Photo: Scott Croll During low tide, park staff used global positioning equipment to provide accurate shoreline locations and mapped slope, beach substrate type and composition, and distribution of intertidal life. Back to Chapter 2: RESOURCE KNOWLEDGE ARTICLES New approach to paleontological surveys having success by Vince Santucci Geologist's death leaves Yellowstone with deep loss and legacy by Sue Consolo-Murphy and Tami Blackford New Social Science Program makes strides by Jean McKendry Social science to improve employee safety by Dr. Gary Machlis Information compels action to reduce air pollution by Christine Shaver Feral horses at Cape Lookout National Seashore by Jared Ficker Priorities revised for inventory and monitoring by Gary Williams HOME		Chapter 2: RESOURCE KNOWLEDGE Gathering Information Mapping Alaska's coastline by Rusty Yerxa Wildlife Biotechnician; Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska n 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound destroyed invaluable coastal resources, many unknown and unmeasured. In the aftermath of the spill, the Alaska Region’s resource managers recognized the need to map the location of coastal resources of parks to provide a baseline for measuring change and, in the worst case, to assess damage from future oil spills. Currently, no appropriate coastal resource inventory mapping protocol exists. After evaluating the needs of Alaskan parks, resource managers determined that the mapping effort had to be accurate, flexible, and repeatable. Most importantly, it had to be affordable for parks that do not have the means to acquire expensive mapping expertise. Once established, the inventory protocol and its resulting GIS (Geographic Information System) layers can be used by coastal parks throughout the nation to collect, analyze, and display biological and physical shoreline data. Developed by the resource management staff at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, with assistance from the Glacier Bay Field Station of the USGS Biological Resources Division, the new mapping effort uses aerial photography and GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to locate prominent shoreline features. During a low-tide “window,” a two-person team determines the location of a variety of physical and biological resources, equipped with only a clinometer, a compass, an aerial photograph, a differential GPS receiver, and a one-page data sheet for each shoreline segment. Staff record resource attributes such as slope, beach substrate type, composition and distribution of intertidal biota, and other pertinent information. Each coastal segment is then precisely delineated on the aerial photo in the field, enabling future monitoring crews to recreate the segment exactly and detect any distributional changes over time. The resulting product can be displayed in GIS format using ArcView™ and Microsoft Access™, enabling anyone with access to a GIS-capable personal computer to pull up a detailed assessment of a chosen section of coastline. A user can query any combination of attributes, from the simple (where are the seal haulouts?) to the complex (which bedrock beaches have steep slopes and tidepools?). The program also contains three digitized color photographs of each coastal segment that may be zoomed in on to show details of the actual shoreline. Piloting the program on the coastline of a remote Alaskan park, staff encountered challenging logistics. Additionally, lack of quality base maps involved incorporation of complex and expensive ground control protocol components that would not be necessary for parks possessing adequate base maps. As the program moves from design to implementation, we expect that savings to protocol users will be substantial in the long run. Depending on shore complexity, we estimate that teams should be able to field-map 1­2.5 miles of coastline per hour at an estimated maximum total cost (including data processing) of $70 per mile, plus costs of nominal training and practice, protocol setup and customization, and logistics. Researchers and park managers can use the resulting information to determine the location of study areas, as well as to monitor distributional change over time. Glacier Bay National Park will produce and distribute to the other Alaskan coastal parks a CD-ROM containing a detailed set of instructions on how to map their own coastlines, along with sample products from Glacier Bay. The protocol has been designed to be maximally scalable to the needs and capabilities of a variety of parks.
		Award Winner Profile Senior scientist honored Gary Davis, Senior Scientist and Research Marine Biologist at Channel Islands National Park, California, was honored with the 1996 Director's Award for Natural Resource Research during summer. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to technical expertise, continuity, and innovative thinking in research. Davis is a champion of ecological monitoring and scientifically based ecosystem management. He has shown these strategies to be reliable and cost effective and has developed monitoring protocols used widely by others. He is an inspiration among colleagues and a mentor of young scientists. His research, which has contributed to marine conservation in the Caribbean, Florida, and California, has explored the role of maritime parks as refugia to sustain and restore coastal fisheries and protect biodiversity. Also a leader, Davis has served as president of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences and the George Wright Society; he was a board member of the Natural Areas Association. He returned to the National Park Service recently after serving with the USGS Biological Resources Division, California Science Center, since 1993. His research insights and broad understanding of marine resources have been very valuable assets to the National Park Service and the Biological Resources Division. “To be recognized among peers feels good,” Davis said. “These awards remind us all of what a job well done looks like.” Last Updated: 8/20/2002 This material is from Natural Resource Year in Review--1997, published by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in April 1998 (publication D-1247) http://www2./YearInReview/yir/yr_rvw97/chapter02/chapter02_a01.html