Spatial Dynamics has developed and is continuing to support the Fire Ecology Assessment Tool, (FEAT) software system for the National Park Service. FEAT is an integrated tabular and spatial information system supporting data management and analysis for immediate and long term monitoring and reporting of fire effects. The second version of FEAT has been released for general use.

FEAT arose from the Fire Ecology Business Needs Analysis conducted from January through May of 2002. This analysis led to the establishment of a Project Core Team and involved regional program representatives, knowledge experts and stakeholders. The identified goals and objectives for FEAT include:

Goal: Provide a system that is adaptable to the changing business environment


Objectives:


• Provide the ability to easily add new monitoring protocols
• Provide the ability to monitor fire and non-fire treatment
• Provide the ability to incorporate and use wildland fire information
• Provide the ability to easily access policy and planning documents
• Provide the ability to easily access ecological and cultural information resources
• Provide the ability to use geospatial technology
• Support the tracking from management objectives to treatments
• Provide the ability to roll up data to the regional and national levels

Goal: Provide a system that meets technical requirements for the fire ecology community


Objectives:


• Provide a system that is easy to use, maintain and administer
• Provide accurate information that is easy to access and export
• Standardize data to support the sharing of information
• Avoid data redundancy whenever possible
• Work efficiently in an open and varied technical environment
• Take advantage of the existing fire community and I&M technical environment

Goal: Provide a system that is cost effective


Objectives:


• Provide a system that is cost effective to develop and implement
• Provide a system that makes the best use of staff time and resources
• Provide a system that is cost effective for the long term

The development of the FEAT prototype began in late 2002 with the first fully operational version of FEAT, FEAT 1.2 released in April 2004. An updated version based on a modular architecture, FEAT 2.x, was released in March 2005. Additional Protocol Builder and Spatial modules of FEAT 2.x were released during late FY 2005.

The initial version of FEAT is based upon MS Access (2000) and includes a tight coupling to ArcMap 8.x desktop GIS, support of the FMH data collection protocols, support of additional protocols developed by the NPS, and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) field data entry. FEAT 2.x is based upon Microsoft Desktop Engine (SQL Server) and a modular interface to ArcMap 9.x., PDA operations, and an interactive protocol and methods builder.

FEAT supports the monitoring program design, sampling, collection, management, statistical analysis and reporting of fire effects monitoring information. The system includes the use of spatial data to define monitoring or sampling strata based upon fire history as well as any combination of other spatial resource data such as hydrology, vegetation cover, elevation, facilities, road networks, management plans, etc. The system supports the generation of randomly located sample plots; recording of field sampling data using digital Personal Data Assistants (PDA’s), automated database updating, statistical data analysis and reporting of sampling results. A significant capability of FEAT is the use of PDA systems for field data collection and automated database updating. The use of PDA’s is expected to provide up to a 40% reduction in the time required for sampling and data entry.

FEAT supports standardized protocols to help insure the repeatability of sampling procedures and analysis results overtime. FEAT also provides for the definition and inclusion of new protocols to meet changing conditions or unique local situation.

The example FEAT form shown below supports the data entry and reporting of field macro plot information. In FEAT a macro plot may have a number of sampling sites and sample protocols.

The FEAT geospatial component is an ArcObject VB.Net extension that supports spatial stratification, random sampling, feature data extraction and reporting of FEAT sample data results. The example shown below demonstrates the use of the Create Monitoring Unit Tool to interactively create a sampling unit or stratum based using a number of different spatial layers. In this example the map windows shows a sample stratum (in pink) that is based upon the specified range of Landsat based Normalized Burn Index data, a specified elevation range between 1088 and 1281 meters and herbaceous vegetation cover.

Currently Spatial Dynamics is working with commonthread inc. and Systems for Environmental Management (SEM) on the integration of FEAT and FIREMON, the U.S. Forest Services fire effects monitoring tool. The integrated FEAT/FIREMON tool will provide a common database and data collection environment for fire effects monitor as well as other monitoring data for use by the five major land management agencies.