The Inventory Program Now and into the Future

1
The Inventory Program - - Now and into the Future

• Gary L. Williams, Chief
• Office of Inventory, Monitoring, Evaluation
• Annual Meeting Presentation
• 8 February 2006

2
Presentation Topics

• A brief history the original strategy for
  inventories
• Current status and funding
• Possible strategy for the future
• Suggested next steps

3
NPS MANAGEMENT POLICY - (1988)

• The National Park Service will assemble baseline
  inventory data describing the natural resources
  under its stewardship and will monitor those
  resources at regular intervals to detect or
  predict changes.

4
Implementation Strategy for Basic Inventories
- 1992

• Service-wide, strategic initiative
• Provide minimal set of data needed by all
  parks
• 10 year timeframe for completion
• All natural resource parks considered equally - -
  no competition for funding
• Funding sequence based on individual park needs
  for inventory data

5
Implementation Strategy for Basic Inventories
- 1992

• Thematic strategy adopted to complete all
  inventory projects
• Funding to be managed by WASO IM and rotated
  among inventory themes
• Specialized inventories to be the responsibility
• of parks e.g.
• Paleontology
• Invertebrates
• Wetlands

6
Minimal Set of Resource Data Needed by All Parks

• Natural resource bibliography
• Base cartographic data (GIS)
• Digital geology map
• Digital soils map
• Meteorological data
• AQRVs listing
• Air quality data
• Water body location and classification
• Water quality data
• Digital vegetation map
• Species list of vertebrates and vascular plants
• Species status and distribution of vertebrates
  and vascular
• plants of management concern

7
Park Top 3 Rankings For Inventory Data Needs
- 1992

• Species List 52
• Vegetation Map 45
• Bibliography 44
• Species Distribution 39
• Base Cartography 28
• Water Resource Inventory 25

8
Initial Timeline for Inventory Projects
9
Some Major Hurdles Along the Way

• Insufficient funding
• Parks needed ancillary products
• Better products became available
• Adopted a different data management strategy
• Capacity problems developed for some
  inventories

10

• Current Funding and Status

11
Fiscal 2006 IM Program Funding

• Project Allocations
• Inventories 11,568
• Monitoring 26,100
• Total Project Funding 37,668

12
Projected Inventory Datasets Acquired or
Developed
13

• Some Initial Thoughts About The Future