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The purpose here is to discuss inventory project design from a data
management perspective. Poorly designed inventory projects, lack of rigour in data collection, and
awkwardly documented datasets can all contribute to the loss of meaning over time. By considering data
management as you design your project, you will produce a set of data that is pertinent, easy to analyze
using computer applications, and with a very long half-life. The data that you gather will be useful to
future generations.
The central repository for storing wildlife inventory information
is the Species Inventory Database (SPI). The database was designed to emulate the features of an
inventory project. The structure of the database reinforces sound inventory design. For example, the
project table contains general information about the project. Each project has one or more surveys and
the surveys occur in one or more study areas. The database has tables to store information unique to
surveys and study areas respectively. A project may be systematically designed using blocks, transects, or sample stations and wildlife observations can be recorded within those sample units. The “
Design Component” table stores information about the sample units while the Wildlife Observation
and “DC Visit” tables store observation data and the date of the observation respectively.
The rest of this document describes inventory design while highlighting data
management via the Species Inventory Database. Hopefully people will be able to follow it in a
step-wise fashion to produce a well organized inventory plan with the additional benefit of meshing
well with the database. The following steps outline the design process:
- Documenting the project metadata
- Defining the surveys
- Determining sample unit type and selecting a template for data collection
- Conducting field work
- Analyzing the data
- Writing the report
An inventory project may consist of one or more surveys, within one or more study
areas, and each survey can be organized in its own unique fashion. Your project may be a short term
activity for a targeted species in a specific area, a very long term monitoring plan for multiple areas within an entire region or anything in between.
Generally speaking, clustering several inventory surveys within a larger project
makes sense if the surveys pertain to a common goal (ungulate aerial census for a region) or if the
projects are related through funding. Whether you choose to cluster your inventory surveys within one
project or you decide to make each survey its own separate project is entirely up to you. What does
matter is that you accurately document and maintain records of the exact nature of your inventory work.
Metadata is "data about the data" and it will allow you to reliably file
and track your project. Metadata also thoroughly explains the methods used to capture the data, the
level of reliability, and the limits of the inferences that can be drawn from the data. Much of this
sort of information is contained within the report. In a sense the report constitutes the metadata for
the datasets that will be stored in the database.
For an inventory project, the important tracking metadata are:
- Project ID
- Project Name
- Project Agency
- Funding Agency
- Funding Agency ID
- Project Coordinator
- Start Date
- End Date
- Region
- Project Location
- Location Description
When you register your project in the database, you will be asked to provide this
information. As soon as the project is registered it will become visible to the tracking system. This
means that you can find it easily through the search engine. All reports and data will be clustered
together under the project name and ID number. The data will never be seen in isolation of the report
and supporting documentation that you have generated.
Within your inventory project, you may wish to define one or several surveys. For
example, if you have a spade-foot toad project that covers several study areas within your region, you
could opt to define more than one survey because you will use different survey teams. If you are
performing a monitoring project over the course of 5 years, each season may be a new survey. You might
also define your project to have 100 blocks within your study area and the entire inventory will be
considered one survey. You could consider spring counts and fall counts to be separate surveys within a
project or each year of an ongoing study could be considered a separate survey and all data collected
during the year would be pooled. The precise data and time for all observations is recorded despite
how surveys are defined so no information is lost or masked regardless of how you define your surveys.
In summary, a survey is defined by the objectives, the target species, the
inventory method used, and the discrete time that the survey occurs in. Exactly how you designate
surveys is not critical as long as it is logical.
At this point you will:
- list the specific objectives of the survey
- define the study area
- define the survey method type (simple reconnaissance, game census, general
survey, telemetry, results by area) and level of intensity of the survey
- determine the spatial units for sampling
Listing the Objectives
Write out in simple English what you want to learn from the inventory in list form. Try to write
objectives in such a way that success or failure can be measured. By doing this you will have to be
concise and you will clarify what your design must accomplish.
Define the study area
You should define the study area and the spatial units for the inventory using either predefined
units such as wildlife management units or via GIS. The shape files containing your study area and
spatial units will become a part of your submission package.
Use Arcmap to outline the study area in a shape file. You may create your own
polygons by clustering or using forest cover polygons, wildlife management units, regional boundaries, lake boundaries, or you can simply draw your own. You can hand draw maps but you will eventually have
to submit the map in electronic form as a *.jpg or a *.pdf file however any maps that are not in a GIS
format cannot be spatially linked to your data within the system.
Define the survey method type
Survey method type defines the broad category of the inventory. Some surveys are
very simple in their design while others are more complex and involve systematic sampling. Systematic
sampling will utilize either blocks, transects, or sample stations as the sample unit within which
observations are made. You will also need to determine the level of intensity of the survey. Do you
wish to look for the presence of a species, determine relative abundance, or calculate the absolute
abundance for your sample units?
We support the following method types at this time:
Simple Reconnaissance |
You are looking for the presence of a single
species. You have one study area and you are going to sample the most likely habitats (strategic
sampling). You are not concerned with determining which habitat the species prefers. You just want
to know if the species is present in this area. |
Game Census |
You are conducting a wildlife census. Your main
concern is to determine relative or absolute abundance of a species. You may also want to determine age and sex ratios. For example, your project might be long term coordinated monitoring of a
hunted population. You may be using systematic sampling using blocks, transects, or sample
stations. Ungulate aerial census and spotlight counts are specific examples of inventories that use this method type. |
General Survey for Locations, Behaviour, or Sign |
You are interested in finding the locations,
habitat features, and/or sign, of a species. You may use a systematic sampling design using blocks, transects, or sample stations. You may be interested in gathering data for species/habitat
modeling. Call playback, ungulate track counts, nest surveys, mist netting, and pellet counts are
all examples of this type of inventory. |
Telemetry |
You wish to track the location of individual
radio-collared animals. The radio-collars may be VHF or GPS collars. |
Results by area |
You have performed total counts of an area,
performed a population estimate, calculated age and sex ratios and you wish to portray the results
as a function of an area. |
Special methods |
Some rare and endangered species working groups
have specific data that they wish to be incorporated into the Land Resource Data Warehouse. There
are very few groups that require special methods. |
During the registration process, you will to provide the following information for
each survey:
- Survey Name
- Survey Objectives
- Study Area Name
- Study Area Description
- Method Type
- Survey Intensity
- Primary Target Species
- Secondary Target Species
- Surveyors Names
- Survey Start Date
Once you have characterized your survey, you will need to select the appropriate Excel data
template. You can obtain the data templates
here.
The data templates support the method types described above.
After you have chosen your template, you can customize it to some extent. The yellow fields in the templates are required for successful data loading. Do not alter them or remove them. All other fields are optional. You may remove any that you do not wish to use but you must not alter any of the template field names otherwise the data will fail to load and you will be asked to correct the
error.
You may add data fields to any template. The fields you add will be stored in the
template copy that will be archived in the database along with your report. Only the predefined fields
that are in a fresh template are loaded to the Land Resource Data Warehouse spatial views. The
predefined fields of the templates are combined with project metadata to provide a means of spatially
searching for species observations via ArcMap and IMap once the template is loaded into the Species
Inventory Database.
It is better to conduct your field work after you have completed project design and organized for
data management. You should have already thoroughly researched your field method and set up all the
logistics for your field work by this time. You can use the template that you download from our website to build custom field forms to suit your needs. Using ArcPad, you can fill in the templates as you
work. Some people like to use their own templates and then transcribe their data into the standard
templates. At any rate, you should have to manually type your data into an electronic form only once.
You may add worksheets to the data template workbook in order to analyze your data.
You may also use additional workbooks to perform analyses to keep the data template from being altered
in any way. If you designed your dataset properly, you will be able to use pivot tables to summarize
the data. You can include any analyses with your submission if you desire.
If you are conducting standard census inventories for wildlife management, you may refer to RISC
manuals and use a summary report form to file a report. All other reports should be written using
standard scientific format. To find information about report formats
click here.
A complete submission consists of:
- Project Registration and survey definition via the submission site
- A completed data template including additional user defined fields and analyses added to the
template workbook
- The report
- shape files of the study area and any sampling units.
- Additional documents such as photographs, jpeg maps, powerpoint presentations, copies of public
relations material and so on.
If you are intending on loading your project information into the Species Inventory Database, you can
benefit by keeping data management in mind as you design your project. You will have far fewer troubles with the data when it is time to submit. Using the system will also encourage you to more stringently
design your projects because the database structure actually mimics sound inventory design.
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