Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center

Current Projects


FREAC

Walkability Measures for Florida

Sponsoring Agency: Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention, Division of Community Health Promotion, Florida Department of Health,

This report was commissioned to examine, analyze, and evaluate walkability measures in current academic literature, assess the data available, develop a suitable walkability metric for Florida, and design online maps to visualize Florida’s walkability using this devised formula. A broader wish for the Department of Health is that the results of this study are useful to local planners for designing more walkable communities with the long-term goal of increasing physical activity.

This research seeks to accommodate both transportation and recreation walking motivations. The final results are presented visually as a composite based upon multiple criteria at a 1- kilometer grid cell scale. Multiple map visualizations are used to convey information about the various input data so that users can understand the positive and negative factors in an area instead of a single metric. An area’s score can be assessed from multiple perspectives, thus revealing the reason(s) why an area might have received a particular score. It is hoped that the results of this research could be helpful to local planners and designers looking to increase walking motivation in their communities.

More Information and Data Download

iMapInvasives

Sponsoring Agency: The Nature Conservancy, New York Natural Heritage Program, Oregon Natural Heritage Program

iMapInvasives provides an on-line, GIS-based data management system to assist citizen scientists and natural resource managers working to protect natural resources from the threat of invasive species. The iMapInvasives Partnership facilitates the management and sharing of invasive species information, including extent of infestations, search efforts, and treatment outcomes. Affordable, sustainable, and collaborative tools developed by the Partnership provide a flexible platform for aggregating invasive species data from a wide variety of sources. These tools add value by organizing the data to support early detection of new populations that may require a rapid response, and analysis of management strategies at scales relevant to user needs. The Partnership seeks to support all those working to safeguard environmental resources from the effects of invasive species including citizens, volunteers, natural and agricultural resource managers, as well as scientists, program administrators, and policy makers.



Land Boundary Information System (LABINS)

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Departments of Environmental Protection

The Land Boundary Information System (LABINS) began in 1984 as a means for distributing survey-related data that is maintained and managed by federal and state agencies to the general surveying community. The system has evolved into a WebGIS document imaging system with over 250,000 high resolution aerial images available (with approximately 60,000 new images acquired each year), over 150,000 images from the original 1840 Florida survey, and 100,000 data records related to current survey collection.



Invasive Plant Management Decision Analysis Tool (IPMDAT)

Sponsoring Agency: The Nature Conservancy

To Control or Not to Control? Natural area managers need to prioritize scarce resources when deciding whether or not to manage invasive species. Recently there has been a lively debate on what invasive species control projects are warranted. Most agree that to justify spending resources on control efforts: the species must be causing serious economic or environmental harm or harm to human health, the project should have a high probability of success, and the work results in a good return on the investment. In practice, it is often difficult to decide if all these criteria are met. The Invasive Plant Management Decision Analysis Tool (IPMDAT) assists in deciding if an invasive plant control project meets these criteria.



Public Lands Inventory

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

The Public Lands Research Program compiles the PLI under contract with the Department of Environmental Protection to assist in its compliance with a statutory requirement to annually produce an inventory of all publicly owned lands in Florida. The PLI is produced by utilizing the ad valorem tax roll data bases submitted annually to the State Department of Revenue by the sixty-seven respective counties of Florida. The PLI acts as an umbrella for several ongoing and concurrent projects, all of which relate to the Public Lands Inventory.



Leon County Emergency Medical Services Report Analysis

Sponsoring Agency: Tallahassee-Leon County GIS

Improve TLCGIS’s report generation ability through analysis and classification of past EMS calls. Results will be aggregated to a 1‐km grid system to facilitate visualization and statistical analysis. Response call categories can be classified as rural, urban, and sub‐urban depending upon the definitions determined by TLCGIS and FREAC. Analysis of the historic calls will be shown through a report including maps, charts, and graphs.



Community Health Explorer

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Health

This web-based mapping system will allow Florida communities to explore social and demographic variables that can influence health outcomes such as demographics from the US Census and an index reflecting economic hardship.



High Resolution Digital Photography

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Revenue

Acquisition, distribution and documentation of high resolution photography for Florida.



Biodiversity Matrix Interactive Map

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI)

This WebGIS map allows users to create preliminary self-service reports for biodiversity presence prior to construction projects. It is estimated that this map saves FNAI 40 person-hours per week.



Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI)

Conservation Lands and Acquisition Projects

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

FNAI maintains a centralized, GIS-based collection of boundaries and other information for lands managed for conservation by federal, state and local governments, and private organizations. The program has more than 1500 individual managed areas in its database. FNAI also maintains GIS information for the state's Florida Forever environmental land acquisition program. Both the Conservation Lands and Environmental Land Acquisition Project datasets are available as free downloads from the FNAI web site.



Ecological evaluation of lands proposed for protection under the Florida Forever Program

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Ecological evaluations to the Acquisition and Restoration Council to help inform the process of considering lands for purchase under the Florida Forever Program.



Rare plant and animal inventory of selected Suwannee River Water Management District Lands

Sponsoring Agency: Suwannee River Water Management District

Each year the District selects 20,000 to 30,000 acres of land within their holdings for rare plant and animal surveys. This project employs a variety of animal survey techniques including drift fence/funnel traps, bucket traps, Sherman live traps, and gopher tortoise burrow camera surveys.



Upland Invasive Plants Inventory and Spatial Database

Sponsoring Agency:Florida Department of Environmental Protection

FNAI is developing and will maintain a spatial database of the distribution of upland invasive plants on Florida's conservation lands. Invasive plants pose a severe threat to Florida's natural systems. Information derived from this project will be used by land managers and state policy makers to inform critical decisions related to the control of invasive species.



Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment and Priorities Analysis

Sponsoring Agency: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

FNAI has developed and maintains a statewide conservation needs assessment to help inform the priorities of the state's environmental land acquisition program, Florida Forever. The needs assessment provides baselines for 16 important conservation measures, identifies the most important places to protect these resources, and provides a tool to evaluate and measure the success of environmental land acquisition efforts. FNAI employs an iterative site selection model to select a portfolio of sites that most efficiently meet the goals of the Florida Forever program.



Ecological Inventory

Sponsoring Agencies: Department of Defense; US Forest Service; Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission;
Florida Division of Forestry; Suwannee River Water Management District; Volusia County

FNAI conducts many types of ecological inventories for federal, state, and local government agencies on a regular basis. Inventories may be general in nature or focus on a particular species, group of species, or habitat type.