Summary

The BLM sought a GIS Specialist to support national programs and projects such as the Abandoned Mine Lands, Hazardous Materials, Planning, American Broadband Initiative, and enterprise activities, as well as other modernization efforts at the National Operations Center (NOC).

Problem and Solution

The BLM is increasingly looking to enterprise agency platforms and infrastructure such as ArcGIS Online (AGOL), ArcServer, Portal, ArcHub, and agency data storage solutions for program needs and data management requirements. Organizations/individuals meet data needs through a combination of national enterprise datasetsentirely at the National Operations Center (NOC), as well as enterprise datasets integrated with state office and field information. Specific national datasets are updated from state office information using database replication and are then disseminated across the agency for access serving data stewards, program staff, and field users. 

Data for the Land Health Reporting (LHR) program such as rangeland health, requires support from data collection, evaluation, storage, and dissemination using enterprise data and web applications. Developing solutions using authoritative technology supports the agency and staff to understand and improve data to support enterprise programs informing decision makers and agency staff using the best available data to address the desired goals and objectives for land management programs and projects.

Solutions

Xentity provided the Land Health Reporting and Enterprise Geospatial programs with the geospatial web support, cartographic, and data management solutions required. Deliverables provided support to the Rangeland Health Standards evaluation process through the development of the Land Health Reporting system (LHR). Tasks included creating workflows for the collection of legacy data, staff support to staff evaluation updates, best practices, generation of map products, and GIS analysis. 

Outcomes and Benefits

Our efforts created standardized forms and workflows to standardized entry and data consistency for the population of other historical information digitized by staff for geospatial data products. Also, our work with geospatial data applications helped to support the configuration and deployment of web applications, services and tools. Furthermore, through our assessment of the current land health reporting database, we were able to identify opportunities for improvements. Finally, we generated new metadata for geospatial data with Land Health Reporting products and publishing.