Tucson Area GIS Co-op March 2007 Meeting Minutes

Attendees: Linda Coon - PC DSD, Teri Schultz - TFD, Anna Sanchez - COT UPD, Cody Cohn - DMAFB, Brooke Pope - PAG, Gage Andrews - COT IT, Bill Marum - COT DSD, Susan King - GISi, Jesse Reyes – COT UPD, Johanna Kraus – DSD, Sterling V Ford – COT Parks and Recreation, Blanca Espino – COT DOT, Jennifer Psillas – Town of Marana, Peter Johnson – COT DOT, Jennifer Sborov – SAIAT, Ben Wilder – U OF A Desert Lab, Aaryn Olsson – Arizona Remote Sensing Center, Bill Ptroutson – Pima County DEQ.

(My apologies if I left your name off or if I misspelled it – if you didn’t sign the “sign-in” sheet or if I couldn’t read your handwriting it won’t appear correctly above. Sorry!)

Agenda

• Anna Sanchez and Jessie Reyes of DUP have been selected to attend the ESRI Conference and asked if the Coop would help with funding a portion of their expenses. The Coop voted to donate one membership pass and to cover lodging expenses up to $1,100.00 each. Co-op members from DSD asked if additional funding was available to assist with DSD members who wish to attend the conference. DSD was asked to submit a written request and if funds were still available the membership would consider this request.
• Jennifer Sborov spoke on the new format for Building GeoDatabases. Coop members expressed an interest in attending this class. There is also interest for another Model Builder or Python class and also a lot of interest for another Intro to ArcGIS class. PAG and the GIS Coop are jointly sponsoring an intro to ArcGIS class in April.
• The Coop’s fiscal ’06 – ’07 and fiscal ’07 – ’08 budgets were discussed.
• Peter Johnson and Dave Koss spoke on the need for additional Arc Info licenses in the Coty of Tucson. It was suggested that the Coop purchase two additional Arc Info licenses and pool the three Coop licenses with the TDOT licenses that would be made available to active COT GIS Coop members. There was no objection from the membership so therefore the software will be ordered this week.
• A call was made for volunteers to be co-chairs of the Coop for the next fiscal year. So far we have 4 members willing to assist. (Jesse Reyes, Anna Sanchez, Mary Szczepanski and Peter Johnson. 3 more volunteers are still needed. Please email Dave Koss if you would like to volunteer your services.
• “City Sync” ad hoc data layer committee – Bill Marum spoke on the development of this new committee. The City Sync committee is a group of GIS professionals and interested parties from several city departments who meet to work out a process to ensure that related map layers receive coordinated updates where appropriate. Representatives from City departments including Fire, Water, Transportation, Real Estate and Development Services met with Steve Whitney from Pima County DOT recently to help each other understand the current process.

Among the issues identified at the first committee meeting were:

a) need for documentation of layer dependencies, especially lim_tuc (City Limits)

b) need for a workflow that assures that appropriate parties are informed of changes

c) need for an issue log to help document the change process

DSD is currently working on a prototype of a database that will document layer dependencies and cross reference layer metadata. The prototype will be largely assembled manually but the preference would be to automate this in the future.

Travis Bean, Research Specialist, Desert Laboratory and School of Natural Resources, University of Arizona
Aaryn Olsson, Sr. Research Specialist, Arizona Remote Sensing Center and Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona

Ben Wilder, University of Arizona

Travis and Aaryn gave an overview of buffelgrass and the potential ramifications for the Sonoran Desert ecosystem given its recent invasion success. Buffelgrass is a C4 perennial bunchgrass introduced from Africa for grazing and erosion control that outcompetes natives and generates large stands of dense, flammable grasslands which can transform the Arizona Upland vegetation of the Sonoran Desert into a frequently burning African savanna-like ecosystem. This ecological invader crosses political boundaries and presents a cross-jurisdictional management problem which, at its core, presents a significant data management problem. While numerous agencies and volunteer groups are involved in both control and mapping efforts, an overall strategy for coordinating control and mapping efforts with data management has been lacking. This is changing as a result of energy generated from the Pima Santa Cruz River Basin Cooperative Weed Management Area and the recent (February 9, 2007) Buffelgrass Summit, which attracted 120 decision makers and scientists from throughout the region. As these participants continue to be involved in the development of data collection standards and data management strategies, more stakeholders become involved in the process of control and data collection, increasing the likelihood of success of a coordinated cross-jurisdictional approach to turning back the buffelgrass invasion..

Open Floor (ran out of time)

April Meeting 4-17-2007 - See you there!

Dave Koss