The San Francisco Bay Conservation Commons Geo Initiative
Sonoma Ecology Center, Nov. 2008

Project Description

         While the Bay region’s data sharing community has made progress in standardizing and sharing information describing environmental projects, much remains to do before environmental data of all kinds is easily share-able. Until this challenge is met, resources will be spent unnecessarily, re-creating and tracking down existing data. The Geo Initiative will improve the ability of the local and regional environmental data sharing community to share geospatial data. This is a pressing need at NGO’s, agencies, and governments throughout the region. We aim to offer benefits to organizations with a wide range of technical ability, from those with skilled GIS departments to those with minimal capacity for using and creating geospatial data. An ongoing program of training and support will enable all of these organizations to put environmental knowledge to work toward their missions and open doors for mutual assistance and collaboration. Our strategy is two-fold: to develop the tools needed to easily share, find, view, and use geospatial information for regional purposes, and to provide the training, assistance, and communications that will encourage data exchange and maximize the use of the knowledge of the community.

      We envision a geodata access website with facilities for hosting, viewing, and downloading data from multiple organizations, online community discussion tools, and data management services. These will be developed with the continual input of the community and their use encouraged through a community assistance program including in-person meetings, metadata training, and software training to improve the quality and quantity of available geospatial data and its usability for small and large organizations. For more detail, see the attached scope. To realize these goals we propose a three-year start-up project with an estimated cost of $500-650,000 for the core development and support, matched by in-kind contributions from partners.

Partnerships and Resources In Hand

      The San Francisco Bay Conservation Commons effort has wide support from environmental groups in the region, including the Sonoma County Water Agency, Bay Area Open Space Council, San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, San Francisco Estuary Institute, Bodega Marine Lab, and the California Resources Agency’s CERES program. Past funding has come from SCWA, NBWA, and the USGS National Spatial Data Infrastructure and in-kind contributions from CERES and the UC Information Center for the Environment. We have hosted numerous workshops on data management and sharing and all have been enthusiastically attended by GIS managers from around the region seeking help. A willing community exists, as does a strong common need to use and share geographic environmental information. The Sonoma Ecology Center has the skills and capacity to lead and staff the core program and to coordinate a community-driven Geo Initiative effort with the region’s many other capable geographic information specialists. More about the SF Commons can be found at http://sfcommons.net.

Partnerships and Resources Needed

     The Geo Initiative will require multiple collaborations, contributions, and funding sources. Each partner has a particular set of interests— data to make available, users to serve, goals to attain. Partners can create work plans that refer to the larger effort, and can help secure funding for core development by writing letters of support and providing liaison to potential funding sources.