza- tion of the program to include the necessary input to the model while Fig. 4 shows a typical example of the model output. It is important to note that the oil spill has been designed so that the information nec- essary to run the model is read.ly available from public;,sources such as the U.S. Coast Guard or newspaper reports on the spill incident and that the model can be run by individuals 5; without detailed.technical expertise in either computer programming or oil spill dynamics. lit is hoped in the future to include further components of the in- formation system, Setlection of the new components to be included will be done in close coordination with the user community. Problem Areas While the system proposed here has not yet undergone the rigors of time and, therefore, many problems have not yet surfaced, a preliminary analysis shows that getting the user community to adopt and make use of the system as part of their ordinary work schedule requires a great effort. Establishing a user advocate at the working level appears to be the pre- ferred method to attack this problem but it is by no means a simple pro- cess. 36 PERMIT APPLICATIONS SUBMITTED TO R.I.C.R.M.C. STANDARD PERM-IT APPLICATION INFORMATION SHEET 1. Who? - Nature of applicant. 2. Proposed Activity: what, where, when? 3. Administrative Information: -chronology of permit review steps -recommendations/decisions -application of CRMP (e.g. relevant policies) I~~~~ ! 0 a~~~~~~~~ I I L [FILING/UPDATING ] AI.ALYSES/OUTPUT I I ISINGLE APPLICATIONi RETRIEVAL p - ~_ - ~_ I - - I IGENERAL SUMMARIES SMMARY OF APPLICA- TION S VS. GEOGRAPHI]GEGAICSMRE1 -calculate number of applications approved, denied, etc., over speci- fied time period -applicant break- down over given time period -record of special actions (e.g., cease and desist orders, letters of no objections, etc. -list and calculate total number of ap- plications concern- ing a given activity, a particular site, and a specified time period--plus indi- cate the final status of each (approved, denied, etc.) FIGURE 2 - PERMIT APPLICATION INFORMATION SYSTEM 37 NARRAGANSETT BAY OIL SPILL MODEL ; OIL SPILL INFORMATION 1. What? - Oil Type 2. When?: Beginning Time of Spill 3. Where? - Spill Originr 4. How? - Release Type (Instantaneous or Slow Leaking) 5. How Much? - Amount of Oil spilled WINP INFORMATION II 1. Time 2. Speed 3. Direction CURRENT INFORMATION Check Tidal Char-t to Enter the High Tide Hour at Newport in the Date of the Spill CALULATE WIND AND CURRENT DRIFT SUBSPILL MOVED TO THE NEW POSITION CALCULATE SPREADING PLOT THE CALCULATED RESULT ON THE CREEN FIGURE 3 - FLOW FOR NARRAGANSETT BAY OIL SPILL MODEL 38 TIME. I HOUR(S) FROM SPILL START AT Is O'CLOCK, 1L'1OW?s TOTAL SPILL QOLULE . 15.142 METRIC TONS RATE OF SPILL . 15.142 IIETIC TONHOUR ORIGIN OF SPILL. 4I135'55- 'H 71124'13"M WIND HISTORY: (I - S DEGREE) TIME SPEED DIRECTION (MR) (N'SEC) (DEGREE) I .0.9 0.9 41 36 52 45 33 11 .1. 1( . TJI Z Zr 71 21 It a TIMEm 3 HOUR(S) FROM SPILL START AT 10 O'CLOCK, I1"1O"70 TOTAL SPILL VOLUME 15.142 NETRIC TONS IRATE OF SPILL * 15.142 METRIC TON/HOUR O0IGIN OF SPILL, 41235'55''I ?Wt24'1311 MIND HISTORY: (K a 8 DEGREE) TIRE SPEED DIRECTION CUR) (HSEC) (DEGCREE) I - 0.0 0.0 4126 352 r I I C) 3 i 41 33 11 t71 26 27 11 2I IT TIME- 7 HOUR(S) FROM SPILL START AT 10 O'CLOCK. 1111840? TOTAL SPILL UOLUME - 15.142 METRIC TONS RATE OF SPILL a 15.142 METRIC TON/HOUR ORIGIN OF SPILL, 41935'55 NI 71924'13" M MIND HISTORY: (E a 0 DEGREE) TIME SPEED DIRECTION (NR) (11SEC) (DEGREE) I .0 g.e 41 as652 41 33 11 1 , 4t I 10 7 171 26 2? 71 21 It f FIGURE 4 - TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF THE OUTPUT BAY OIL SPILL MODEL 39 FROM THE NARRAGANSETT The other critical area we have encountered, particularly in relation to. the use of predictive tools, is in developing the credibility of these procedures with the user community. The assumptions of the models need to be clearly stated, reiterated and emphasized so that the level of expectations of the us-er group are not raised so high that when the in- evitable predictive errors arise that the system developers'credibility is lost. 40 DISCUSSION OF LOUISIANA'S "INFORMATION SYSTEM" Paul H. Templet June 16, 1978 The term "information system" as used in this discussion will encompass 1) those who have the information, 2) the means of transforming the information into a usable format, and 3) the manager at the state and local level. all operati-ng within the context of the state's Coastal Zone Management Program. It has been my experience that it is not enough to merely develop a computor based information system. Concurrently, existing with th.e'computer based system must be the requisite institutional frame- work which can provide' financial, educational and technical liaisons between the developer of the information and the user of the 'information. The remainder of this paper will deal with the developers of information, the minipulation of that da-ta into usable formats, the user, and finally the institutional arrangements necessary to make the whole system work. The goal is to provide the necessary technical information to the manager in a usable format so that he can make resource decisions that achieve the coastal zone management objective of balancing growth and conservation. Basic Data and Those Who Have It 'There is probably already enough basic information developed and available for most Coastal Zone Management Programs. The quantity of information contained in state and federal agencies and in the-universities is massive, but has never been transferred to the managers at the state and local level. There are, of course, areas which have not been researched and every coastal management program should spend small amounts, in the range of 10% or less, on research which is applied to answering questions which have developed'in the course of the management program development. This type of research should be management oriented and, Aecessarily, short term. Making grants to universities to do open-ended research concerning broad coastal management topics has not proven to be successful o-r useful. The problem area centers around the question: How do we keep universities involved and interested when the frontiers of knowledge which they wish to explore are too far removed from the'manager's needs? 1If we accept the premise that there is enough information available to develop a coastal management program but that it is in the wrong format and virtually unusable, how do we make it usable? Tools for Information Transfer and the User There are a number of formats by which information can be transmitted from the information gather.er to those who must use it. Among these are written reports, news]letters, briefings, maps and computer-rel ated outputs. A mix of these is perhaps the best approach to try, but a format that has worked the best in the 4 1 Louisiana program involves maps.. Experience indicates that managers have little surplus time and rarely read reports. However, they will look at a map if the information is clearly presented and easily interpretable. A map has the additional advantage of being able to show the overall context in which a particular piece of real estate is being studied. Thus, the manager acquires a holistic approach to environmental management and gains an understanding that, even though the permit he is processing may affect a small part of an estuary, it is, nevertheless, part of the larger unit and affects that larger unit. The primary user of the information developed is the coastal zone manager at the local or state level. To a lesser extent, the user will be federal agencies, the general public and others working in the field of coastal management. Having determined the user to be the coastal manager at local and state agencies of government, the next step is to develop a listing of what kinds of information should be mapped. We were unable to obtain from local governments any understanding of their informational needs, primarily because they had had little experience in management at the local level. In developing our list of data needs to be mapped, we first concentrated on the obvious features of the natural environment which are important such as vegetation (or ground cover), elevation, hydrologic characteristics and topo- graphy. Added to the list were those things which need to be mapped because of man, such as prime agricultural and forestry lands; land use (existing and projected); historical, cultural and archeological sites; unique ecologi- cal features; and potential preservation and restoration areas. A third type of map dealt with information which could be derived from existing data by minipulating data. These included soil subsidence potential, land loss potential due to channel construction, and land surface feature classification (based on NASA satellite imagery). This last type of information (i.e., the derived information) '.was based on analysis of problems which had been determined by earlier studies. For instance, there were problems with the siting of residential developments on filled wetlands. The filled wetlands are underlain by many feet of organic peats which dewater and oxidize to cause subsidence. Houses built on this type of soil inevitably cause great problems to the homeowner in the form of cracked slabs, walls, etc. and to the local government trying to provide services with continually cracking water, gas and sewer pipes and broken roadways. Having mapped most of this information, it became apparent that merely providing a set of maps to the user would not necessarily encourage him to use the infor- mation in a way which would balance conservation and development. A problem developed in that the manager may not use the correct information in making his decision since he had a number of maps to choose from. If he uses the existing land use map and decides to site new development adjacent to existing develop- ment he may discover, too late, that he's merely perpetuating existing mistakes. To solve this problem, we recognized the need to integrate all of-this informa- tion into a single recommendation for siting development of any kind in the Louisiana coastal zone. 42 Thus, we are developing a set of maps which will illustrate development potential based on land suitability (Figure 1). For storing, man ipulation and mapping data, a series of'computer programs called IMGRID was chosen. Any land-based information which can 'normally be mapped by conventional means can be incorporated into a data file fcir analysis using IMGRID. IMGRID allows for the graphic display of terrain characteristics:for vir- tually any size or shape study area and at any scale. A grid size of four hectares (9.88 acres) was chosen based on the available level of resolution of the information. The grid was laid out across the Louisiana coastal *zone using Universal Transverse Mercator coordinates. It was determined that 32 different variables (see attached list) could be mapped and used in the IMGRID System. Thus, one data point for each of 32 variables was digitiZed into each 4 hectare grid representing 32 data points per grid. There were about one million grids,-across the Louisiana coastal zone representing 32 million.digitized data points. However, IMGRID cannot make decisions'concerning the relative importance of subsidence'or the location of a bald eagle nest as a hindrance to development. There is a. way to combine apples and oranges as long as the resultant is called fruit. The way that we have chosen is to convene a panel of experts and have them make a collective decision as to whether subsidence is more important as a hindrance to development than a bald eagle nest. However, rating the relative importance of 32 different variables to develop- mient would be a difficult, if not impossible, task. To provide s ome assistance to the team of experts rating the variables we used a technique called Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) (Figure 2). This technique is, one which is designed to help people think and communicate,more effectively about complex issues. There are three basic operational steps involved in applica- tion of the technique. 'Given (I) an issue context, the first task is to extract a s'et of (2) relevant elements and (3) aL meaningful relational state- ment. It has been;used in the past for a number of things, including factors in intercity investment decisions, grouping of children with learning disabili- ties, and structuring the Goals for Dallas. For our use, the issue context was one of determining the relevance of 32 variables to constraining development. The elements-were the 32 variables and the relational statement was "Is____ more important than ____in constraining development." The blanks-are to b filled in with the variables being compared. The technique was implemented in a man/machine interactive environment in such a way th'at human users are .responsible for making subjective judgements while the computer is employed in an unobtrusive manner for bookkeeping and for performing and displaying the results of simple logical operations. The procedure worked well and allowed us to develop a 1list of variables indicating' their ranking in importanceifor constraining development. To answer the above question of whether a bald eagle nest is more import.ant for constraining development than soil subsidence, the answer is that endangered species' habitats had the highest importance for constraining development while soil subsidence was sixth in the list. The rankings were fed into the computer to structure the 32 million data points and the maps are presently being, develoD)ed. Thev will be ready b~y August 15, 1978 and will be bound in as the 43 ...Suitability Model Flow Char:t FIGURE 1 FIGURE 2 ELEMENT SET I I INTERPRETIVE GRAPH --- STRUCTURAL I I MODEL I I I ISSUE I II I I N- I I RELATIONAL I j t I STATEMENT I I I 1 L.- ________ BASIC CONCEPTUAL ELEMENTS AND OPERATIONS INVOLVED IN THE ISM TECHNIQUE ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES OF ELEMENTS, RELATIONS, AND STRUCTURES Resulting Structure Elements Relations People Objectives Variables " . . . reports . . . " " . . . supports . . . " " . . .is a function of . . . " . . . is relevant to . . " " . . .influences . . . " Organization Chart Intent Structure (Objectives Tree) " hMathematical Model Relevance Tree Trend Interaction Diagram 45 final map in a series of maps for each parish (county) at a similar scale and size. We anticipate that these maps, especially the development potential map, will be extensively used by managers and others in making decisions con- cerning siting of developments in the coastal zone. Institutional. Framework for Implementing Information Transfer The final, but essential, part of the information system is the institutional framework for implementing the transfer. 'Approximately two years ago we con- tracted with 17 local governments and required, as a part of the contract, that an advisory committee be set up which represented a balance of conservation and development interests. We made recommendations concerning the types of persons who could be part of this semi-technical advisory group but left the appointing strictly up to local governments. The number of advisory groups increased in the second year as 21 parishes contracted to develop their local coastal zone management plans. The advisory groups were to be a technical assistance resource for local governments which could assist in the development of the coastal zone management plan at the local level and, in the future, provide assistance to local governments in handling permit applications which would require some tech- nical analysis. As we developed rough copies of the individual maps which were to be part of the final parish Atlas they were submitted to each parish's advisory committee for their comments and modifications. The modified maps were then turned over to the mapmakers for a final version. In this way, local govern- ment advisory committees had a substantial amount of input into the development of the maps which were destined for the Atlas. In addition, the process worked to educate the advisory committees and to train a pool of persons who could respond to requests for technical assistance from local governments. The system has worked well and we have used the advisory committees in a semi-technical capacity for evaluating other things such as reports and projects. We have attempted to strengthen their role by working through them whenever possible. It is not enough merely t6 develop data and package it in a usable form. There must be a trained receiver on the end of the information transfer process. The .principle problem in this step involved those parishes which did not work with us in developing their coastal zone management plan. How were we to receive their advice and provide assistance to them? Summary In summary, our information system consists of (1) those who have the information at the university or agency level, (2) repackagi-ng information into a usable format by the Coastal Resources Program, and (3) managers at the local level who have participated in the design of the information format and are, thus, familiar -with it and, hopefully, aware of its usefulness. 46 Attachment 1. Ranking in Constraining Development Residential and Industrial Comercial Samples of Variables Considered Maximum Elevations 11'1 Minimum Elevations 8 9 Potential Departures 10 10 Soil Subsidence Potential 6 7 Land Loss Potential 6 2 Geologic Features of Particular Concern 4 5 Areas of Significant Shoreline Reconfiguration 3 2 Hydrol ogi c Resource Characteristics 5 4 Potential Flood Hazard 5 6 Potential Washways:and Inlet Formations 3 2 Endangered Species Habitats I I Terrestrial Habitats of Particular Concern 9 8 Botanical Features of Particular Concern 2 3 Existing Land Use 2 2 Non-Urban Public and Semi-Public Lands 4 5 Dwelling Units 6 2 Recreational Areas of Particular Concern 5 3 Transportation Types 8 6 Parish Infrastructure 8 7 Historical Sites and Landmarks-Archaeology I I Areas Appropriate for Preservation 3 4 Unique Features 7 8 Significant Boundaries 9 9 Vegetation 7 7 4 7 The Marine Environment and Resources Research and: Management System at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (MERRMS at VIMS) John B. Pleasants Executive Assistant to the Director Virginia Institute of Marine Science The Marine Environment and Resources Research and Management Sys- stem (MERRMS) has been operating at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) since early in 1971. It has progressed from an initial rudimentary collection of documents to a comprehensive point of infor- mation on the marine environment and related subjects, such as coastal zone management. The emphasis quite naturally is on the Chesapeake Bay and the Virginian Sea, which is sometimes referred to by the uninformed as the "middle Atlantic bight." Although this is the area of its con- centration, MERRMS contains some information on other areas of the country;. but the further one wanders from the waters of the Commonwealth, the less information in our system one is apt to find. To understand why this is so, as well as the thrust behind the de- velopment of MERRMS, it is necess-ary to understand the position occupied by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in the hierarchy of the Commonwealth. VIMS is to my knowledge unique. It is a creature of the Common- wealth, and placed in the executive branch of the state government in the Secretariat of Commerce and Resources. It is also an educational in- stitution, serving as the School of Marine Science for the College of William and Mary, with our director double-hatted as dean, and most of our professionals holding faculty rank. We have a strictly graduate pro- gram with about 10 students in pursuit of masters or doctorate degrees, wihich are awarded by William and Mary. For this reason, there are those who fee-l that the institute- more properly belongs under the Secretary of Education. The code of the Commonwealth is ambiguous on the subject, referring to the Institute once as an independent research and advisory agency, and twice as an educational institution. VIMS has no management authority over the marine resources of the Commonwealth, but serves as advisor to the managers, such as the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) and the State Water Control Board (SWCB). In fact, VIMS provides advice to all state institutions whose work im- pinges on the marine environment or its creatures. We also supply ad- vice to individuals and citizen's groups as well as industry when we feel it to be in the interest of the Commonwealth to do so. It is this advisory portion of our mandate that led to the creation of MERRMS. As is often the case with advisors, we frequently found that we didn't have enough information to make a really good comment; but even more frustrating was the knowledge that the information was available 48 somewhere but couldn't be pulled together in a reasonable time.~ MERRMS, then, is an effort to pull the information together ahead of time arnd make.it rapidly available by the use of computers, special indexing and advanced visual displays. It is often used as a "~war room" or "Combat Information Center (dCI)" in our informlational efforts. Here we bring together those.with problems, our experts and the readily retrieveable information which MERRMS contains. Those of you with naval experience no doubt remember.the purpose of GIC on board warships is to collect, collate and display information, and this was one of my guiding prin- ciples while developing MERRMS. Let us now examine the elements that make up IMERRMS--the various sub-units that are accessed to provide the information we di sburse. When I wa-s first given the job of creating MERRMS, I set about collecting rel- evant, easily available--but scattered- - data, already at various locations at the Institute. These included topographic maps and county highway maps of tidewater areas,.National Ocean Survey charts of all western Atlantic waters, including all those available of 'Chesapeake Bay; and all the aerial photos from whatever source that had been collected over the years by individual.-researchers for various projects. Incidently, trying to make a logical, easily searchable file of aerial photos from several, dif- ferent sources with no discernable common denominator is a study in itself, one which I re'commend to those among you with an avi,d interest in both jigsaw puzzles and cryptology. With these basic moves behind me, I had already built a considerable data base without really expending a great deal of effort or money. True, the information had been at the Institute before, but now we could always lay our hands on it in one place. I decided early on that we needed a small , special purpose library, and the decision was made at about this point to make it an all microform library. I decided that we should use microfiche, and that we should have the ability to make our own. Both of these decisions were to prove for- tuitous. Microfiche masters are clear mylar jackets into which stripslof microfilm can be slipped. The form we use is about 4". by 6" in area, and hold sixty frames of 16 mm microfilm. These sheets--as many as necessary-- properly titled and numbered can be placed in a special envelope and filed as a publication. These microfiche Pesters can be copied very quickly and inexpensively. Our little machine copies two sheets about every forty- five seconds. at a cost in materials of slightly-over a nickel per sheet. We have three types of readers with which to read our microfiche-- there are the portable readers., which we check out,'the stationary ones which have variable magnification and are slightly larger, and the reader- printer which can give us a hard copy of any page we desire. Microfiche gives us one more advantage. Copying is so simple and inexpensive that a request for a particular document can be sent out'by return mail at a reasonable cost. Local users can take a copy of a publication and a port- able reader with them. Since the master hever leaves MERRMS, our files are always one'hundred percent up to date. The microfiche files now total about seven thousand nearly identical packets of microfiche, representing an equal number of documents, neatly 49 filed in a four-by-six card file. The problem that immediately leaps to the inquiring mind is that of indexing. How, in fact, are we able to rapidly locate information in this melange of material? Before answering this question, I would like to apologize to any professional librarians who may be present. For some reason, a description of my filing system seems to cause them pain. It does have two redeeming features, however, I understand it, and it works! I started by establishing several categories into which our work logically falls. These may be place names such as James River, or Vir- ginian Sea; biota, such as striped bass; things, such as power plants; or phenomena, such as tides or erosion.. All publications are read on re- ceipt, assigned to the soSt--appropriate basic category, and cross-filed under up to three others. A publication on the effects of power plants on oysters in the James River might be filed under "power pl:ants", and cross-filed under "oysters" and "James River". We also maintain an author file in which we list every author. We have found that these means of retrieval, however, are not enough. Consequently, we also assign descriptors from a list that is based on the water resources thesaurus produced by the Department of the Interior which has been modified for local use. We did this by removing descriptors in which we have no particular interest--"apple trees" comes to mind-- and adding others, mainly place names. We allow up to ten of these de- scriptors to be assigned to each publication. This enables us to search our holdings by computer for any descriptor or combination of descriptors. The machine will print out, on demand, all titles to which the desired descriptors have been assigned. Should we ask it, say, for "York River" it will give us quite a long list. If we add the descriptor "blue crab" it will search for those titles to which both have been assigned and give us a much shorter list. If we ask for the right hind flipper of the blue crab in the York River we probably won't get anything, but that's the way it works. I felt, then, that we needed a mechanism to tie all this information together--a means to present data in such a way that it would be equally comprehensible to the layman and the scientist alike. The means I chose was a visual display. My first attempt was a series of charts with plas- tic overlays. The chart would set forth the area of our concern, and the plastic overlays woul.d show factors affecting the area in which we were interested--a sort of modified McHarg technique. The factors would be such things as oyster grounds, fish spawning areas, wetlands, marinas, clam grounds, sewage outfalls, salinity, power plants and so forth. We soon found however we had so many charts--and so many overlays per chart-- that handling them became mechanically infeasible. I hit upon the idea of replacing the chart and overlay system with random access slide projectors coupled with rear screen projection. This has gone a long way toward solving the problem. Our configuration has five projectors, one of which covers nearly the entire projection screen. The others cover the four quadrants of the screen, and the projections of these four in sum cover the entire screen. The centered single projector 50 is used to "set the stage". WAe show here the area in which we are in- terested. Then, u:sing our random access capability, we remove that pic- ture and reolace it with pictures in the four quandrants, each of which shows the same area but displays a different factorcof the sort :1 pre- viously listed, the.effect is as though we are displaying simultaneously fou'r charts of an area, each with a single plastic overlay depicting one factor. Since we also have random access to these slides, we can replace any factor with another, showiing it against any three other factors. Our capacity, without changing carousels, is four hundred slides. Since car- ousels are readily changed, the system is virtually limited only by the industry of our art and photographic shops. These are the basic present compon ents of M'ERRMS. There are others associat~ed with IMERR!IS, but which are not necessarily located therein. These include: - The Chesapeake Bay Bibliography. This is a listing, in several volumes, of all references to tlhe-bay and surrounding marine areas of which we are aware. The publications listed have been assigned descrip- tors fromn the same list utilized for the MERRMS microfiche file, and can be computer searched in the same manner. - T'he VIMS data banks. This is all the hydrographic data available at VIMS, mnostly the product of bur own research. Again, the emphasis is on the Virginia Sea/Chesapeake Bay area. Other information--- such as fishery statistics--is also available. Having described MERRt-S, I come now to the real crux of the matter, wihich is the ouestion of use. How, in fact, is it working, to what uses is it put, and wqho are the users? To start wqith, we keep very accurate records of each "use- visit" to .IERRMS. This enables us to know--and to demonstrate--,exactly who is using the system, for what puroose and at what rate. Users fall naturally into two classes, in-house and, if you will pardon the expression, out- house. The in-house users include nearly all of the professionals at VIMS. The aerial photos, maps and charts, the microfiche file and the visual dis- play are all used frequently. MERRMS is the scene of many problom- solving rmeetings of small grourps, usually two or three VIMS personnel and a like number from another organization with a marine related problem. MERRMS is also used for briefings, and here the visual display is particularly useful. Ouit-house users are of many types. They inclvde, state and local officials, non-VVIS1 academics, environmentalists, consultants, and in- dustri al ists. State and local officials of the coastal zone were furnished at the start of the Commllonwealth's coastal zone management planning effort 51 with microfiche readers and a microfiche copy of a printout of MERRMS document holdings. Each month they receive a list of our acquisitions. They order those they need, and microfiche copies are sent. Both the basic list of our holdings and the monthly update are computer print- outs, and they show all descriptors assigned to each publication as well as the title, author and so forth. This gives perusers a-n excellent idea of the contents of each document before ordering. Industrial and consultant users are particularly fond of the micro- fiche category file, especially the. place name categories. Here are listed all documents pertaining to-any marine-related body of water in the commonwealth in which they may be interested. It is not uincommon for these users to order fifty or more microfiche copies of documents. They also are the most frequent users of the computer search capability for documents. Visiting academics also use the microfiche file, as-do environmen- talists. Their method is generlly to review the category of their sub- ject, noting the file numbers of documents of interest. These are pulled and scanined on the readerprinter, with items of interest being copied. Occasionally they order a microfiche of a document to take with them, which we make while they wait. Another feature involves dissertations and theses of our graduate students. All of these at'e microfich ed in MERRMS, and when one is re- quested on loan by another institution, they receive a crisp, clean micro- fiche copy instead of the Usual dog-eared "loaner" This is the way MERRMS is presently constituted. It has been in at least partial operation since 1971. For an original outlay for equipment of less than $10,000, IIERRMS has provided service to hundreds of people in the rommonwealth and, indeed, all over the nation and the world. Our future plans include a computer terminal in MERRMS to give us nearly real time access to the hydrographic data base, the computerized index to the microfiche and the other information contained in the in- stitute's organic IBM 370-118. We also plan to establish communication with other information systems of which we are aware. Further, we intend to develop a plotting capability in MERRMS. One final question to consider is what changes I would make if I were starting again on MERRMS. These are two things I believe I would try to do differently - MERRMS heeds much more physical space. It is currently all located in one room, and there are obvious interferences when different sections are to be used simultaneously. - I would get into the computer terminal set-up earlier. All in all, I believe MERRMS has worked out well, There are of course minor regrets when one looks back. 52 The Land Use and Natural Resource Inventory of New York State Ernest Hardy A detailed inventory of land use and niatural resources is,generally reonized as a prime requisite for effective planning. Although such inventories are rarely undertaken on a statewide basis, or for similarly large land areas, New York State has recently accomplished this using aerial photographs as the source of information and computers to store an and analyze this information. be-The Land Use and Natural Resources (LUNR) inventory was designed to beof prime use to the Office of Planning Coordination and other major planning agencies. It is serving that purpose, and is additionally use- ful to many other agencies and individuals, consequently, similiar inven- tories are being developed for other states and countries. Land-use in- formation is of interest to all planners and, depending on its quality, can greatly influence decisions affecting the future uses of large areas of land.. To be effective, the information must be used; but to be of maximum use it must be up-to-date, easily understood, flexible in its presentation format, economically produced, and readily available. The New York State LUNR information meets these requirements, but achieving that goal required extensive research and development of techniques. To transfer information fromn many sources to a standard base in a unified format is difficult, and ready-made solutions were lacking. Since the project was large enough to demand the full-time'efforts of.up to 50 workers', it was necessary to adequately standardize procedures 'so that different persons would make the same decisions from the same sources of information about an area. * The framework needed for such an approach was developed from a stand- ardized grid system already in use with the 7�1.-minute United States Geo- logical Survey map series, with a ratio or scale of 1:24,000. From many alternatives, the grid system selected was the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) which permitted working within a framework of square cells, each rep- resenting a uniform piece of New York's land area. The UTM grid is based on quite accurate metric measurements from the equator and from a given longituidinal line. Most of New York State is in one zone centered at 750 of longitude. Using the metric system, UTM permits uniformily square cells to be subdivided into smaller cells, representing very small areas, if de- sired. Also, each cell can be assigned a unique number for identification. Such a grid-cell system is the major link between inventory information and the many uses or products that'can be developed from the inventory, and ad- ditionally, cell size can be adjusted to the needs of the inventory users. For this project, it was agreed that a one-kilometer-square cell would be a useful summary unit on a statewide basis. A smaller cell size might in- crease the locational accuracy somewhat, but at increased cost. Since larger cells have the opposite effect, choice of cell size involves the 5 3 trade-off point at which acceptable accuracy balances its cost- benefit value. If visualized as a giant "pigeonhole" framework superimposed over a map of the state, the grid system thus becomes a practical location refer- ence into which inventory information for any cell can be placed as it is gathered. Each square kilometer is permanently identified by a six- digit number reflecting that square's distance east or west of 750 longitude and north from the equator. These digital identifications are unique for each cell and provide a positive means for access and retrieval of descriptive information that has been stored within the system. Aerial photographs of the state taken in April and May of 1968 be- came the major source of information for the inventory. Other sources in- cluded,existing maps (such as the generalized geology and soil association maps), reports and directories, public agency records, direct contacts with Cooperative Extension county agricultural agents, and government officials in most counties. All provided certain types of information not readily available from other sources. Photo interpretation and data from supporting sources could be com- piled before the grid was applied to the map, since cell locations were not necessary to the development of map information. We tested automatic and semi-automatic means of mechanizing the interpretive and locational parts of the process but found it more satisfactory to manually transfer information to the maps with the aid of rulers and other simple devices. We placed information on the maps so that three basic forms of meas- urement for information retrieval and preparation for computer storage could be used. Points of specific interest, but representing too small an area to be recorded, were counted and assigned to the proper cell record and manually recorded on work sheets. Areas of land use were measured by a fine grid representing areas of 1/100 of a squarekilometer, called mini- cells. The land-use category to which a mini-cell was assigned was de- termined by the use being made of one-half or more of that mini- cell, mean- ing that land-use decisions were based on areas as small as l1�- acre in size. In certain instances they were measured in even greater detail. The third form of measurement was linear, as for.mileages of shorelines, railways, and so forth. Information that can be located on a map and measured in one or more of the ways mentioned can be simply incorporated into the inventory. Adequate preparation required as little as two days for some area maps (about 50 square miles) and up to three weeks for maps in complex surburban areas. Field checks for accuracy involved driving over some of the roads shown on each map, comparing roadside observations of land use or natural resources with the photo interpretations. As correct and incorrect deci- sions were compared with the total decisions that should have been recorded, a "grade," or ranking of accuracy, was assigned to each map. In this pro- ject, the graded maps usually had an accuracy level of 92 percent or higher. Maps receiving low grades were revised to attain acceptable quality. When we had finished locating information on maps and measuring and recording it, the data were prepared for computer processing and storage. 54 Familiar card and tape methods of data management were tried, but they proved of little use in attaining the high degree of flexibility neces- sary to obtain maximum use of the inventory. Card and tape storage proved too inflexible, restricted the ease of making corrections or additions~,,and posed major problems for future development and comparison procedures that would be needed in time-sequence studies of land use. To make the data readily accessible we employed a computer disk-stor- age system having two.major capabilities: (1) random access to any item of informuation in any cell, and (2) extended storage capacity far beyond foreseeable needs of the inventory. It permits rapid transfer of infor- mation, inexpensive corrections, easy updating and addition of new data, and has the degree of retrieval flexibility needed t'o make the inventory a valuable planning resource. The current inventory requires storage ca- pacity for some 275 itemas for each cell, while the disk storage system will accomodate up to 10,000 items of information for each cel.l.. The LUNR inventory provides point, linear, or area information on 1l major~ categories of land use. agriculture, forest land, water resources, nonproductive land, residential land use, commercial areas, industrial ar- eas, extractive industry, outdoor recreation, public and semipublic land uses, and transportation. Each category contains 'more detailed classifi- cation units. Also, statewide information on generalized soils and bed- rock geology and on the economic viability of farm areas has recen'tly been added to the inventory. The items in the inventory can be retrieved in any combination for any desired area of New York. Unlike a typical data bank, organization of the material does not restrict the comobination of retrileved inforamtion. Any combination can be produced, anid any mathematical or log- ical analyses can be made of the data. Five inventory products are of general interest. to potential users, overlay maps of area information, overlay maps of point and lineae informa- tion, work books that record data for each cell, a computer product (DATA- LIST) that lists information about each cell (either "raw" from storage or mathematically manipulated), and maps produced by the computer (PLANMAP) indicating the location and results of various quantitative analyses of the data. All of these items are available at moderate or low costs. The first three are of value-in matters dealing' with smaller areas. They are easily read and require little training for interpretation. Com- puter processing offers opportunities to manipulate information in the in- ventory for special purposes. From the thousands of possible- DATALISTS or computer-graphic maps that can be produced it,is doubtful that more than a few hundred will ever be called for. Yet users can make requests of a flexible source and receive information in any of several formats. Such requests can now be filled usually in less than a week for any area of the state, and at a variety of scales. In compiling the inventory, we have tried to maintain complete neu- trality and objectivity in processing the information; the reward for this is:great flexibility in the use of the inventory. For example, knowledge of the locations and amounts of agriculturally inactive lands is important and valuable to a wide range o-f users, including planners, farmers, natu- ralists, conmmercial and University researchers, and others. Had tha't land 55 been.identified in a way that Predetermined or prejudged the use of the info:rmation, it conceivably might not be acceptable to any of th-e intended inventory users. The LUNR inventory differed in many ways from the usual survey of this type. Its classification system provided comprehensive area coverage and discrete identification for each of 50 land uses based on descriptions of unique characteristics. As a result, every acre of land in the state was classified. Rather than a one-time enumeration, the inventory iis in real- ity a dynamic planning tool. Stored inventory information can be manipu- lated by computer to provide either numerical data or computer- graphic maps; and anlayses can be produced very rapidly for any town, county, watershed, or region of the state. Techniques developed for the LUNR inventory pro- vide opportunity for successive surveys to offer time-sequence comparisons, and the system of recording and storing data allows insertion of new infor- mation whenever it becomes available. 5 6 The Minnesota Land Management Information System (MLMIS) Alan Robinette Within Minnesota, re.source data are collected fo'r many different pro- jects and by many different agencies. The United States Forest Service conducts a forest inventory. The Sails Department of the University of Minnesota and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service compile soils maps. The U.S. and State Geological Surveys map geologic formations. Many agencies purchase air photos and produce various maps. The Department of Natural Resources records state ownership of land. The list goes on and on. Many people seek this information for application to a variety of resource problems. Each person faces the problem of synthe- sizing the data and putting them into a usable-format. Government officials must use data and analysis to make decisions. Of- ten decisions are made at-different levels of government. A zoning permit is granted by the county, another permit by the Department of Natural1 Re- sources, and perhaps.a third by the Environmental Quality Board. Each group compiles and looks at the information in different ways; often the informa- tion is different and each group reaches a separate conclusion. If tonflicts occur, each group argues based on its own data and analysis, and often with- out adequate data, A common base of data could eliminate some of the ar- guments and alleviate distrust of other data. The realization that these problems create conflict and make decisions more difficult has prompted an attempt to solve then in Mihnesota. One sclut-ioh is.to establish a'c'onmon data,bas-eand computerized,analysis techniques that can be-used-in- analyzing resource-related problems. The Minnesota Land Management Information System is the product of more than twelve. years of effort by individuals in state government and at the University of Minnesota. These people were concerned about-the state's cap- ability to deal with land management and environmental problems. Much of this concern derived from the importance of the environment as a major source of recreation in the state and the need for the state to manage its large landholdings. (It is claimed that only the federal government and Alaska are greater landowners than Minnesota.) The Legislature, concerned about tile importance of outdoor recreation sites, passed the Omnibus Resources Bill in 1963. This law eayniiarked a part of the state cigarette tax for outdoor recreation and created the Minnesota Outdoor Recreation Resources Conmmission (since renamed the Legislative Com- mnission on Minnesota Resources (LCME) to administer the funds. The commission first began to collect information about outdoor rec- reation. Later it funded the collection of data that identified state- owned lands, a survey of the state's population to determine recreational use of lakes, and a map of seasonal home locations. 57 In 1967, the commission funded a state inventory by the University -of Minnesota Department of Geography of lakes not publicly owned whose basins exceeded 150 acres. This inventory compiled data on the location of sea- sonal and permanent homes, dominant soils and vegetation types, lake ecol- ogy and road accessibility, plus samples of land and building values and homeowner attitudes and characteristics. Aside from the tabulations and identification of specific resources or resource combinations, the most significant result of the lakeshore de-~ velopment study was the establishment of a computerized data bank containing all the information used in the study. Some 38,000 40-acre cells were en- coded with data from nearly 2,000 lakes, and it was *obvious that the data bank compiled for the study could be a valuable management and research tool for government decision-makers. To obtain information on land use, SPA coordinated the purchase of aer- ial photography of the entire state in 1968 and 1969. This information wqas encoded into the growing data file as the first complete statewide element. By 1971 , a map which displayed land uses for the entire state by 40-acre par- cels had been produced. In 1973, appropriations were authorized for adding new data elements covering the:entire state to the system. Enough potential for MLMIS was seen by the SPA and the Department of Administration's Infor- mnation Resources Development Fund (IRDF) to encourage continued funding for research and development of the system. In 1977 the state legislature ap- propriated funds moving the program to the SPA in ~July 1977. The 1977 Legislature funded the Land Mlanagement Information Center (LMIC) to increase use of the data and analysis system by all state agencies and by the private sector. LMIC is a division of the State Planning Agency with a service bureau theme. It is not intended to serve the SPA.exclusive- ly, or even primarily. It is available on an equal basis to all state agen- cies and departments. A committee of people from agencies that use the MLMIS will advise the Center on additions and changes to the data base and analysis system. This committee should help to increase interaction among the user community. Spe- cial proj.ect costs for computer time and programnming work above present fund- ing can be contracted with outside users. LMLIC is organized inito three functional sections: the Mapping and Re- mote Sensing Information Center (MARSIC), the Planning Analysis Service (PLANS), and the Minnesota Land Management Information System (MLMIS). MARSIC centralizes mapping and remote sensing information for the state. Catologs of Minnesota's aerial photography and mapping products are comn- piled and information on other remote sensing and mapping data can be ob- tained from the center. PLANS is the application section of LMIC; it provides assistance to users of the data and analysis system. MLMIS is the systemn section; it maintains the data base, develops new anialysis tools, and enters new data. 58 IThe primary reason for the existence of any computerized system is the data base. The MLIAIS data base has been in development for,several years and now is operational statewide. The features of the data base that will be explained include the cell size, the type of data, and the data entry techniques. The 40-acre parcel is the smallest geographic entity identified in the system; it is based on the U.S. Public Land Survey. The U.S. Public Land Survey (PLS), first conducted in M'innesota in 1848, divided the land based on principal meridians and base lines. A six-mile square area called a township is identified by a township number based on a nortLh- south dis- tance from a base line, and a range number based on an east-west distanc from a principal meridian. Each township is divided into 36 one- mile square sections; each section is further divided into quarter sections and quarter- quarter sections. The quarter-quarter section is 40 acres in size and one- quarter mile on a side. *The PLS 40 was chosen as the,basic cell size for MLMIS because his- torically it is the basis for allocating land in the state. In addition, many governmental taxation and land ownership records are still indexed by the PLS designations. In areas where land ownership has been fragmented from the original 40-acre parcel, enough information exists to aggregate the land back to the original 40 acres. In fact, the lines defining these parcels are often visible in ground development as the locations of roads and urban streets, as property boundaries, or as boundaries for. various natural resource management practices. Also, the size of the 40-acre unit is convenient for comnputer mapping and analysis of data covering relatively large areas. Alternative cell sizes can and are being used for specific purposes'in conjunc-tion with MLMIS. For smaller areas of the state, data have often been collected for cells of 2.5-acres or even smnaller. At the statewide level, a file of data of 5-kilometer cells, or approximately 10 square miles, has been created. The specific size cell used for an individual site should be a function of the data,available and the budget of the.particu'lar. project. Mlore detail can be included in a grid cell cove ring a smaller area, but the cell size need not include more detail than the best available data. The second aspect is a description of the data itself. There are thir- teen different items of information or "variables" recorded for each of the 1.4 million 40-acre parcels in the state. For each variable, an individual 40 may have- one characteristic or "data level". Variables on a 'statewide basis may have a number of data levels: e.g., there are nine land use types and 50 different public ownership types. The thirteen statewide variables include the following: 1. Township - The public land survey township. 2. Minor Civil Division - Incorporated municipalities, organized rural towns, and unorganized territories are entered as defined by the Bureau of the Census. 3. Public Ownership - Publicly owned lands of federal, state, or c'ounty jurisdiction. 59 4. Type of Acquisition of State or County-Owned Land. 5. Highest Recommended Use of State or County-Owned Lands - as deter- mined by the Department of Natural Resources Land Classification Study. 6. Recommended Disposition of State or County-Owned Lands - as deter- mined by the Department of Natural Resources Land Classification Program. 7.Management Unit Status of State or County-Owned Lands - as deter- mined by the Department of Natural Resources Land Classification Program. 8. Land Use - as determined from aerial photograplhs. 9. Forest Cover - as determined by the U.S. Forest Survey. 10. Water Orientation - different water features that are within or ad- jac.ent to a parcel. 11. Highway Orientation - roads and road intersections that *occur with- in or are adjacent to an individual parcel. 12. Soil Landscape Unit -as determined by the Minnesota Soils Atlas. 13. Geomorphic Regions -physiographic features as determined by the Minnesota Soils Atlas. In addition to these thirteen variables, some areas of the state have additional information on file. The Arrowhead region, for example, has in- formation on geology and zoning and an additional soils variable. Region Six East h.as detailed variables on agricultural land use. The LMIC will maintain the data base on a statewide basis and will assist other groups who wish to enter data to meet their needs. Other statewide data will be en- tered or updated as it becomes available and feasible to enter. Several possibilities, such as data on elevation., slope, watershed, and land cover as seen by satellite are being explored. Data may be entered into the system in several ways: - The most commonly used method, manual coding of the information is a tedious process for the entire state and requires a great deal of time and manpower. - A second way to enter data is through a computer process called dig- itization. In this method a scanning devise records polygons of sim- ilar information which are then translated by computer to fit the file structure of the data base. For the MLMIS data base this means con- verting polygons into the appropriate sized grid cells. - A final entry method is the merging of records by a common identifier. The PLS code is common to own.ership records and becomes the method for entry of state Ownership information. The computer matches the state 60 records with the MLMIS data file and inserts the information where appropriate. The Environmental Planning and Programming Language (EPPL) provides the means by which the data base is analyzed. The capabilities of EPPL expand as new needs and analysis techniques are required. Because of the method of storage, EPPL consists of several routines in one major software system and a number of efficient satelite programs to meet particular needs. File manipulation, map comnpositing, and cell-to-cell relationship analysis, which are discussed below, show the system's range of capabilities. The file manipulation capabilities that are used for analysis are the window and scale change. The window capability allows the user to select a portion of a larger map to be used in further analysis, Thus, a township file can be extracted from a county file for computer efficiency and will1 provide only the information requested. The scale change softwqare has sev- eral useful capabilities for analysis. It allows the user to reduce or ex- pand the area included within cells or the basic data unit. For instance, one might change the 40-acre cells to section-sized cells of 640 acres or, in the other direction, to 2.5-acre cells. Larger cells can enable the user to study a larger area, such as a region, with less cost and maps that il- ustrate general patterns with more clarity. Smaller cells can allow a user to coordinate the 40-acre MLMIS data base with more detailed information collected for a specific site. Maps compositing (or cell analysis) capabilities consist of three dif- ferent techniques. -The first, called bigtab, allows the user to create a new map with a data level for each combination of two variables. Thus, nine levels of land use bigtabbed,with six levels of water orientation could comn- bine to form 54-levels in a new variable, one 1level of which might be forest cover adjacent to lakeshore. -A second, called flow, permits the creation of a new map that is based on logical paths through multiple variables. An example might be to map all cells that are forested land use, with oak forest cover, on lakeshore that is not publicly owned. -A third compositing capability is the scare procedure. The score method assumes that the user can assign quantitative values relative to the characteristics of ea,ch variable and to the importance of each variable in the compositing process. The cell-to-cell relationship allows the user to evaluate geographic relationships in the analysis. This differs from compositing (above) in that compositing looks at only one cell, whereas geographic relationship anialysis looks at surrounding cells. - One important function in this type of analysis is the ability to find an edge between two adjacent cover types. This is called an edge anal- ysis. For example, an edge which is valuable wildlife habitat in this type of analysis could be the area where marsh and forest cover meet. 61 - A seconid geographic relationship comes from view analysis, which ex- amines the characteristics of the area around a defined point to see if they are visible. Thus, the user can find a "vied shed" for a lo- cation *or a bluff line from a road. This form of analysis requires the use of elevation and vegetation.height. - A third type of geographic relationship analysis examines the char- acteristics of a group of cells to assign a value, perhaps the medi- an, ~to a central cell. Exampl.es of this might be finding the range *of elevation values around a point to assign a measure of topographic -diversity: to that..point. A data base or computer analysis is mea ningless unless the results can be "output" in a form useful to planners and decision-makers. A variety of output tools are available to MLMIS users depending on the particular needs of a study. .The most commonly used output device is the standard line printer. Maps can be output on this device using each letter or character as a cell. Because the line printer does not print square characters, the map output .will be scale distorted, that i:s, a square area will not come out as a square map on thi-s device. These maps are often u.seful for interim output for checking errors and for preliminary examination of analysis maps. The line printer can also be used for output of tabulations and statistical tables. A second output device used to previewq data or test analysis is the desk top Interactive terminal. On this device., it is now possible to map and analyze an area up to 40 cells wide by 50 cells long. This method is useful for demonstrating the data base and analysis capabi.lities, but it is also scale distorted. A third output device is called the Varian electrostatic plotter,com- nol,dot Plotter. This device allows the user to control dot patterns to create greyl tone map symbols. The,size of the output cell can be varied from .01 by .01 inches to .25 by .25 inches, thus, producing different scales of maps geomnetrically correct. This device is very useful for producing low cost display or work maps for use during analysi-s. Another output created is a three-dimensional representa.tion of a map, which is often used for vis- ualizing a landscape or dramatically portraying some (statistical) phenomena. A fourth output device available to LMIC is the "DICOMES" image recorder. This device can produce high resolution color or black-and-white film.'di- rectly from computer data. Use of this process enables the production of high quality color or grey tone maps suitable for mass reproduction. The MLMIS is an operational system that can be used by anyone. The fuill potential of the system will not be realized until use of the data is understood and used by the people involved in resource analysis. As use de- velops, new data and analysis capabilities will be needed. The Land MI'anage- ment Information Center will attempt to meet these needs and assist users in the use of any aspects of the present system. 62 Regional Coastal Information Centers Recognizing that state systems have limited resources and that nat- ional systems could effectively answer local users, the concept of re- gional systems was recently developed by NOAA. Centers were established with the charge of providing regionally specific information for local and state'decision-makers. Essentially, the systems mnust contain suffi- cient information to answer regionally specific questions in sociology, economics, engineering, law, and oceanography. They must also be able to tap the information base of existing local systemns. Centers have been established in the Northeast, Northwest, and Great Lakes areas. These systems are in their infancy and therefore have the opportunity to avoid the problems encountered by earlier systems. By en- couraging early participation centers can tailor their data to fit the users' h eeds and establish themselves as beneficial systems to the region. Already the number of information requests to the centers have increased as a result of the drive to involve users in the development of the systems. 63 Northeast Regional Coastal Information Center Charlene Dunn As steward of the nation's oceans and coasts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been called upon to answer questions from citizens,, private i.nterests, and public agencies about such varied con- cerns as coastal zone mana,gement plans, industrial development, new energy resources off our shores, the impact of the hew 200-mile economic zone on the fishing industry, urban waterfront blight, pollution from oil spills, ma- rine transportation, and property loss from erosion and natural hazards. Providing pertinent informatio-n about these concern-s requires broad ex- pertise in such fields as sociology, law, engineering, resource economics, oceanography, and land use planning. On a nationwide basis, the job of an- swering questions comprehensively has become very difficult. Clearly, some method of disseminating information on a more manageable region-by-region basis was call'ed for. To this end, iNOAA has established a network of Regional Coastal Information Centers (RCICs). Piggybacking the RCICs onto Sea Grant Marine Advisory Services provides them with a solid base of existing infonnation and access to the field specialists. First of the RCICs to be established, the Northeast Regional Coastal Information Center (NERCIC or Coastal Information), provides information to the coastal New England states and to the Long Island area of Now York State. In bperation now for one year, the Center has been taking inventory of, as- sessing and indexing the coast-related information sources in the region; libraries, depositories, special collections, experts, publications, and non- print materials. A project of the New England Marine Advisory Service (NEMAS) - an asso- ciation of marine advisory, extension, and educational programs in the north- east, established to share professional resources and to work cooperatively on projects of regional scope - the NERCIC's day-to-day operations are at the University of Rhode Island. Housed within the Graduate School of Oceanogra- plhy's Division of Marine Resources, the NERCIC is close to many excellent coastal and marine information sources, most notably the National Sea Grant Depository. The NERCIC uses the Division of Marine Resources Library (DMRL), for- merly the planning collection of the Coastal Resources Center (the~ technical arm of Rhode Island's Coastal Zone Management Program), as its back up col- lection. This valuable resource consists of approximately 2600 coastal-re- lated volumes with notable special collections on OCS, nuclear and alternate energy, and Rhode Island coastal resources. The NERCIC maintains several specialized files for coastal information 64 and they are: - The Master File, divided into two parts, which contain the results of the inventory'and assessment of documentary information sources. 1) The Short Form Directory which includes brief descriptions of the assessed information sources subject areas and-the us'er audience. Also within this directory is a listing of special collections and a description of the overall capability of the Center. 2) The shelf list holdings which are larger, more complex information sources. These are catalogued with cards'indizrcating the coastal information related volumes of the assessed source. These cards can then be searched at the NERCIC for accurate referral or for in- terlibrary loan; - The Resource File contains a listing of experts to be referred to for coastal and marine resource information. This listing contains vital statistics such as address, title, areas of expertise, and pertinent publications or projects. Also listed are those experts' expressed areas of interest; -The Pip File (Pre Information Package/Public Inf ormation Packet) which is a system of modular stack drawers, each with a specific subject des- ignation, for use by those whose informa.tion needs are of a nontechnical nature. These drawers contain information worked up for prior requests such as short., annotated bibliographies, summaries of issues and problems, new developments not yet documented,,newspaper clippings, brochures and fact sheets. This file can also be used to construct information packages for re- questors or can be used with short publications to give a more com- plete answer to the requestor; - The Requests Answered File contains all aLnswered inquiries, filed by subject area, to be referred to when researching similar requests, en" suring that staff effort is not needlessly duplicated. The establishment of systems and procedures to ensure prompt, accurate and effective response to all inquiries was the major emphasis of the NERCIC's first year. During the year the NERCIC answered approximately 700 requests for information in 17 different subject areas. A governor's nuclear energy. adviser requested socio-economic impact research and studies on rural com- munities; the New England Aquarium needed a list of inexpensive and readily available coastal publications for marine educators; the New England Sea Grant comimunicators asked for a list of available publications for the fish- ing industry; a planning student came to the Center for assistance with re- search on dry septic systems for use in coastline homes and on regulations goyerning their use. All inquiries are answiered. An evaluation form to as- sess the accqracy and usefulness of the first year's answers will be mailed 65 soon to a random sample of inquirers. Other services are also being provided by NERCIC. A bimonthly news- letter, Coastal Information, has been, established to address timely issues and detail pertinent resources available on the subject. An informational brochure about the center and the proposed RCIC network has been developed. A monthly acquisitions list arranged by subject area is regularly distri- buted and a holdings list of all NERCIC documents will be published this year. The NERCIC coordinated an update of the Rhode Island Marine Biblio- graphy, to be available in November 1978, which may be used as a component for a NERCIC-sponsored bibliography for the entire Northeast. A coopera- tive project was started on several specialized searches of the National Sea Grant Depository data bank. These will be available in January 1979. An annual report detailing the Center's first year is now being compiled. Future anticipated products and services will be a series of short in- formation packages, or summaries, of coastal issues and areas; an explana- tion of the unique indexing system and suggestions for its utilization by other centers or groups; a user's education workshop, and other projects which will be announced via the newsletter. Coastal Information: It's all out there in a big, unorganized, and inaccessible lump. The centralized source, NOAA, sensibly divided the job of organizing and disseminating it into smaller, more localized units, the RCICs, which now must reverse this process and build up a knowledge of re- gional resources and needs, piece by piece, source by source, locality by locality. Each regional coastal information center will then pool its findings into a national network. Coastal Information? Ask your local regional coastal information cen- ter. On.e source, one answer. The total national perspective. 66 Northwest Coastal Inforniation Center Robert Holton, Oregon Station Coordinator Questions concerning federal and state laws, offshore oil development, coastal fisheries, estuarine systems, and many more subjects arise almost da-ily along the Pacific Northwest coast and Puget Sound shoreline. Under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, both Oregon and Washington have developed planning goals and procedures for their coasts. Local gov- ernments and citizens have helped the states create workable methods for coastal management. .Yet wise, long-range coastal and shoreline management depends heavily upon. accurate, timely information. Coastal county and city planners, cit- izens who participate in advisory groups, scientists and lawyers, and state agency staff need answers to the questions that affect sound coastal manage- ment decisions. Such iiiformationmTay take the ftrm of other states' coastal' plans and laws, scientific papers, oceanographic or climatic data, consult- ants' reports, environmental impact statements, or court decisions and legal interpretations. Recognizing the Northwest's need for a comprehensive source of coastal information, Oregon-State University, the University of Washington, and the Oregon Estuarine Research Council have established the Northwest Coastal In- formation Center (NCIC). The NCIC, the second of nin,e regional coastal in- formation centers planned for placement around the country, is supported by three agencies of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (U.S. Department of Commerce): Office of Sea Grant, Office of Coastal Zone Man- agement, and Environmental Data Service. The NCIC will become the core of a regional.reference and referral network to serve local and state resource planning agencies, legislators, industries, and citizen groups with useful information in such fields as environmental laws and regulations, coastal and shoreline management plans, and estuarine and coastal processes. The NCIC consists of two stations. The Oregon Station, located at Ore- gon State University's Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, will house information on Oregon's coastal management plan as well as scientific and technicail information relevant to Northwest coastal managoement. The Oregon Estuarine Research Council has loaned its collection of documents and re- prints to the Oregon Station. The Washington Station, part of the Univer- sity of Washington's Coastal Resources Program in Seattle, will concentrate its collection on Washington's coastal manageTnent plan and on shoreline,laws, regulations, and management issues. In its initial year (1978), the NCIC will primarily address its services to those most directly involved in coastal management: local planners, state agencies and Tegislators, and citizens groups. As the center's resources ex- pand, it will reach out to additional user groups and citizens.. 67 Each NCIC station will provide similar services to users. The two sta- tions maintain direct and continuous contact to toordinate services and ac- quis itions and to make possible quick exchange of documents for loan to u.sers. Current services the NCIC ca.n provide are: -referring users to experts on coastal processes, laws, and management; -locating and arranging for access to hard-to-find documents and reports issued by state and local agenlcies; -producing bibliogra,phi.es of publications on coastal subjects; -identifying and accessing useful information from other states; -circulating a regular bulletin that lists by subject the titles of doc- uments, resparch publications., and reports acquired by the center; -helping to provide access to oceanographic and coastal data generated by federal agency reseaIrch. The NCIC plans additional services, such as compilations of information on selected coastal topics and "translations" of complex legal or scientific documents so that they can be more easily used by those concerned about the coast. The NCTC also has cl:os.e ties with Oregon State University's Extension Mari.ne Advisory Program, and the University of Washington's Sea Grant MAarine Advisory S.ervice, to ensure that users with specific and urgent needs gain the assistance they require. A few special NCIC service, such as computer literature searches and pho- tocopying, will of necessity be cost reimbursable. 68 Great Lakes Information Nancy Huang, Great Lakes Regional Information Referral Center GREAT LAKES INFORMATION is the third regional information center in the national network sponsored by NOAA. It was. established in June 1978 as a joint operation of the Michigan Sea Grant program and the Great Lakes Basin Commission, in whose offices it is located. The ultimate goal of GREAT LAKES INFORMATION is to.increase the exchange of water-related information and data in the Great Lakes region. It will serve as a focal point for information requests on water and related land resources in the region, serving as a bridge between all potential information seekers and the available information resources. Initial major efforts have been launched --to identify, assess, and document the existing information systems, networks, services, collectionls, programs,. current research projects, and scientific experts within the government agencies, private and academic institutions, universities, businesses, communities, citizens' groups, etc. --to disseminate w.idely the assesed findings in order to enhance awareness of and access to existing resources. 69 --to promote awareness, cooperation, and coordination among existing facilities in order to minimize creation of unnecessary systems and duplication of effort. --to provide reference and referral service to the general public as well as those directly involved in managing, developing, conserving, and understanding water and related land issues of the Great Lakes: region., --to reach out to all prospective user groups, make them aware of the availability and accessibility of the existing resources, and encourage and educate them in making the fullest use of these resources. --to .conduct a regional user needs assessment to identify unmet demands fo.r consideration: in setting up any: future- information system or services. -GREAT LAKES INFORMATION will be unique among centers in the NOAA network in its greater concern with the international aspects of information exchange. The Great Lakes are a binational resource, and information about them is developed and used in both the United States and Canada. Canadian federal and Ontario provincial representatives participate actively in the Basin Commission and its Coastal Zone Management Committee.. 70 National Information Systems These systems are directed at the planner or policy decision- .maker as the prime user. This requires that the systems can be easily accessed and.that the information resulting can be understood and ulsed, consequently the-systems are promoting user education programs. Most systems also pro- duce their information in many different formats to suit the varied needs of the users. To provide ease of access the systems allow users to address the system directly, eliminating the need for an intermediary. These national systems and their subsystems were established independ- ently of one another and as a result there is a problem of interfacing be- tween the system. Currently, efforts are underway to link the systems. Through this networking, a user will be able to find information more ef- ficiently and completely. 7 1 AN OVERVIEW: OF THE UPGRADE DATA ANALYSIS SYSTEM John D. Buffington Council on Environmental Quality Laurence J. Milask Sigma Data Computing Corp. I. INTRODUCTION UPGRADE is a highly integrated set of computer programs and databases designed for the rapid analysis and presentation of environmental, health, economic and policy data. The principal users of the UPGRADE system are intended to be environmental analysts, program managers, and policy/ decisionmakers, rather than computer and technical specialists. The use of completely interactive computing techniques which employ step-by-step English language prompting and responses, menu tables and other devices provide explicit instructions to the general user. The UPGRADE technique is an alternative to the traditional command or "natural language" software system which requires users to learn complex key word vocabularies and syntax rules, which often involves a substantial learning period. The UPGRADE analytical and display capabilities include database access and manipulation, data handling and statistical analyses, graphic and tabular displays, and geographic mapping procedures. The current databases available under UPGRADE include data from EPA's STORET and SAROAD systems, USGS' National Stream Quality Accounting Network, NCHS' National Morality Data, Special Drinking Water Data, and miscellaneous socio-demographic files. Equally important has been the establishment of standard access procedures for obtaining new data from Federal agencies. For instance new water quality data from STORET can be obtained and made available under UPGRADE in one to four days depending upon the complexity of requirements and computer facility operating schedules. Finally, the UPGRADE system includes a pilot integrated database system (IDB)* which includes national health, water quality (drinking) and demographic data integrated at the county level. Future efforts (FY79) will include the expansion of the IDB with additional mortality * The IDB is also known as CLIDE (County Level Integrated Database and Extraction). CLIDE Reference Manual, March 1978. 72 and morbidity data, air quality and possibly emmissions data, and more demographic information. Also, the IDB software will,be improved to provide additional user facilities and retrieval options as well as cross-indexing at other geographic and subject area levels. UPGRADE was developed by CEQ with the cosponsorship of EPA and DOE. Other participants have been USGS, Water Resources Council, National Cancer Institute, and the State of New Jersy. I.UPGRADE - Interactive Analysis and Graphic Display Capabilities Philosophy and Operation The fundamental philosophy underlying UPGRADE's design and operation is "Serve the User." This approach does not mean that computer use is inefficient; however, it does mean that the end product must be directly and conveniently accessible to the,end user, that is, the environmental or policy analyst or program manager. To accomplish this result, the following design and operational approaches are employed: - UPGRADE is largely an interactive system, meaning that users may directly approach and design their own analyses without programmer intervention .* - The interactive system employs step-by-step English language prompting coupled with extensive "IHelp"' documentation for each UPGRADE prompt. The English language prompting and "Help" facility mnake UPGRADE largely self-instructive and result in a short learning curve. "Terse" prompting mode is available whi'ch enables rapid sequencing for experienced users. - Immediate access is provided.to all UPGRADE databases which are on-line, and very rapid access for UPGRADE data files stored on tape. On-line (Interactive) database overviews are provided to permit easy evaluation of database content. -Finally, UPGRADE is designed to guide users through a logical sequence ~of analysis steps that promote a consistent and reliable approach to any analysis problem. UPGRADE Sequence of Operations The UPGRADE analysis and graphics system is divided into three *Initial establishment of databases for use with UPGRADE does currently require expert programmer intervention. 73 major components, which are accessed sequentially: a. Terminal Initialization and Operational Mode Selection. b. Database Selection Section. c. Data Analysis and Graphic.s Section. The one condition or assumption that must be noted to properly understand the following discussion is that all datasets or files to be used during any given terminal session must be "on-line" and ready for use with UPGRADE. If the data desired for analysis. is on tape or within the main Integrated Database System, it must first be '.retrieved" or transferred to UPGRADE "ready files" through the use of special retrieval and data extraction programs. A. TerMui*ral-Initialization 'and Operational Mode Selection Users signing on to UPGRADE must first sequence through a series of prompts designed to tell the system what type of t-erminal is in use, the line speed, and certain graphics options required. For instance, although UPGRADE is designed to produce graphics interactively on a Tektronix CRT terminal, it is also possible to run UPGRADE on a standard (non-graphic) terminal. If graphic output is required, the graphs will be stored for later processing on some other type of plotting device (CALCOMP plotter or line printer). Operational Mode refers to the way the user and the system interact. Two modes are currently operational, "Verbose" and "Terse." These differ in the length or detail of the English language prompts issued to the user. The Verbose mode is for those users who are hew to the system or who have not osed UPGRADE in several months. Terse is for experienced users and cuts down on prompt length and detail, which consequently speeds up the terminal session. Finally, the user is prompted to view a general news broadcast consisting of various messages describing recent system changes, problems, and events. B. Database Selection Section UPGRADE permits users to select and analyze any number olf distinct datasets or files which are "on-line" and ready for UPGRADE use. UPGRADE prompts users to select first the type of data or database to be used (e.g., air quality, water quality, environmental health, etc.), and then the specific file (e.g., water quality data covering pesticides in the Colorado River). Once the user has selected a particular field or data set for analysis, 74 the user is prompted for several functions appropriate to the type of data under analysis. These sets of prompts constitute a Database Interface Module (DIM) and consist of several of the following futictions: -Dataset Overview -permits a general review of content, period of record, and special variables and codes for the dataset under analysis. -Basic Statistics,- summary statistics for various subsets of the data under analysis can be obtained. These statistics consist of means, standard deviations, ranges, period of record, and number of observations for variables covered -Data Sub-selection - specific sites or geographic areas may be selected and combined from the total collection of data within the dataset. These subsets are then made availab le to the final section of UPGRADE: Data Analysis and Graphics. -The DIM niay also provide very specialized data handling capabilities associated with specific databases., For instance, a land use mnodeling procedure for the State of New Jersey's. Coastal Location Acceptability Method is now under design as a special database and DIMA for UPGRADE. Another example is CEQ's Pollution Abatement Cost Evaluation (PACE) system to be used to help predict the abatement costs for various environmental control sectors (automotive and waste treatment facilities). DIM4s for these special areas will include operations for modeling, table generation, and special mapping overlays. Once the analyst has sequenced through all operations within the selected DIM, the third and final section of UPGRADE is entered to perform general data analysis and graphics display. Note,, the final result of the operations wnithin a DIM is usually a subset of the database or dataset under analysis. This subset is passed to the Data Analysis and Graphics section for statistical analysis, graphics and mapping. C. Data Analysis and Graphics Display Section (DAG) The OAG is composed of a simple monitor (actually a sub-monitor within UPGRADE) and a collection of analytical and graphics procedures. The DAG monitor prompts the analyst to select one or more of these procedures. The procedure, such as bar charting, then takes over and prompts the user for specific setup and run requirements, performs the required work, and finally returns control to the DAG monitor for the next procedure selection. 75 The Data Analysis and Graphics Section of UPGRADE has the following characteristics: - Users can cycle through any combination of procedures to perform analysis and graphic display. - Some procedures such as the Statistical Analysis System (SAS), produce new data, which may be used by the graphic display procedures. - Automatic sequencing thIrough sets of variables may be set up for selected procedures for rapid coverage of a dataset. -A special plot modification procedure enables users to tailor graphs to enhance display and improve analysis capabilities. * ~A comprehensive description of the UPGRADE system is given in the UPGRADE USERS MAINUAL, available August 1978 from the Council on Environmental Quality. 76 Socio-Economic Environmental Demographic Information System Harvard Holmes The objective of the SEEDIS project is to establish a coherent, com- prehensive, computer-based information system for energy policy analysis, environmental impact studies, and other socio-economic analysis applica- tions. Many LBL projects contribute significantly to the SEEDIS system by supporting research and development of retrieval, analysis, anddisplay pro- grams; others utilize existing software but contribute new data resources. The system contains a variety of large data bases, such as the 1970 Census, air quality data, geographic base files, and land use data, that are acces- sible through on-line Petri-eval systems over the -ARPA-network, dial-up ter- minals, and remote batch stations. A comprehensive set of user- oriented re-trieval, analysis, and graphical display modules provides tables, charts, and maps, both on interactive terminals and on high-quality hardcopy output. SEEDIS activities include acquisition and installation of data bases required,for specific projects, the documenting and cataloging of those da- ta, and the implementation and investigation of data retrieval, analysis, and display techniques. The new data bases acquired, upgraded, or devel- oped this year by CSAM included: -General PARAP (Population-at-Risk to Air Pollution) data bases, containing geographic, demographic, air quality, and mortality data for California Selected portions of APPAR, a populations-at-risk data base developed by Systems Sciences, Inc., in the EPA Univac 1100 -Socio-Economic Data Bases Quarterly data on employment and wages by establishmient, for eight west- ern states for 1974, 1975, and first quarter 1976 (similar in content to County Business Patterns, but more current, comprehensive, and finely disaggregated) Total population estimates as of I April 1970, 1 July 1973, and I July 1975, and per capita income for 1969, 1972, and 1974, for all U.S. coun- ties and,,minor civil divisions (1975 Revenue Sharing file from U.S. Bu- *reau of the Census Population, labor force, and unemployment projections, by county, to 1978 77 ES202 employment and earnings data, 1967-74, U.S., by county and two- digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code. -Demographic Data Bases Population by tounty for I July 1973, 1 July 1974, and I July 1975, and net migration and number of births and deaths by county for the period I April 1970 to I July 1975 Net Migration by county, 1960-70 1970 U.S. Census, Fifth Count by Block Group and Enumeration District (BG/ED) and Minor Civil Division and Census County Division (MCD/CCD). -Environmental Data Bases Air quality data for many pollutants, western U.S.) through 1974, from the National Aerometric Surveillence Network (NASN.) Sulfur dioxide and sulfate air quality data from the Sulfate Regional Experiment (SURE) 1975 EPA SAROAD (Storage and Retrieval of Aerometric Data) yearly sum- mary data for seven pollutants Endangered species by county 1960 air quality data from Buffalo, New York. -Energy-related Data Bases Energy technology coefficients (requirements and residuals) from the BNL Energy Model Data Bases Operating characteristics and emissions data for California power plants Technology coefficients for advanced energy technologies Operating data from the Niland Geothermal Loop Experimental Facility in Imperial County, California. Mortality and Health Statistics Age-adjusted annual mortality rates by sex, race, and county, for 35 types of cancer, for 1950-69 combined (used recently by the National Cancer Institute to produce Atlas of Cancer Mortality, 1950-69 Age-adjusted annual mortality rates by sex,, race, and county for 53 causes of death, for 1968-72 combined 78 Third National Cancer Survey, containing complete cancer incidence data, 1969-71, for seven SMSA's by census tract and two states by county Extract frbom Third National Cancer Survey, containing additional de- tailed information obtained by interview of 20 percent of all cancer patients Complete 1972 mortality statistics (extracts fro'm individual death certificates), from National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) 1960 mortality data from Buffalo,, New York. -Cartographic Data Bases MED-X (Master Enumeration District List, extended) containing lat- itude-longitude coordinates and an associated FIPS geocodes (tract, county, SMSA etc.) of all 230,000 BG/ED's in the U.S. ,World Data Bank II, containing latitude-longitude coordinates of all .coasts, islands, lakes, rivers, and intercoastal boundaries of the world: U.S. state, and Canadian province boundaries for North America. Geographic boundaries of EPA Federal Regions, and BEA (Bureau of Eco- nomic Analysis) areas Boundaries of EPA AQDR's for California ERA SAROAD SITE Directory, containing latitude-longitude coordinates and other information for all U.S. Air Quality Monitoring Stations County geographic centroids (calculated from polygon boundaries) and population centroids (calculated from MED.-X) for California. -Geocode Conversion Files Geocode Conversion dictionary, EPA (SAROAD) county Codes to FIPS county codes Geocode conversion dictionary, NCHS county codes to FIPS c6unty co'des Geocode conversion dictionary, Tekrekron county codes to FIPS county code. SIRAP/REAP Implementation of the SIRAP (System of Information Retrieval and Anal1- ysis for Planners) Data Display and.,Mapping Facility was the main emphasis of the ongoing 'SIRAP project. An interface was constructed between the Quick Qwery retrieval and report generation system, the MAPEDIT map extrac- tion system, and the CARTE and SYMAP data mapping packages. Thus, SIRAP 79 data can now be retrieved and mnapped in a single computer job. The REAP system for rapid retrieval of socio-economic and demographic data became a production system this year, serving thie needs of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and.-Other governmental agencies. Data files of val- ue to planners are installed in the SEEDIS data base at LBL.,. On-line access to these data provides timely information to planners in evaluating the so- cial, economic, and environmental effects of their civil works projects. Nu- merous enhancements to REAP were imnplemented this year including multi-user access to a single data base, a facility to permit specification of ranges of geographic areas for data retrieval, indexing of files stored on computer tapes, uniform indexing of all files by FIPS codes, and a help comnand to as- sist new users accessing the system interactively. In addition, preliminary specifications wqere developed for providing access via REAP to 5th count 1970 census data. Mapping System The LBL thematic mapping systemn, CARTE, provides several types of dis- plays based on geographic base files and geographically-coded data. CARTE incorporates a variety of data integration and manipulation facilities to al- low the interactive analysis of geographic data by real-time displays of the- matic maps. Enhancements completed this year provide the user with several new or improved interactive design capabilities including revising map ori- entation and titling, specifying the design of crosshatch patterns, identify- ing binning intervals, performning arithmetic computations on variables,.and utilizing point and line display techniques. Graphic Representation of Tabular Data CHART, an interactive analysis and display program for tabular data, was converted to run on a minicomputer, and several new features were implemented. People generally have trouble assimilating even small amounts of d.ata in tab- ular format. Hence, familiar graphic representations such as those found in newspapers, magazinos, and technical journals are frequently helpful. CHART uses a vocabulary of basic forms - lines, bars, pies, shading - which may be successively modified until a satisfactory picture is *obtained. Manipulations that may be performed include table reorganization - for example, ranking on the basis of a particular row or column, data calibration and selection, scal- ing and binning, selecing graphic variables, and display annotation and emn- bellishment. Limited data analysis capability is also prbvided. Raw data may be s ys- tematically transformed into profiles by comparing rows or columns with a standard reference. Change, or percent change, from the reference allows ob- jects to be compared across attributes when raw data values cannot be com- pared directly. MATBOARD, developed in parallel with CHART, is a prototype program which has been designed in order to study the feasibility of integrating data anal- ysis techniques with graphic formats to aid decision makers. One particular class of graphic displays (Matrix display) and one type of data analysis (dimensional scaling) are integrated with MATBOARO to offer an aid for twio different cognitive tasks - ordering and clustering rows and/or columns of a data matrix. SEEDIS Monitor The SEEDIS Monitor was developed as an executive system to ease the problems of job control for interactive users of SEEDIS subsystems and to provide a user-friendl.y interface to system resources.. Through the SEEDIS Monitor, users may access several data mnanagement, analysis, arnd display modules, as well as file management, mail, on-line help, and user- feedback facilities. Users issue simple one-line commands with a few options. Prompt- ing is used to facilitate interactive control and reduce the burden of re- membering long sequences of parameters. UJsing the Monitor, users may now access more than one SEEDIS module within a single job or computer session. The nature of the Monitor, with its avoidance of a complex job con- trol'.language, allows the non-computer user to devote time and effort to learning and experimentation with the SEEDIS systems. The learning-process has been simplifiied dramatically with the added benefit that the user's pro- ject can now be completed within more realistic time frames. Training In The Use Of SEEDIS Interavtive Systems With the development of the SEEDIS interactive data retrieval and anal- ysis systems, the need for an educational program arose. This program has progressed along five fronts. The first is a set of users' guides for each SEEDIS system created by the individual system designer. These users' guides describe in detail the capabilities and, to a varying degree, the usage to which each system can be put. Second, a set of workbooks is being prepared to take up where the users' guides leave off and provide step-by-step examples of the system. These workbooks are directed toward the non-computer user who wishes to apply the system to his particular application but feels the need for cookbook-like instructions at the onset. Three systems now have workbooks: SEEDIS Monitor, CHART, and CARTE. Third, a full-time consultant is available at LBL, either by telephone or through computer terminal-to-terminal communication, to help the user from the beginning, starting with equipment familiarization and log-in procedure, to data storage and access. Fourth, copies of each users' interaction with the SEEDIS system via the SEEDIS Monitor are made and routed to the system designers and to the con- sultant on a daily basis. In this way a user having difficulties is spotted and help is offered, often before the User realizes what his problem is. The SEEDIS Monitor also provides a method for the user to,enter comments into the session record to be seen by the system, designers. 81 Fifth, week-long training sessions are held at the Laboratory. At this timne, the user is given comprehensive training in those systems for which he has applications and interests as well as a cursory look at those for which he may not have a present need. As the systems continue to evolve, follow-up training sessions may be available. NAtional Technical Information Service (NTIS) An interagency agreement between the Department of Energy (DOE) and the NTIS provides government agencies, affiliates and grantees of those agencies, and the public with access through NTIS to SEEDIS data bases, data, and re- trieval and display programs. Currently, a series of manpower reports de- veloped under the sponsor.ship of the Department of Labor are available through NTIS for user-speefiMed geographic,areas. Users may also request special a- nalyses which might require unique structuring of data within SEEDIS or data not available in a standard format. DOE Participation On The Federal Agency Council On The 1980 Census Initial contacts were made with the chairman of the Federal Agency Coun7 cil on the 1989 Census with regard to DOE participation in defining the scope and use of this important data source. LBL, because of its extensive ex- perience with the 1970 census, is serving as staff support in coordinating DOE input to the Federal Agency Council on the 1980 census, its working com- mittees, and other pertinent census organizations. Composed of approximately 90 Federal agencies, the Council provides an organizational channel through which federal agencies,making extensive use of decennial census materials can transmit advice to the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau. The Council's efforts focus on broad aspects of the 1980 census, including proposals for new questions, major changes in procedures or samples, and tab- ulation and publication plans. Contacts have also been established with other appropriate organizations. Interactions with the Bureau of the Census have focused on determining rela- tive priorities in the proposed summary tabulations and the methods and time- tables by which data will be released. LBL was officially registered as a Census Summary Tape Processing Center. As such, LBL is kept informed of Cen- sus Bureau activities through the monthly Data-Use-News. As in the past, LBL continues to respond to a considerable number of requests for information a- bout census and census-related data. Problem Areas The most serious problem which faces SEEDIS is the series of historical accidents which caused each subsystem to be implemented as an independent entity. The result is that no subsystem was designed to speak to any other subsystem and today we are involved in a massive effort to design and imple- ment these communi,cation interfaces after the fact. Two causes for this are evident and I do not know which was the most crucial. First, the various subsystems were independently sponsored and independently used. This situa- tion, combined with the lack of 'a good, strong data management system at the 82 timeI removed most of the incentive to adopt a standard, and also did not provide a standard to use. Second, the massive size and unique structure of the data bases required a special purpose implementation. W4ith smaller data bases and a better data management system, we would almost certainly have used the data management system and we would not be in such trouble now. However, this.problem is gradually being solved and we can look at some other problems: 1. The high cost of data base installation; 2. The high cost of user education and "hand-holding"; 3. Problems of data integration; ensuring compatibility of time scales, units, coverage and so forth. Wie have no good solutions to these problems, but we are trying to pre- pare a "cookbook" for data base installation, although it seems that every data base is different. Problems 2 and 3 are just plain expensive. More useful to newcomers is the category of "what I would have done differently". One would have been to analyze the data bases as they were installed and divide them into high-use and low-use portions, so that the average user wouldn't be dragging around the low-use data every time he wants a number. This would be done,partitioning the data bases into smaller chunks) with these chunks managed by the operating system or by a data base directory. The second would be to make more use of data compression,techniques and I would even reorganize the data occasionally to provide better compression. This would, of course, take advantage of the fact that most of our data is numeric. Prospects For The Future Minicomputers will solve many of our problems by providing for easier acquisition through single-program funding and justification, modular ex- pansion through complete replication of hardware, and improved response time by improving communication speeds. Computer networks will be required by the multi-minicomputer systems cited above and network capabilities will enlarge the scope of data access to anyone who wishes to connect to the network. The network capability may help the update problem by requiring fewer copies of data bases. New storage technologies are on the horizon. The most exciting tech- nology,-1 think, is the video disk adopted for digital use. It may enable everyone to have his own copy of archival data-bases, like the Census, for $100 to $1000. If every citizen gets a home computer which accepts these video storage units,it may finally force the government agencies which collect data to dispense it in a digestible form. Then we can get down to planning instead of spending half our time just digesting. 83 COVIRS Dennis M. O'Connor The development of COVIRS (Cl-assified and Organized Verbal Information Retrieval System) resulted from two earlier activities in the Ocean and Coastal Law Program at the University of Miami. The difficulty of ordering the diverse case decisions in the field of.coastal law led to the OLGOP program in 1970-71, which provided for the classification and limited abstracts of cases. Next in 1971-72 a project with NASA support evaluated existing information retrieval systems for handling,law/economics informaation, and pro- duced recommendations for verbal information retrieval systems for environmental data management. The report, entitled "Information Management for Environmental Decisions", made recommendations for the handling of decisional data (legislative, judicial, administra- tive, executive policy statements, and treaties), journal informa- tion (from economic, social science, natural science and law jour- nals), report data and information (including pertinent news media sources). Given the state of the art of- information retrieval in 1972 (and considering likely developments in the forseeable future) the majQr conclusion--to develop a classified system of reports with specific abstracts of about 250 words or less--was dictated by two major problems: 1) the costs of getting material into machine-read- able form; and 2) the costs of string manipulation of data if a full-text system were used. it was recommended that the system be: * User oriented, so that the demands and responses of users are taken into account in building and modifying the system; * Designed with-a comprehensive and systematic frame- work, so that new developments in law and science data can easily be located within the system, * A flexible system, which has the capacity to take new sources of data,, in varying formats, and integrate them with relatively minor changes; * A classified and abstracted system. Use of full-text sources may have value only in certain specialized areas where the~ source materials are relatively homogenous and within a lim2ited series, and where user demand may justify the cost (such as a treaty sqries, or the statutes and case law of a particular jurisdiction when the demands of lawyers and other users match the costs). 84 * The classification vocabulary should be designed to fit the total question space; When a list or outline form is used, a residual category named "other" can achieve the goal of comprehensive coverage while its contents are periodically reclassified as knowledge is gained; �Classification of records into the system is'assigned by trained persons acting as analysts and filters. Compara- bility is achieved without the assigned classifier or keyword necessarily appearing in the text of the data source; * Abstracts which are highly specific offer further infor- mation to a user before he seeks the original data source. And such abstracts offer a good chance for refinement of the classification system without having to rework the original data sources; � A tiered and multifaceted index or keyword system, in which each record is classified by descriptors which indicate the environmental features to which the record'pertains, and the uses of the environment, and decision policies (where applicable) as well as time and place, economic, social science, natural science, and other elements of the record; * A thesaurus entry system, which includes the construc- tion of a thesaurus or thesauri for purposes of interrelating the classifications and interfacing the various relevant dis- ciplines; � A system in which the manipulated data records are of moderate size, perhaps 500 to 2000 characters. Specific details and pointers (such as citations) in the record can lead the user to the source document or additional data. The costs, given the present state of the art, of producing machine-read- able entries and of computer operation are a major reason for the choice of a condensed record for purposes of computer man- ipulation. Source documents can be maintained in a low cost storage portion of the system in cases where they are not otherwise available and the demand for them is sufficient, * A system using a variety of sources for the generation of records. Decisionalmaterials, journal information, reports from various disciplines, and even news articles should be included; * A system which emphasizes products which are "reason- ably useful." Given the need for coordinated data from law and the sciences pertaining to the environment today, even the fabrication of synthetic products from complexes of presently available data can be important. 85 a A system which generates a variety of products, including periodic published reports, selected dissemination of information to subscribers, and terminal access; During the NASA project and subsequently by collaboration of several specialists in 1972-74 the COVIRS system was developed. It has the capacity of meeting the recommendations of the "Informa- tion Management for Environmental Decisions" report, and is oper- ational. However, due to lack of specific funding (and a decision not to market it) it has had only occasional use in handling the coastal law cases and journal articles which comprise the data base being used in the Ocean and Coastal Law Program. COVIRS records are of about 2,000 characters in length, and are in general form: Numeric Tag Subject ond Closs Codes Citotion Name Classified Categories Abstract - - - -Pointer to Data Source if Full Text is Located in Low Cost Storage in the System. l A thesaurus of the user's choice is employed for the classification of records. And it may be varied at will. (Keywords may be of 3 to 7 characters, and up to 18 keywords may be assigned to each record.) Thus,a tiered and multifaceted system of classification may be used. And the user can retrieve by selection of any or several of them, or by asking for a report in outline format (with headings on each page to indicate the tiers in his classification system where the information is located). The report outline (and the selection of records in the system which will be included in the report) may be chosen by the user. The number of keywords, of 3 to 7 characters, which may be used is practically unlimited. And users can classify according to environmental features, time and place, uses, resources, policy issues or terms, or any other criterion. Different subjects can also be indicated, by a two-letter sub- ject code, for over 600 subjects in a master file. When a user selects a subject code for retrieval and further selection, the program scans for the requested subject code and saves search time. Or,retrieval can be by number, name, citation (or portion thereof), or by selected words in the abstract (3 to 15 characters). Abstracts of up to 20 lines of 72 characters each may be in- clided in the records. Over 50,000 records can be stored on a standard 2400 foot reel of tape. Update of a record, or any line in it, can be done conveniently. 86 Seven different citation forms are available for input: case (judicial and administrative), statute (including regula- tions, ordinances, treaties, etc.), periodical, magazine, book, newspaper, and directory (of persons, organizations, etc.) Subjects, classifications, citation forms ara all compatible in a master file. They can be put in in any order, and selected by any specific type, and in printouts can be requested in any ,desired sequence. All Florida cases may be selected and printed ~in chronological order, fot example, of all records pertaining to Florida, of whatever input type, can be selected and printed in~ chronological order. Or the entire directory of persons (from whatever state) may be selected, sorted according to zip-code order, and printed (without classification, and without abstracts) on mailing label's. Sorting of the selected records,can be done accord- ing to any of the information contained in the citation or category portions of the records, or any combination of the criteria in these portions of the records. The most useful type of in formation product from a master file is an organized, or outline, listing (with page headings) at the option of the user. Within a subject area (or all the subjects in the master file) an outline is prepared by the user. This outline maly be varied from time to time. An outline may have up to 999 headings and subheadings, grouped in outline format with up to9 levels of subordination or indentation. This capacity is.much larger than would be required in practice, for an outline of more than 200 headings, and with more than 5 levels of subordination within a majot heading, is rare. The four basic programs in COVIRS are: -COVIRS I The System Update Program. Enters record data, and assigns sequential serial numbers to new records. -COVIRS 2 The System List Program. Lists, in expanded format, as is appropriate to the citation form, all records in an update or in the master file. -COVIRS 3 The System Select Program. Selects records from the master file according to designated criteria of: subject area, classification categories (or any combination thereof), and elements of the citation (or any combination thereof), and sorts the select- ed records according to any desired criteria. -COVIRS 4IThe System outline Print Program. Using an,outline with headings as provided by the user, this program prints the selected records (sorted as requested) with the outline heading and superior heading list- ed at the top of each page. P.ortions of the records may be suppressed to streamlin'e the printout. 87 COVIRS system summary: Sources of Data and Records Select coding form 7 forms of'citation up to 4 lines of name up to 18 categories of classification for each record abstract (or excerpt) of up to approxi- mately 250 words keypunch the data Classification and Orqanization Subject area Outline design Classification codes V W f Master File 1 OR '4 I Outline Printout Current outline is used to organize the selected, or all, re- cords in.the master file for a subject area. Suppression of elements of the record can streamline the printout at the user's choice. I Select Retrieval By: Subject area. Any possible combination of category classifica- tions. Any combina- tions of coded ele- ments in the citation. Sorted for listing pur- poses into any combina- tion of major and minor fields. Correct and Update Correct - by punching the correct data for the line to be changed. Delete - one card can delete a record entirely. Update - new records added as above. COVIRS 1 and 2 COVIRS 4 COVIRS 3 88 The National Sea Grant Depository Betty M. Ede], Librarian/Manager The National Sea Gv'ant Depository-(NSGD.) is an information and doc- umentatibn clenter established by the Office of Sea Grant in 1971 at the University of Rhode Island's Pell.,Harine Science Library. Its main ob- jective is to ensure that all publications.generated by the National Sea Grant Program would be available in a single location for loan and archival purposes. It is the only collection of its kind wqhich extends borrowing privileges throughout the world. The collection consists primarily of reprints, technical reports, ma- rine advisory reports, and analytics from conference proceedings. These publications touch on a wide variety of subjects including such areas as coastal management, aquaculture, fisheries, pollution, eco-system research, law and socio-economics, ocean engineering, etc. From the beginning, it was seen as a necessity to have some sort of computerized bibliographic control on the publications that would be housed in the Depository. A systemi was developed by Depository staff using the facilities of the Academic Computer Center at the University of Rhode Island. The result was a bibliographic data base created to store the citations for the Sea Grant generated publications. By the end of 1977, the cumulative data base had more than 12,000 entries with approximately 2,000 entries be- ing added per year. Although the system was developed for a special.pur- pose, its construction is quite general and mnodular and hence it has found several uses other than t'iat for which it was originally written. There are several different data bases in this system. Each data base has a specific purpose and has specific programs associated with it. Each data base in the system is made up of one or more files (Containing infor- mation for a specific period of time) all of which have the same format and which can logically be thought of as one file. The Bibliographic Data Base (BOB) is the main data base in the system. It contains all of the information on each document in the collection. In- formation is entered into the BDB through a remote terminal. Once entered into the BDB, thie information remains there indefinitely and may be accessed by any of the progra ms in the system. For the public to access this extensive volume of material, NSGD pub- lishes an annual index and monthly acquisitions lists. The annual index contains an average of six access points for each bibliographic entry. In the index, the user will find: 1. A document listing or bibliography of Sea Grant publications in alphanumeric order by Depository assigned document numbers; 89 2. A KWIC (key-word-in-context) or subject index using key words 'from the title of the document; 3. An autho.r index; 4. A corporate body index; 5. An index of National Technical Information Service (NTIS) num- bers assigned to the publications; and 6. An index of any other numbers identifying a given document. For researchers, management, librarians, or other interested individ- uals, who need more timnely up-to-date bibliographic information, the con- venient monthly acquisitions list is a helpful resource. This is a listing by document number, title and author. Its size is determined by the number of publications received each month by the Depository. To fully utilize the cumulative base, packaged literature searches are available. These searches are a direct result of numerous requests on spe- cific topics. Included in each packaged literature search are a document listing, KWIC (subject) and author index. The primary purpose of NSGD is to provide services through various means including: 1. Quick and efficient access to all Sea Grant funded publications. 2. Direct or Inter-library loan of all publications in the collection. ~3. The yearly Sea. Grant Publications Index. ~4. The monthly Sea Grant Acquisitions List. 5. Packaged Literature Searches on select topics. 6. On-site use of the collection. All activities and services provided by NSGD are made possible through a grant from the Office of Sea Grant, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- ministration, U.'S. Department of Commerce. Any and all questions or requests should be directed to: NATIONAL SEA GRANT DEPOSITORY Pell Library - Bay Campus University of Rhode Island Narragansett, RI 02882 90 Informational Needs of the Coastal Energy Dan Hoydysh* Chief, Information Branch Coastal Energy Impact Program The Coastal Energy Impact Program (CEIP) was established by the Coastal Zone Management Act Amendments ofj1976. The purpose was to provide Federal financial assistance to coastal states which would be used to mitigate ad- verse impacts in the coastal zone of energy development activity. An under- lying assumption of the CEIP is that it is in the national interest to en- courage rational and timely development of domestic, coastal energy resources and the means for transporting these resources from one region to another. But, this development must take place with a maximum concern for the fragile coastal environment. To this end, the CEIP provides 3 basic types of assistance. There are grants for studying and planning for the social, economic, and environmental impacts of this type of energy activity. There are grants for preventing dam- age to valuable coastal environmental and recreational resources. Addition- ally, there are loans to provide public services and public facilities in those areas that are adversely affected by coastal energy development. The CEIP is authorized at a level of 1.2 billion dollars, over 10 years. Roughly divi.ded--and there'is some simplification here--it works out like this. There are 50 million dollars for planning grants, 750 million dollars for loans, and 400 million dollars for formula grants. That's something that I will ex- plain later. For the two fiscal years that we've been operating, there has been appropriated approximately--well, now, exactly--700 Million for planning, and, approximately, 30 million for formula grants, and approximately,200 mil- lion for loans. There are at least three levels at which information is needed to prop- erly implement a program such as the CEIP. There is the first level, which is the congressional policy level, the point at which to question whether to create such a program in the first place and to question for how much to au- thorize the program. The second level is the administrative implementation level, at which the questions dealth with-are: How to structure the program; decide the priority; select the staff; and decide how much to request in ap- propriations. A third level is the technical operational level which is how, in practice, to accomplish the stated ends of the program. I will outline some of the decisions that were made, the information required, and the systems used to satisfy this need. Mly primary responsi- bility with the CEIP is to supervise the distribution amonq-coastal states of funds appropriated in the fiscal year for CEIP purposes. While the infor- mation grant is also responsible for preparing budget requests, the.ultimate decision here is outside our hands and, therefore, I will start at,a point *This information was presented at COMS Second Annual Conference. 91 where the CEIP budget is already approved. Commient has been made that the Act was being inefficiently'administered, in the sense of getting money to where it was needed at the right time, but I suggest that some of this, if it is true--and, I do not concede that it is--may be due to the rigidity of the statute itself. This problem will becomne obvious from my discussion. ,The method of distributing, among coastal states, grants to prevent, or reduce, damage to valuable coastal recreational and environmental resources, is expressly mandated'by the statute by means of a specific formula, hence, the term formula grants. The formula, as specified in the statute, contains 4 components; one third of the allotment to a state is based on new acres leased adjacent to that state; one sixth is based on oil and gat produced off the coast; one sixthi is oil and gas first landed; one third is a factor for new employment. This money is targeted for those states facing OCS develop- ment so there is not much discretion within which the administrator can ad- minister since the-only,termi that even remotely lends itself to any result- oriented manipulation is new emiployment, affecting only one third of the for- mula. The information needs here are satisfied fairly simply through queries of USGS and the petroleum industry on acres leased, oil and gas landed, and oil and gas produced. We do have extensive contacts with industry to try to define, or try to quantify how much new emnployment is due to OCS activity. Another question is why use such a formula at all , to which I do not have the answer, but can raise some of the issues, as we see them. The CEIP is based on providing funds to those areas that need the funds and for a state like Alaska any OCS activity off Alaska would impact only Alaska. In this case the formula makes a great deal of sense, whereas for New England, it be- comes more difficult to determine the impact oh individual states based on acreage leased, particularly when that OCS activity is not offshore the states impacted by the other factors in the formula. This leads to the situation that the formula will not adequately reflect a state's needs all of the time. The second category of funds is the loah program and here again the ad- ministrative flexibility is reduced.by the statute which requires that funds appropriated for loans be alloted based on the formula. The two factors are stuandardized unit costs, and the number of additional individuals who are ex- pected to become employed in new coastal energy activity. Having a very specific definition of OCS activity, transportation of coalI, oilI, or Iiquified natural gas, woe came up. with a formulIa whiich requires that we find out what the standardized unit c'osts are for providing public services and building public facilities for which the loans are to be used. We have to project new employment related to new coastal energy activity. HOW many people will be employed? How many people will be moving into the coastal communities? How many will bring their families? What size families? This is all information that we obtain from the Census Bureau and the IRS, through income tax returns and, we make some assumptions, to try to come up with a rational relationship of money to need. Another problem inherent in the statute, in matching needs with funds, is that although you allocate money based on the level of new activity, the state is allowed to spend the money to remedy past efforts, or impacts and there is 92 not always a correlation between new activity and the damage that is being rectified. The third category of funds is planning grants, for which no guidance is given; except to state that the Secretary shall make grants to study and plan for social, environmental, economic imnpacts in the coastal zones. The two basic approaches that one can use to distribute these funds are to allot by a formula, or to rely on applications for grants and since the theory of the statute was allotment by formula, based on need, we tried to follow this route. As one of the basic goals of the Coastal Zone Management Act is to encourage state participation in the coastal zone management pro- gram, we took that printiple and applied it to the CEIP. That led us to the idea of providing a minimum level of assistance for each state, so that each state would, regardless of whatever calculations we made have at least a min- imum amount of money to participate in the program. We took 15 percent of the funds and divided it up among the states, which comes to about $16,000 per state. The remaining 85 percent is alloted by for- mula among the states based on a need computation. To compute relative need among the states we produce an inventory of all new energy activity in the coastal zone. Once we've identified all the new energy activity, we then try to com- oute a planning need,factor for each newi, or expanded, facility, and these needs are summed for each state resulting in that state getting a proportion of the 85 percent remaining. 9 3 INFORMATION: FAST OR FANCY Michel'e Tetley Outer Continental Shelf Referral Center U.S. Department of the Interior The term information:can be a misleading one because everyone has a different concept of what information is. Most people only consider written materials to be information and yet, in my experience, particu- larly in the coastal management field, the most valuable and certainly the most sought after information has been verbal. Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked to identify and quan- tify the information needs of whatever constituency I was serving at the time, but it is nearly impossible, particularly at the national level, wher'e one has a multitude of states and a mixture of public and private interest groups to respond to. Add to that the factor that the user au- dience has a wide range of expertise and that in the fast moving field of coastal and marine resources, new issues can create beginners out of experts, on a particular subject. This results in rapidly changing in-~ formation needs over time for some subject areas and an inherent diffi- culty in predicting information needs over a long period of time, since a single piece of State of Federal legislation can alter your information requirements overnight. For the most part, any user approaching an information service ha,s only his, or her, particular question in mind. And, if a specific answer, tailored to that particular problem, isn't available, the user often ques- tions the usefulness of the system. This assessment ignores the fact that most general information systems are designed to serve hundreds, or thou- sands, of individuals on a wide range of topics and seldom are two ques- tions alike, since everyone uses information differently. The comprehen- siveness of these information needs does, however, mean that the coastal decision-makers will never be able to look to a single information or data base to answer their questions. Indeed, it would be fruitless fbr us to try tb develop one as what is called for is greater ingenuity on the part of the user and increased reliance on information locator services. Ten years ago, my first information effort was to develop a compre- hensive, coordinated, joint-planning library fbr the land and water re- sources of the Great Lakes Basin. Faced with this dilemnma of a vaguely outlined problem, I decided to let the informnation center design itself around the neods articulated by the Great Lakes' planners. I quickly learned that people were a much better source of current information than were books and that there were a lot of small subject-specific information collections in the region, known only to a small number of researchers. I brought that philosophy with me when I came to the Office of Coastal Zone Management (OCZM) to develop a coastal zone information center, over five years ago. Once again, there was a paucity bf literature on the sub- ject but this time the information and expertise on the component parts of CZM were scattered throughout the country. The task was to link them to- gether, using an approach that the information community began to call networking. 94 I1 have currently-embarked on another information effort. Sleveral months ago, the Outer Continental Shelf Program Coordination Office (OCS), within the Department of the Interior, hired me to establish an OCS Re- ferral Center which was initially requested by the coastal state repre- sentatives of the OCS Advisory Board, and subsequently reque,sted in the President's 1977 environmental message. It was created to provide coastal state and local planners, and the public, with improved access to outer continental shelf data and information. The OCS Referral Center will serve primarily as a switching station, and I am in the process of familiarizing myself with the various OCS issues and individuals who handle the component parts of this extremely complex operation. Initially, I am concentrating.on the Department of the Interior but I will also be establishing contacts within the other Federal agencies, the oil and gas industry, and State governments. On January 27, 1978, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) published regula- tions on oil and gas information programs and, in time, the summary reports and the indices called for in these regulations should provide us all with a better understanding of the activities on the outer continental shelf. There is a wealth of information and data existing on the OCS matters; how- ever, it is scattered among agencies, offices, and individuals. It is very easy to end up empty-handed and frustrated if you are not familiar with the proper person to call and how to ask for that information which you seek. This information location problem exists not only at the state and local levels, but at the Federal level as well. Still another information effort designed to aid planners and the public could be called, in current terminology, coastal cloning. It is an attempt to replicate regionally the types of information servicet provided through the coastal zone information center, Environmental Data Service (EDS), NOAA, and the OCS Referral Center in the Department of the Interior. Two years ago, three NOAA officeis, OCZM, Sea Grant, and EDS combined their re- sources to establish a system of regional coastal information centers (RICt) operated through Sea Grant's Marine Advisory Service. These information centers are designed to provide a regional specificity that cannot be ac-, complished at the national level. While linked to the national programs, they can tap the considerable data resources at that level and, ultimately, should provide a'n invaluable, interlocking, regional information network. Currently, three are in existence: In the Pacific Northwest; in the Great Lakes; and for New England, the original one is operating here at URI. These centers are information locators, facilitating the commnunication and transfer of pertinent coastal and marine information throughout the coastal community. Fast-turnaround information services of the type that I have provided over the years depend heavily on the more formal, library collections, ar- chives, data banks, and other fancy, but ponderous, information systems. Their complexity, and specificity is necessary to capture and retrieve the vast amounts of data our society generates on any given to'pic. Their very structured format, however, precludes responding speedily to new issues and developments. While these systems are valuable for in-depth research in established subject areas, they are no use at all in current awareness.. It is important, therefore, for the information user to know what to expect and what not to expect from any given information system. Sbme are informal and, therefore, nore flexible and responsive to new and ever- changing needs, while others, more structured and less flexible)also play a valuable) but more 95 specialized role. Most information needs require a combination of the two, an information mix of people, documents, and data. Periodically, there are recommendations to create gigantic data bas.es, or collections, which could supposedly, answer all questions on a discipline. I suggest that time and money is better spent identifying and utilizing the resources where they presently exist, as communication and cooperation be- tween individuals and institutions creates useful, yet inexpensive informa- tion linkages. I will admit that any of our individual information systems are far from ideal. I think this is, perhaps, not the fault of the system, so much as the user. Asking any system to do something it was not designed to do, creates problems. A lot of new services have been created in the past few years in response to state and coastal planning needs. Now, it's the in- formation user's responsibility to learn to utilize them. 96 Appendix List of Participants 97 Cheryl Alexander ESIC/EDS/NOAA D8 Rockwall Building Rockville, MD 20852 Provided impetus for Regional Coastal Information Center Program. Authored "State of the Art on Networking of Information Activities Relating to Coastal Management" and "Preliminary Proposal to What a National Coastal Resource Center Information System Might Look Like." James Aichele South Carolina Coastal Council 4 Carriage Lane, Suite 205 Charleston, SC 29407 Designed graphics system and digitized manual system of overlays, which uses 7.5 minute topographic maps with overlays for wetlands, impoundment areas, beach zones, bottom type whith includes densities for shellfish, lease areas. John Buffington Council on Environmental Quality Washington, DC Project Officer for UPGRADE, a system for analyzing pomputerized data on the environm-ent, natural resources, and public health. Janet Campbell Marine and Application Technology Division MF 270 NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA 23665 Experienced in remote sensing of marine environment. Currently partici~- pating in proiect to compile information on remote sensing application in coastal zone. 98 Peter Cornillon Department of Ocean Engineering, Assistant Professor Bliss Hall University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Experienced in data processing, remote sensing, oil spill assessment and predictive modelling,-and interfacing. On COMS Steering Cormmittee and is currently involved in developing computerized information system for Rhode Island coastal managers. Charlene Quinn D'unn Coastal Information Northeast Regional Coastal Information Center URI-MAS, Bay Campus Narragansett, RI 02882 Coordinator of Northeast Regional Coastal Information Center Betty Ede] National Sea Grant Depository Claiborne Pell Library URI Bay'Campus Narragansett, RI 02882 Manager and Principal Investigator for the National Sea Grant Depository, which has a 12,000 entr y computerized bibliographic data base. Experienced with NSGD system as well as other on-line networking systems. Compiler of the 1977 Sea Grant Publications Index. Robert E. Freeman Deputy Director Environmental Science Information Center, D8 U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA Rockville, MD 20852 Has worked with information center management, data base management, computerized information retrieval systenis, information systems management, information networks, an environmental and natural resources information for twenty years. Since 1968, he has held successively the positions of Technical Information Specialist, Chief of Scientific Information Systems Branch, Chief of Technical Information Division, and is now Deputy Director of the Env-ironmental Science Information Center. 99 Ernest Hardy Resource Information Lab Cornell University Box 22, Roberts Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 Developed Resource Information Laboratory. Helped develop the New York State Land Use and Natural Resources Inventory, which contains 135 land use and point information types derived from air photo interpretation and field reconnaissance. Harvard Holmes Computer Science and Applied Math Group Lawrence Berkeley Lab Berkeley, CA 94701 Computer Graphic Specialist. Worked on CARTE System used for Urban Atlas series of colored maps. Presently in charge of the Social Environmental Economic Demographic Information System (SEEDIS), whiclh includes numerous data bases and retrieval programs that are interfaced to graphic display programs. Robert Holton Northwest Coastal Information Center School of Oceanography Corvallis, OR 97331 Coordinator of Northwest Regional Coastal, Information Center. Dan Hoydysh Coastal Energy Impact Program Office of Coastal Zone Managemen-t Washington, DC Current Chief of Data Information System for Coastal Energy Impact Program. Developed Coastal Energy Informati:on System which is the first complete inventory of the new energy facilities in the coastal zones of the 30 coastal stat'es and four U.S. territuories. 10 0 Nancy Huang Great Lakes Basin Commission 3475 Plymoutth Road P.O. Box 999 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Currently Informations Specialist for Great Lakes Regional Information Referral Center. Worked in the Highway Safety Research Library and information Center at the University of Michigan. An initial consultant for the Women's Education Equity Communications Network, which started a network of womien's information s-ervices. Connie L. Knapp Department of Geography and Marine Affairs University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Completing Master's thesis on information systems for coastal resources Management. Also completing one component of a computerized too] for coastal management in Rhode Island- a system which assesses and analyzes permit application information. Dennis O'Connor Professor of Law and Director of Ocean and Coastal Law Program University of Miami Coral Gables, FL 33124 Experienced in information retrieval systems and improved methodologies and advances in the state of the art for Law/Economics in environmental data management. Stephen Olsen Coastal Resources Center URI Bay Campus Narraganset.t, RI 02882 Working on Coastal Zone Information System for Rhode Island. 1. 01 John B. Pleasants Virginia Institute of Marine Science Gloucester Point, VA 23062 Developed the Marine Environment and Resources Research and Management System (MERRMS) for state of Virginia. The system features a comprehen- tive cartographic data base for the Chesapeake Bay region, a heavily indexed library with publications stored on microfiche and computer- retrieval, and a multi-projector visual display system. Cary C. Rea Department of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 Investigator for the University fo Virginea Coastal Information System (UVAIS), a carefully catalogued data referral system geared toward the coastal environment. Research precipitated a general review of naval data management as well. Alan Robinette Minnesota Planning Agency Information Cent'er Capitol Square Building St. Paul , MN 55101 Computerized the following for state coastal management program: 40 acre or 2.5 acre maps created by computer-derived map as overlay on hand-drawn base. Jens Sorenson Sea Grant University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Directly involved in proposal for California Regional Coastal Information Center. 10 2 Malcolm Spaulding Associate Professor Dapartment of Engineering University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Responsible for the development and application of numerical models to coastal processes. Currently the principle investigator of a project to develop an interactive interface between existing computer models of coastal dynamics and the coastal managers of Rhode Island. Also experi- enced in ocean instrumentation and pollution analysis. Donald B. Straus President, Research Institute American Arbitration,Association 140 West 51 Street New York, NY 10020 Environmental mediation techniques modified in development of new problem- solving processes called "data mediation" and "data validation", which are useful in information system development as well as in resolving environ- mental disputes. Experience in facilitating man-computer interaction in addition to communcation among differing parties. John Sun Resource and Land Investigation Program U.S. Geological Survey Reston, VA 22070 Computer specialist for RALI Program. Michele M. Tetley OCS Referral Center, Room 4130 U.S. Department of the Interior Washington, DC 20240 Has spent last 10 years setting up information centers in coastal and marine field: 1) Great Lakes Basin Library, 2) Mercury Contamination Information, 3) Coastal Zone Information Center, 4) OCS Referral Center - and initiated the Regional Coastal Information Center Project in NOAA. 103 Paul_Templet P.O. Box 44245 Capitol Station Coastal Resources-Program Department of Transportation and Development/State Planning Office Baton Rouge, LA 70804 Works with IMGRID -system for determining capability/suitability of coastal sites for various uses. It is a computerized system with 32 variables urc',- three broad catagories: physical, biological, and sociological. Virginia K. Tippie Executive Director Center for Ocean Management StLudies University of Rhode Islahd Kingston, RI 02881 Worked with Rhode Island's Coastal Zone Management Program. Present re- sponsibilities include include identification of data needs for coastal and ocean management, and developmient of a conceptual framework for managernent of the marine environm-ent. Neils West Department of Geography and Marine Affairs Washburn Hall University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Interest lies in Environmental Impact and Assessment Process. Had done a great deal of environmental consulting. Uses computer graphics for academic and consulting purposes. Works with low-level air photo and low-level geographical spacial information systems. Carl E. Youngman Director, Cartographic Laboratory Department of Geography University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 Designed automated environmental information system for state of Washington. Currently developing a Coastal Zone Atlas of Washington State using environ- .mental inforination system as data base and computer-assisted cartography, which allows a variety of computer analyses. 10 4