Tony Hale

This project consists of an effort to enhance EcoAtlas to serve as the shared and primary point of collection for project data, then actively transfer the data to Delta View.

This project expands the current capabilities of the wetland project tracking system for the monitoring and assessment of California’s aquatic resources to meet the project tracking, assessment, and reporting needs for current and planned habitat restoration in the San Francisco Bay-Delta and Central Valley.

Working in partnership primarily with the City of Richmond and the County of Contra Costa County, SFEI is developing a new GreenPlan-IT Tracker. The new tool comprises another module within the GreenPlan-IT Toolbox which, along with its three other modules, helps to plan, assess, optimize, and track municipal efforts to reduce stormwater run-off and reduce pollutant loads to the Bay.

The Lahontan Water Board (Regional Water Board 6) has formally adopted EcoAtlas and the California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM). This will enable the Water Board to visually track and assess the extent of project impacts on a watershed basis throughout the region.

Beginning August 1 of this year, 401 Certifications and Waste Discharge Requirements will require applicants to upload project information into EcoAtlas. Applicants will be encouraged to use CRAM in pre- and post- project assessments.

SFEI's Tony Hale helped to lead a collaborative effort to advance California's management of its environmental data and derived information. This white paper is a synthesis of ideas explored during the Data Summit (June 2014) based on initiatives, current programs and the experiences of individuals from State and federal agencies, academia, private and non-governmental entities.

From the State Water Resources Control Board: The Water Board's Office of Information Management and Analysis (OIMA) will host a data fair aimed at providing a forum to enhance the availability and integration of the Water Board's key datasets. The format will be a combination of thought-provoking presentations and access to dataset stewards. Some of the presentations will highlight projects and concepts to synthesize water resource related data. Others will lay out elements of the Water Boards' strategy to increase the availability and usefulness of our vast water resource related data and information.

The State has contracted SFEI to provide intellectual, scientific, and technical resources to support its efforts to monitor and report on the ever-growing problem of cyanobacterial blooms in its lakes and rivers. These blooms are such a serious concern because they can generate harmful toxins which can threaten wildlife, livestock, pets, and in certain cases, human life.

Under the aegis of the Delta Stewardship Council, SFEI helped usher forth a vision document with recommendations for enhancements to California's information technology infrastructure and associated practices. Called "Enhancing the Vision for Managing California's Environmental Information," the white paper was highly collaborative, with a team of writers contributing their ideas from private industry, non-profits, and various state agencies. Dr. Tony Hale, SFEI's Program Director for Environmental Informatics, served as the white paper's chief editor.

The RMP Annual Meeting was held in conjunction this year with the State of the Estuary Conference. Collectively, the events brought together over 800 people interested in the condition of our estuary.

Below is featured a collection of highlights of the conference as recorded in social media in the form of videos, images, quotations, and other observations. We hope you enjoy perusing this unique conversation of over 89 users, 500 tweets, and a world-wide audience of over 400,000 people.

This visualization tool facilitates intuitive comparison of continuous data from around the Bay, and across a variety of analytes, to demonstrate the potential for collaborative monitoring across programs.

Web services provide a standard way to access geo-referenced data online. SFEI now provides web services for the California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM) Assessment Areas and California Wetland Projects data layers.Although potential uses are numerous, typically web services allow one machine to exchange data with another for timely, automated, and efficient sharing of information. Different service types provide different levels of access to the data, including serving image tiles of the data or the features and attributes themselves.