Work Plan for the
Network Challenge Grant
To
Link the Network of Natural Heritage Biodiversity Data
to the Environmental Information Exchange Network
Submitted by
Delaware Department of Natural Resources
and
Environmental Control (DNREC) – Lead Agency
Participating Agencies
State of Illinois – Department of Natural Resources
State of Washington – Department of Ecology
State of Washington – Department of Natural Resources
NatureServe
May, 2004
Revised May 2005
1.General Project Information
Name of the Applicant’s Organization:State of Delaware, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC)
Title of Project:Link the Network of Natural Heritage Biodiversity Data to the Environmental Information Exchange Network
Type of Exchange Network Grant:Challenge Category
Challenge Grant Lead:State of Delaware, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC)
Challenge Grant Partners:State of Washington (Ecology), State of Washington (DNR), State of Illinois (DNR), University of New Mexico, NatureServe
Total Funds Requested from EPA:$715,000
Total Project Cost:$880,000
Amount of Funding to Each Partner:State of Delaware – $60,000
State of Washington (Ecology) – $5,000
State of Washington (DNR) – $45,000
State of Illinois – $0
University of New Mexico - $25,000
NatureServe – $580,000
Preferred Funding Mechanism:Cooperative Agreement, all direct funding (EPA participation is expected in all phases of this project)
Contact Person:N. V. Raman
Manager, Information Systems
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901
Phone: 302-739-2060 Fax: 302-739-6242
Email:
Other Points of Contact:Karen Bennett
Program Manager
Natural Heritage & Endangered Species
Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife
Department of Natural Recourses and Environmental Control
4876 Hay Point Landing Road
Smyrna, DE 19977
Phone: 302-653-2883 Fax: 302-653-3431
Email:
Debbie Stewart
Enterprise Applications Manager
Department of Ecology
Applications & Data Services
P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504-7600
Phone:360-407-7048 Fax: 360-407-6493
Email:
John Gamon
Manager, Natural Heritage Program
Department of Natural Resources
P.O. Box 47014, Olympia, WA 98504-7014
Phone: 360-902-1661Fax: 360-902-1789
Email:
Rayo McCollough
Data Services Manager
Natural Heritage New Mexico
UNM Biology Dept.
MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
, (505) 277-3822 xtn. 225, (505)-277-3844 (fax)
Janice J Miller
Natural Heritage Program
Information System Manager
WA Dept. of Natural Resources
PO Box 47014
Olympia, WA 98504-7014
Office: 360.902.1522
Tara Gibbs Kieninger
Database Program Manager, Illinois Natural Heritage Database
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
One Natural Resources Way, Springfield, IL 62702
Phone:217-782-2685 Fax: 217-785-2438
Email:
Larry Sugarbaker
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
NatureServe
1101 Wilson Blvd., 15th Fl., Arlington, VA 22209
Phone: 703-908-1870Fax: 703-908-1917
Email:
Head of Organization:John Hughes
Cabinet Secretary
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901
Phone: 302-739-4403 Fax: 302-739-6242
Email:
2.Project Overview
Purpose
This project proposes several key objectives and outcomes that are important to enhancing the Exchange Network. We are proposing a project to exchange a new data flow, namely biodiversity data, that is important for environmental agencies to share but has been previously available only through data requests to the custodian agencies that house these data sources. Access to these data will benefit states, EPA, and other authorized Exchange Network users that play a role in conservation planning, environmental regulation and decision-making. This project proposes to utilize all components of the current Exchange Network, including Network Nodes, XML Schema, and NAAS security. All state participants in this challenge grant are committed to the Exchange Network, and we are bringing along a new partner, NatureServe and its network of natural heritage programs. NatureServe, a non-profit organization, and the network of 75 natural heritage programs and conservation data centers, collectively are the nation’s leading source for detailed data on rare and endangered species and threatened ecosystems. The natural heritage data are widely used for conservation planning and for environmental regulation and management by all states. Online access to these unique biological data resources will expand the Exchange Network to support this important data flow.
Project Goals
This proposal seeks to improve access to the biodiversity data resources held by NatureServe and its network members to EPA and state agencies in order to increase their utility to environmental management. This will be accomplished with a new infrastructure for data access that will electronically confederate the natural heritage network biodiversity databases. Electronically linking these biodiversity databases through a Web Services architecture will provide for enhanced online data exploration, extraction, and analysis, and will constitute an important contribution to the nation’s digital government infrastructure.
The specific goals for this project are:
- Develop and register an XML schema for biodiversity data flow
- Develop an export tool to extract the XML schema from the heritage network biodiversity data management system
- Develop a data loader to import the XML schema to the Exchange Network node host database
- Develop Web Service APIs to flow biodiversity data from Exchange Network Nodes
- Prototype user and application interfaces to the biodiversity data flow
- Test and demonstrate the system on the Exchange Network
- Document and share results with other states
Objectives:
This project proposes to use Web Services for data delivery from NatureServe and the participating state natural heritage programs to the Exchange Network. Delaware, as the lead participating state agency on this grant proposal, will implement a Web Service to flow data directly to the Exchange Network utilizing their existing state node. The other state agencies on this grant proposal will participate in the design and pilot the use of an XML schema for moving data between a natural heritage program and the Exchange Network node within their state or to the proposed NatureServe Exchange Network node.
The natural heritage programs have adopted a standardized database system, Biotics 4, to track biodiversity data. Biotics 4 has been designed to provide a strong foundation for the Web Services architecture proposed here. The Biotics 4 Exchanger application, designed to support data import/export and bi-directional data exchange and reconciliation between NatureServe and its member programs, utilizes an XML-based data exchange format. This project proposes to build on the current Exchanger application to support Web Services for data delivery from NatureServe and the participating state natural heritage programs to the Exchange Network. To account for inevitable variations in taxonomic usage across states, NatureServe has developed a mechanism for supporting the usage of local taxonomies at the state level in its Biotics 4 software, while reconciling and harmonizing them with nationally consistent taxonomic coverages, including ITIS.
The precise biodiversity locality data that are the focus of this project are under the custodianship of the state agencies that develop these data. Data access policies vary across the network of natural heritage programs, with some programs making available complete GIS coverages of their most precise data and others bound by legal constraints on the provision of precise data. Many network programs consider at least some precise locational data to be sensitive, releasing them only on a need-to-know basis. The primary data sensitivity concerns with publishing precise locations of some rare species involves the risk of exposing them to poaching or deliberate destruction and the rights of private property owners to privacy regarding the endangered resources on their land.
This project will provide for the use and or refinement of the EPA Network Security Infrastructure (NAAS) Web Service interface and its network authentication and authorization subsystems to control access to these sensitive databases. This project will also utilize existing data use agreements between NatureServe and its member programs as a baseline for developing Trading Partner Agreements consistent with the Exchange Network protocols.
NatureServe’s role in this project is to create a technology and data-sharing framework that enables the state natural heritage programs to improve the distribution of these data. NatureServe, a member of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, has a policy of promoting open access to biodiversity information, and has demonstrated this commitment by making virtually all of its own biodiversity data freely and publicly available over NatureServe Explorer and its other web products ( NatureServe has been actively seeking technological and institutional solutions to improve the ability of state natural heritage programs to share and distribute their data to the maximum extent possible, consistent with state resource protection policies and mandates. The National Science Foundation’s Biological Databases and Informatics program is funding a complementary NatureServe project to help establish such a framework.
Figure 1 diagrams the current data flow of natural heritage data, where range-wide element data are made available for public dissemination via NatureServe Explorer, while more precisely geo-referenced multi-state data are available only through custom data processing and delivery. In the current framework, the annual data exchange between NatureServe and its member programs limits the ability to deliver the most up-to-date data to users.
Figure 2 diagrams the proposed flow of natural heritage data utilizing the Exchange Network. Implementation of the proposed Exchange Network nodes via Web Services will improve the accessibility of the biodiversity data holdings of the NatureServe network. The technology developed by this project will provide a building block for streamlining the data flow component of exchanges between NatureServe and its member programs. The complementary project funded by the NSF seeks to address the manual taxonomic reconciliation component of NatureServe’s data exchanges.
The biodiversity data flow proposed in this project is not part of a traditional regulatory exchange between states and EPA. It provides descriptions of essential ecological attributes, e.g. landscape, biotic, ecological processes, etc. that are used by many environmental agencies to depict the state of our environment. In some instances it has been included or referenced as part of the State Water Quality Inventories under Section 305(b) of the CWA. The biodiversity data will be published on the Network so that access will only be available via nodes to entities that have executed a data sharing agreement with the data steward. For the purposes of the challenge grant, the data stewards will be the three participating states.
This project will use the latest standards for XML services adopted by the Exchange Network Steering Board, as available at We propose to test several possible data flow configurations in this project. Components developed for this project will demonstrate the technical approach for eventually implementing nodes in each state, where all of these configurations are likely to be encountered. The XML schema developed for this project will be registered with the Exchange Network Registry.
In the state of Delaware, the natural heritage program is housed within the same agency (DNREC) as the existing Exchange Network node database. The biodiversity data developed by the Delaware Natural Heritage Program will be replicated on this node database using the XML schema. In the state of Washington, the Department of Natural Resources (WADNR) will install a new Exchange Network node using the support services of the Department of Ecology (WADOE) and the Windsor/Ecology Node Application software. WADOE and WADNR agreed that serving Washington’s biodiversity data from a separate node housed where the biodiversity data is maintained was a more reasonable approach than exporting the biodiversity data set to WADOE’s node for delivery. WADNR will set up a server in an external Internet environment in order to deliver the XML biodiversity data set to NatureServe. WADNR may also deliver XML-formatted biodiversity data to other EPA node sites to prove successful setup and installation of the Node software. WADNR will also install and test the Node Application tools that NatureServe will develop.
. The Delaware and Washington configurations will both demonstrate using XML to replicate data across different database platforms (Oracle and MS SQL Server). For the state of Illinois, the probable configuration will be to replicate the biodiversity data developed by the Illinois Natural Heritage Database Program in the Department of Natural Resources on a database hosted by NatureServe, rather than utilizing the Exchange Network node now under development within the IL EPA. This proposed configuration recognizes that the IL EPA Exchange Network node is still in the development stage and that eventually, when their node is online, the configuration may change. This configuration also demonstrates a possible scenario for future NatureServe member programs wanting to participate on the Exchange Network that may have technology, financial, or institutional barriers to implementing their own node within their state. University of New Mexico manages the Natural Heritage Program in New Mexico. Their situation is very similar to that of State of Illinois. Illinois, while participating in the project will not use any funds. All of the funds allocated to Illinois in the original Work Plan is being allocated to University of New Mexico.
Deliverables:
The deliverables for this project are listed below, and are further described in the project tasks section of the work plan.
- XML schema for biodiversity data flow
- Updated data sharing agreements documenting established data access policies for each state participant
- Tool for exporting data in the XML schema and documented minimum data standards for using the tool
- Tool for importing data from the XML schema to an Exchange Network node database
- Web Service APIs, including a map service for spatial data, compatible with the biodiversity data flow
- Prototype user and application interfaces to the biodiversity data flow, including a pilot application interface to a decision support system
- Technical project documentation for each of the above deliverables to provide for the transfer of technologies developed by this project to all Exchange Network partners
Benefits:
Other States, Territories, and Tribes will benefit from this project through gaining access to technology and data. Many state natural heritage programs are currently planning for or developing Internet access and online applications to support various permitting and planning activities. By creating a standardized exchange framework, states can leverage investments and improve the overall quality and access to their data resources. In addition, there is significant value to participants when they have access to neighboring jurisdiction data such that local analysis of watersheds and other geographies may be accommodated. The added value of access through a common technology solution improves the efficiencies of all participating organizations. This pilot project will implement three state nodes and result in a technology framework for other states to adopt. We are anticipating that if successful, implementation grants would be made available to those states desiring to participate in the exchange network, thus leveraging the technology developed under this grant.
In addition, this project:
- Implements a new, voluntary data flow for biodiversity data, to benefit all states, EPA, and other Exchange Network users that require information about the location of threatened and endangered species for conservation planning, environmental regulation and decision-making.
- Provides increased public access to previously unavailable, spatially explicit biodiversity data.
- Enhances the utilization of the Exchange Network by creating a new type of data flow and developing new applications to use these data, including a pilot to directly link natural heritage biodiversity data to a decision support system using the Exchange Network.
- Involves collaboration between Delaware, the lead state agency, Illinois and Washington states, and brings a new participant on the Exchange Network, NatureServe.
- Creates a model that can be easily transferred to and implemented by a wide group of Network participants, including all NatureServe network members and other conservation organizations with similar biodiversity data holdings.
Status of Projects Previously Supported by Exchange Network Grants in Participating States
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
DNREC has integrated data from five of its major environmental programs – Air, Waste Water, Hazardous Waste, Solid Waste and Underground Tanks – into a central system called Environmental Navigator that follows EPA’s FITS II model and the proposed standards for Enforcement and Compliance and for Permits. Environmental Navigator (Navigator) provides a centralized location for environmental data. The System has four components, including: an interactive geographic map interface, secure access to data by internal users, linkage to tools for environmental analysis by internal users, and public access to information through the use of the Internet. The Navigator includes both a form-based and a geographic interface to allow the user multiple ways to search for and display the desired information.
DNREC was awarded a Network Readiness grant for $338,944.00 in FY 2002 to establish a production Network Node and initiate some of the flows. DNREC received its second Network Readiness grant for $297,700 in August 2003. DNREC participated in the Pilot Node project. DNREC has established a node and successfully exchanged data to the CDX in September of 2003 by exchanging beach data through Web Services. By the end of February 2004, DNREC will establish its second data flow through Web Services by exchanging FRS data. DNREC is currently working on exchanging data to CDX through Web Services for PCS data, NEI data and SDWIS data.
Washington Department of Ecology
The Washington Department of Ecology has been an active participant on the Exchange Network. They have an operational Network Node deployed using WIN 2000 and MS.Net web application server. The Node pushes and pulls data from their MS SQL database. They currently exchange their facility information generated from their integrated Facility System with the EPA's Central Data Exchange (CDX) Node that transmits data automatically to EPA's Facility Registry System (FRS). WA is also involved as a primary partner (Oregon has the lead) in a 2002 Exchange Network Challenge Grant to exchange surface water quality data among states in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Alaska). WA has also developed draft XML schema for exchanging hazardous waste handler information between Oregon and Washington over the Exchange Network. This was trial tested to demonstrate usability and benefits of tracking waste shipment between the two states. Finally, WA Department of Ecology has partnered with the Washington Department of Health to exchange data via a CDC Environmental Health Tracking Grant.