GIS for Coastal Zone Management - Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Use of GIS to Enhance Communications of Cultural and Natural Resources and Contamination John A. Lindsay, Thomas J. Simon, Aquilina D. Lestenkof, and Phillip A. Zavadil 13.1 INTRODUCTION Five Pribilof Islands, volcanic in origin and remotely located in the Bering Sea, are home to Aleuts and the breeding grounds to 70% of the world’s northern fur seal population and numerous seabird species. The once uninhabited islands were first occupied by the Russians in 1786 and later became controlled by the U.S. Government. At the time of the Russian incursions into the Aleutian Islands, some have estimated the Aleut population at 15,000-18,000. First Russia and then the U.S. relied on the forced labour of Aleuts relocated to the Pribilof Islands from the Aleutian Islands chain to harvest sea otters, fur seals, and arctic fox. From their first arrival and through much of the 20th century, Unangan (people) or Pribilof Aleut people relied on the islands’ and Bering Sea’s natural resources, including fur seals, sea lions, whales, arctic fox, walrus, sea bird species, and a variety of plants for customary traditional purposes and subsistence. Even today natural resources are vital to the survival interests of Unangan on the Pribilofs. Unangan of St. Paul and St. George Islands are the world’s single largest ethnic Aleut community whose world population approximates 3,200 individuals. Fur seal, endangered Steller sea lion, introduced reindeer, halibut, crab and other marine invertebrate species, and plants, such as crowberry, continue to play a significant role in customary traditional practices, economic development, and the maintenance of cultural and ecological harmony. Settlement terms under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 required the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as the most recent of the former federal land managing agencies for these islands, to transfer more than 95% of the land area to the local Aleuts. A 1976 Memorandum of Understanding and a 1984 Transfer of Property Agreement (TOPA) incorporated the details of the property transfer between NOAA and various local entities. The settlement and subsequent legislations including the Pribilof Islands Environmental Restoration Act of 1995 and the Pribilof Islands Transition Act of 2000 required NOAA to restore the islands’ environmental © 2005 by CRC Press LLC integrity compromised by U.S. Government activities supporting its commercial fur sealing enterprise. Environmental concerns included numerous releases of petroleum fuel products associated with the disposal of used oil, overfilling of storage tanks, corrosion of storage tanks, pipelines, and barrels, as well as landfills for household wastes, construction and demolition debris, scrap metal and junked vehicles, boats, barges, and aircraft. In addition, military activities during World War II contributed to soil and groundwater contamination. More than ninety sites on the two inhabited islands, St. George and St. Paul, required evaluation and potential restoration in order to complete the land transfer. The islands’ remoteness, approximately 2,200 statute miles from NOAA’s base of operations in Seattle, Washington requires a minimum of eight hours in travel time. Weather extremes involving fog, snow, and wind frequently cause flight cancellation. Improving communications through such multimedia technologies as Internet, GIS, and video were identified early as absolutely critical to the restoration project’s success. In the context of public land transfer to private sector entities and the restoration of lands and structures located within a National Historic Landmark and District, the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) further mandates NOAA to mitigate for these actions. Mitigation efforts at a minimum will provide a historical legacy associated with the federal ownership period for the benefit of future generations. The legacy is expected to include a book, video documentaries, and a detailed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project. This chapter focuses on the GIS project. The NOAA Pribilof Islands Environmental Restoration Project Office (PPO) entered into collaboration with the St. Paul Tribal Government’s Ecosystem Conservation Office to build a GIS project that included not only extant conditions, but also traditional cultural and natural resource features. This chapter presents an ongoing project that began in 1999, the conclusion of which is not expected for several more years. 13.2 GIS APPLICATION The environmental restoration project began nearly two decades ago. Numerous written reports included site locations and analytical results from hundreds of soil samples. Unfortunately, site boundaries and sample point locations have not been easy to recover because of poor referencing and a relatively monotonous environment that becomes overgrown with waist high vegetation or eroded by violent winds. A decision was made at the outset to map all features using differential global positioning systems (DGPS) and a GIS. This approach would allow the relocation of sites and sampling points in years distant if necessary, as well as aid in other efforts, such as defining the vertical and horizontal extent of contamination, and the calculation of volumes of soils requiring excavation. The PPO also recognized the importance of mapping historical, natural, and cultural resource features, such as gravesites, to aid the communities in their future management of the islands, and subsequently to comply with the NHPA and the Coastal Zone Management Act. Alaska’s high latitudes and the islands’ remoteness challenge GIS application. Normally available geo-referenced base maps, such as topographic quadrangles and nautical navigation charts, are scarce, small scale, or nonexistent. © 2005 by CRC Press LLC Early project acquisition and prosecution of DGPS data acquired with Trimble Pro XRS and corrected with post processing layered over existing electronic versions of nautical charts revealed positional errors requiring exhaustive research to rectify. Figure 13.1 Errors in previous mapping projects. The project resurveyed the two principal islands, St. Paul and St. George, to first order following National Geodetic Survey protocols. The results revealed a transcriptional error in an earlier version of the cartographic process that translated into an approximate 180-meter error (Figure 13.1). New benchmarks were installed on the islands, and NOAA/NOS issued new nautical navigation charts in March 2001. The chart scale, however, was still too small (1:50,000) for practical use. The NOAA project entered into a cost share collaboration with the US Geological Survey to provide Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) at 1:24,000 scale, topographic quadrangles at 1:25,000 scale with 10-meter contour intervals, and Digital Ortho Quarter Quads (DOQQ’s) at 1:12,000 scale using pre-existing (1993) colour aerial photography. In an effort to acquire recent high-resolution imagery, NOAA contracted with a satellite vendor to provide 1-meter panchromatic and 4-meter multi-spectral imagery. The PPO is considering the application of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR) imagery of the islands for use in establishing hydrographic controls to further improve island charting and to monitor long-term Aeolian erosion processes that have a potential to impact current restoration efforts. These products, when combined with historical maps and project data, will provide a comprehensive view of the islands and their changes over time. © 2005 by CRC Press LLC The Pribilof Islands GIS mapping project uses ESRI’s ArcView version 3.2. Federal Geographic Data Committee compliant metadata allows rapid data searches. The project focuses on several coverages and features (Table 13.1). As noted above, base maps include NOAA navigational charts as well as airphoto-and satellite-derived DEMs. Historical maps acquired from various sources including libraries and published reports dating back to the late 1800’s provide a reference for changes occurring over more than a century. Changes of interest include fur seal, sea lion, and walrus rookery and haul out locations, as well as building and off-road trail locations. The maps are scanned at 1200 dpi and overlaid on registered and rectified base maps. The PPO uses Trimble Total Station RTK (real time kinematic) 5700 DGPS survey equipment to provide real time horizontal spatial accuracy of ±1 cm and vertical accuracy of ±2 cm. Acquired data is used for contouring and creation of 3-D models of landfill activities, excavations, contaminated soil stockpile volumes, and potentially for plotting seabird nests on cliff faces combined with laser spotting technology. Table 13.1 Pribilof Islands GIS coverages and features Coverage Geographic Geologic Chemical Demographic Topographic Biological (fauna and flora) Oceanographic Archaeological Features Islands and land masses Soils, stratigraphy Soil and water Buildings, roads, debris sites; historic and current video and still images Cinder cones, landfill relief, DGPS ground surveys, aerial and satellite imagery Fauna, flora, rookeries, haul outs, migration patterns, historic and current video and still images Bathymetry, currents, ice pack Habitations, burial sites, historic and current video and still images The authors’ previous experience with marine GIS projects (e.g. Lindsay et al., 1999; Butman and Lindsay, 2000) revealed the robustness of ArcView GIS. Using hotlinks the GIS project is enabled to include multimedia features, such as still, raster (laser line scan), and video imagery and sound recordings. The PPO uses Canon XL-1 digital and Panasonic 720p High Definition (HD) electronic media cameras and digital still cameras to document field activities. HD is down-converted to standard definition. Standard Def and digital videotape postproduction relies on MacIntosh G4 editing suites with Final Cut Pro software and DVD Studio Pro authoring software. Real GIS data are imported into a Hewlett Packard X4000 with XSI animation software to create textured, lighted, and animated production quality 3D models for viewer friendly but scientifically accurate renditions of real data. Historical video on Betacam and VHS tapes are converted to digital format using the same hardware and software. The GIS project itself and video mini-documentaries are placed onto DVD (digital video disk) using super drives. (Please note that any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.) © 2005 by CRC Press LLC 13.3 ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION The U.S. Government initiated environmental restoration activities on the Pribilof Islands in 1983 following the final decision to transfer island lands from the public to the private sector. Former operations managers, residents, and historical reports aided in the identification of contaminant and debris sites. From a mapping perspective the primary emphasis of the environmental restoration activities on the Pribilof Islands has been on the locations of land features, boundaries, and the acquisition of soil and water chemical contaminants data. Demographic land feature focus has been on ownership, including federal land tracts and parcels targeted for transfer under the ANSCA and TOPA, topography, cultural uses associated with waste disposal practices, debris and contaminated waste site boundaries, building locations, utility locations (water, electrical, fuel transfer, cable, telephone and television lines), and grave site locations. Pribilof Islands’ soil and groundwater chemistry has typically been evaluated at sites where spills or releases of petroleum products were suspected or known to have occurred, such as landfills and building sites. A significant commercial infrastructure was built on St. George and St. Paul Islands to harvest and cure northern fur seal skins between 1872 and 1984. Numerous buildings were constructed for brine and salt curing, barrel making, skin packing, and seal by-product production, such as oil and animal meal. Other structures included electrical generation plants, gasoline stations, a radio station, fuel storage and transfer, commercial store, storage and utility buildings, a school, health clinic, quarries, and roads. As the value of the harvesting grew, so did the sophistication of the infrastructure and the use of petroleum based fuels for electrical generation and motorized vehicles. Storage tanks of various sizes ranging from about 500 gallons to 200,000 gallons and fuel lines serviced the islands’ energy needs. Until about 1970, these tanks were filled from 55-gallon barrels brought ashore by bidarrahs, a native rowing craft with Russian influenced origins that were covered by sea-lion skins, and eventually by fuel barges with floating transfer lines. Environmental restoration efforts prior to 1999 lacked either resolve and/or management experienced in restoration; consequently their efforts resulted in restoration of readily visible debris that included six thousand tons of surface debris, thousands of barrels either empty or containing used oil, and some underground storage tanks. Contaminated soils, groundwater, and landfills were left virtually untouched. In addition, initial efforts relied on conventional surveying and mapping techniques that archived features on paper maps without providing adequate geo-references. Subsequent field activities failed to recover site boundaries and soil sampling points. Short field seasons punctuated by years of inactivity resulted in as many as four characterizations at some sites in this treeless and knee-high grass environment in part due to the lack of geo-referencing and unique visual cues such as building foundations, stressed vegetation, soil staining, or surface debris. In an effort to capture these data, the PPO scanned existing paper maps, periodic air photos dating back to 1948, geo-referencing these when possible, and including them in the GIS project along with textual and tabular information. Since 1999, the PPO has relied on DGPS survey systems to log data points and vectors, to catalogue site features, and to relocate sites and sampling points. For the first time Pribilof Islands data was entered into a GIS © 2005 by CRC Press LLC ... - tailieumienphi.vn