Class2010Jan29

**Class Assignments and Agenda for Week 3, 2010 Jan 29**
Class meets from 9:10 - 11:55A in 3214 Jordan Hall on the NCSU Campus. You are free to bring food and drink to this classroom.


 * The major objectives for this session are to ...**
 * Develop a better sense of what we'd like to put in each section, and our priorities for the sections
 * Develop a better sense of audience


 * Things to do before class**


 * Item 1: Refine outlines for each section** in the SOE2010 Report Outline :: Due Wed 27 Jan 20:00

We have four teams, each working on one section of the report. Each team will be refining their thoughts and posting them on the appropriate wiki page (linked to the report outline ) so that everyone can review and comment.

George will work on the introduction, but will not present during class this week.


 * Annotated Agenda**


 * 9.10 Any needed introductions; select timekeeper and note taker**

- Work day scheduled for 19 Feb 1-4 - Time-keeper to give 5-10min warning, commensurate with length of period (longer period, longer warning) and the we summarize decisions - Note-taker also tracks decisions made and items tabled / parked - Report to contain introduction and a section for each Triangle Land Conservancy public benefit: wildlife habitat, clean water, local farms & food, connecting people with nature - Air quality tabled - recommend leaving it there to pick up if we have time - that was decision last time - Report format tabled - recommend leaving it there until we're further along - today ask Doug Nicholas to think about it
 * 9.15 Review from last meeting - decisions and table items - consent agenda items - no discussion unless there is disagreement**

http://courses.ncsu.edu/nr595/lec/001/wrap/readings/HeinzCenter2008_StateOfEcosystemsFull.pdf (14 Mb)
 * New Notice**: The full Heinz Center State of the Nation's Ecosystems Report is available at the URL below. The back end of the report contains detailed notes about data sources and analyses. They are referenced from the individual indicator pages in the report. I recommend everyone download this and have an electronic copy for reference. An NCSU login ID is required for access (everyone should have one).

- Recommend an //ad hoc// team to draft and post for next meeting ... volunteers?
 * 9.20 Interim deadlines -** what milestones shall we set for ourselves along the way? Finish outline? Rough draft?
 * Volunteers: george


 * 9.25 Spring break schedules** - what shall we do? All three universities have it on a different week ( see calendar ). Who also has Easter break?


 * 9.30 Small team work** - review any critiques posted on the wiki, move forward, prepare for brief presentation and discussion of your section after the break


 * 10.15 Break**


 * 10.30 Introduce Doug Nicholas**, TLC Communications Director (confirmed)


 * 10.30 Discussion / critique / direction of sections** - 15min per team (excluding introduction)

I expect we will see crossover between benefit areas and would like to know if we want a formal process for addressing this beyond the logical conversation among affected groups. <>

Wildlife Habitat
 * We favor a natural / ecological community approach in presenting information regarding wildlife habitat issues. We are also looking to streamline presentation of the data. Much prior work has been done by and on behalf of the Natural Heritage Program, TLC, and on a municipal level. Discussion on which method(s) of classification would best suit our purpose on behalf of TLC is welcome.
 * We will have more questions about scope and level of detail.
 * Mitigation sites in Triangle as wildlife habitat
 * How much of this report is supposed to be //what TLC has done or is doing// versus just //what is out there//.

Clean Water
 * put your issues here

- Connecting People with Nature
 * put your issues here

- Local Farms & Food
 * Likely to invite thoughts about streamlining/prioritizing our outline/list of indicators. Data availability will be an issue with some of these things but before we get there it would be best to receive input from class if this list of indicator fits into our goals for this report. We might present a list of all of our indicators and have the students rank them according to their level of usefulness, again, within the context of the report. Otherwise we'll just discuss these things to get a general feel for it......

- What shall we do this week? - //Ad hoc// milestone team - Who would we like to attend next meeting?
 * 11.40 Summary and action items**
 * put proposed milestones on project calendar
 * Emily Ander (Orange County State of Open Space) is available
 * Leigh Ann Cienek (TLC) is available to talk data


 * 11.55 Adjourn**


 * 12.00 Lunch** - bring your own food and drink - we can stay in the room or go outside, weather permitting (sounds like not :-)


 * Notes**

Kevin Bigsby

Amanda W. State of the Triangle… Title is still on the table…We’ll collect ideas as we move forward

Interim deadlines needed? George says get ad hoc committee to do that for next week (Jessica and Kevin to join George)

What type of deadlines? Aimee: solidify (as a BIG group and a SMALL team) our formats, topics, etc Decision deadlines (e.g., do air quality) Review deadlines (e.g., TLC read this) When is the solid draft gonna be due? Generate timeline for above items

SPRING BREAK!!!! What to do about organizing this? Mar 5th we’re all here Mar 12th – either meet as a group or do a small group day Mar 19th – all of us are off, i.e. no class meeting

What about Easter break? Friday April 2nd no class but what do we want to do? Let’s have a break!!! So, no class

Doug N. (director of communications) from TLC joins us Does work dealing with the message of TLC. As we work on this… Doug job will be to tell the story we create; how do we present it on the web, to TLC members, to the wider public, policy makers? So, this will drive how we compile/format the report. Find things that are appealing to a particular audience.

George - we’re trying to figure out where we stop and where TLC picks up? We feed TLC info and they decide what pieces they want to use and what to do with it? AND what should the format of the report be?

Amanda C – Doug do you see info we gather info as a justification/advocacy OR education?

Doug – All of the above, TLC is interested in change for worse or for better, regardless, they wanna know. They like hard numbers, to be used as a justification; positive or negative. They wanna know the trends. Doug mentioned breaking things down by county…. Generate report to county commissioners on a regular basis…. This info would be valuable. TLC is working in major goal settings/incentives. They are setting goals that are 10, 20, 30 years in the future. We’re working on a BASELINE for future comparisons. Region wide might do even for county level recommendations. We need to consider what is the next step is after this report?

Amanda C – Is there interests in “wow” facts that measure ecosystem services?

Doug – He’s into this idea, students at Duke are working on this, did a literature review on the availability of tools to measure this in an easy way. Can we put dollar figures on things? Economic arguments on the work that they do (e.g., what is the value of buffering X distance of rivers in terms on $). Doug seemed really interested in $ values, but understood that this might be difficult.

Aimee – I’m working on ecosystem services. There is software out where that can do that (Kevin – I think this is specifically on quantifying thing in a dollar amount).

We broke out into groups for 45 minutes.

Group presentations

Wildlife

Amanda – concern/questions… What work has TLC has already done? We do not want to reinvent the wheel. Jessica – struggle with balancing the conceptual with the details/specifics. Next step, contact the Natural Heritage people and figure out what is left to do to come up with numbers and percentages. Can we do an outline and say here’s something’s about X…. So, within Triangle there are 3 general categories (preserved spaces, unpreserved space, and that which cannot be preserved). So, what is under conversation? What isn’t?

George – there are 12 or so ecosystems in the Triangle. How much of these are in the Triangle that are left undeveloped?

Jessica: Present here’s what there is, here’s what protected, here’s what at risk. Do the categories make sense? Ecoregion data from NCone naturally (is this wildlife resource plan). Likely to be from GAP.

George – start with a map of these areas in Triangle… What is already screwed up, what is left to work with, what is under conservation management? Jessica – it’s already been done George – yeah, but compiled into one source in a form that is easy to use. Doug – Leanne from TLC would be a good contact (coming in next week). George – More detailed sense… What are the natural heritage areas that would be important, basic acreage, where they are, how they fit into the 12 ecosystem types (sorta repeat this using analysis as the 12 ecosystems) Amanda C – overlap Are you looking at endangered species? Amanda C – not sure… there’s gonna be a lot of overlap Ginevra – plan on using state conservation planning tool (biodiversity wildlife habitat tool)? It would be useful for quantify these things. Jessica – what is the output, are there numbers? George: What will we do with this information…Not our job to set priorities. Doug - Maybe there is a place for recommendations based on the trends that we see in the data George - We don’t wanna get into recommendations. Doug -Wildlife habitat…… relates back to work George did on corridor width. Think about corridors, reservoirs (where wildlife need to move, reproduce). Some wildlife needs larger tracts, report on this. Size of these natural areas related to species needs. Measure of how good they are/ how effective they are at preserving land. This group will be looking at endangered species

Area of overlap, fish and water. Who’s gonna do it and what section will it be in?

Water Quality

Intro- why is it important, etc What watersheds are there in the region? Potable water, quality and quantity, consumption, changes in use over time, safe yield (stuff from USGS). A lot of info that parallels the orange county report. Ground water level, spills, dissolved oxygen (might b going too far), high and low levels for Jordan and Falls Lake. Stream impairment (303D) list. Length of river segments with riparian buffers. Policy requirements for buffers. Varies depending on where you are, river, city (varies by jurisdiction). Limitation with coarse land cover data… George - What is the key message from TLC? Doug – public most interested in how they can use the water? Can I swim, fish, drink it? Re. metrics, can we provide information on the cost benefit of this… pollute and clean it or just keep it clean. What’s cheaper? Doug seemed really interested in this. High and low stream flow, wetlands Doug – drought issues. Something that speaks to quantity… Safe field (what is this – I’m not sure what this is). Based on 50 year drought. What are recommendations we wanna make do based on how much water we are consuming? Ginevra- We want to be able to quantify the benefits… GIS tool that she is familiar with INVEST (ecosystem services tool). E.g., water filtration based on a series of input layers (elevation, reservoir location, etc.). INVEST has a carbon sequestration model. George to check with Jeff re. INVEST. What about days closed re. lake contamination. George knows the contact here.

Connecting People with nature

3 main subsections Recreation and Natural Areas – fishing (overlap with the water group) and hunting, trails, socioeconomic group’s use of natural areas.

Environmental education opportunities – Curriculum in NC schools, what are the attendance levels in education programs in area by looking at state and county parks. What are the higher education programs that have env programs.

Env choices and env values – measure people’s actions and see if they care about the env. Measure ability to recycle, do they get curb side pickup? Miles of bike lanes, avg vehicles miles traveled per capita, participation in stream clean ups. Green certification. Quantify behavior by using savings in carbon expended or something like that…

Aimee – thinking about farms and local foods – schools gardens and habitat on school grounds

We’ll collaborate

Robin Moore - natural learning center – how kids interact with parks and stuff like that (not just playgrounds)

Doug – TLC concept of connecting people with nature is to go into the woods (nature group is saying more like env education). Do some work that taps into big ideas of today… Carbon footprint and carbon sequestration. What is the average triangle resident’s carbon footprint. Make recommendations on this type of change will contribute this much. Richard Love – last child in the woods… this idea is percolating in the mainstream. E.g., this kind of actions will have this type of effect… Key educational component.

What are we missing? Lot of public health ties? Will this be covered within the benefit? They will mention mental health.

Farms and Food

Start with basic statistics from USDA NASS, farm land by use (different crops). Trends in gains and losses of farmland and woodland. Benefits of local production and consumption, CSAs, timber sales. How much produced from local markets is sold in local stores. Ecosystem services from woodlands, might be difficult to quantify this. E.g., carbon, water filtration, air quality. Final section would be farmland preservation, what areas are conserved in trusts, in NRDCP program, what are the lands that are not protected in anyway and maybe setting a priority (or just pointing out that these are the lands). When setting priorities you might want to value this or that…Consideration of recreation… but might be connecting people with nature… Whose is it? Probably for farms to do…

Discussion of who does what… modular idea and vision of web based kinda report…

Doug feedback re. foods and farms – Tandy would say… cutting edge of TLC…. Missing link between local farms and consumers is some marketing stuff. There are CSAs, there is marketing, there is local sales to restraunts/grocery stores, but…… (in Chatham County, high tech chicken houses are leaving the area… I think) so the suppliers are going out of business (or at least this is what I gathered, but I could be wrong)….. TLC is helping to develop a marketing something or nother. Where is there is a disconnect between producer and market. Re. livestock for small or big producer…the production step… there is a big problem with slaughter houses (cannot be processed locally). Might be very difficult to do… One more… but it slipped out of Doug’s mind. He’s got it now… How much money is spent at farmers markets??? Is that available??? CSA would be easier to do. Thoughts about ecosystem services? Amanda… forest carbon sequestration for Chatham County, she’s working on this Voluntary agriculture districts.

Ginevra question about formatting graphs and images? Images – high res .jpgs. graphs? Template for colors and formats and stuff. More generally, how do we transmit the information to TLC.

Summary of where we are what do we want to do? 1) Post outlines 2) Next week, Leanne and someone else will be here. When do we want them? Have them here for the first half. Will we have questions prepared for them? Set aside a time that the groups have to working with these people. 3) Do we have priorities? Can we get rolling on those?
 * 4) **** Definitive outline for next week with priorities research plan and a secondary plan. Start identifying data sources for the top priority sources. Post this information Thursday by noon at the latest. Post this stuff on the top of our wiki pages and push the other stuff down. **
 * 5) **** George to organize session/agenda for next week **