Coastal Resource Management
Customer Survey

Abstract

This report summarizes customer responses to a survey questionnaire, conducted in the summer of 1996, dealing with coastal information management and NOAA's Coastal Services Center (CSC). Customers provided information about four areas of emphasis: general coastal management matters, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing and image processing, and other information resources (such as net and web technologies). Tables and charts are used to present percentages of persons answering and their responses to specific questions. Brief commentary is used to explain the purpose and meaning of questions asked.

Purpose

CSC, through its Coastal Information Services area, strives to identify, develop, and facilitate use of technologies and information that support sustainable use and management of coastal resources. Consistent with that goal, CSC undertook its Coastal Information Management Customer Survey in May 1996, to help identify products and services that CSC clients need or want, their computing capabilities, and the analytical tools they use. CSC is using the results of this survey to continuously improve methods of bridging between the needs of coastal information mangers and the knowledge- and problem-solving resources available through applied science.

Survey Method

Before proceeding, CSC investigated whether coastal information surveys recently completed or underway elsewhere in the nation might duplicate the Center's efforts. Of those identified, none targeted the same community of users or addressed the same topics.

CSC designed its survey questionnaire using recognized and systematic methods to achieve a high response rate from coastal resource and information managers. During design and testing, the questionnaire was reviewed by a representative group of coastal managers and by a large group of survey design experts. Many of their suggestions were incorporated into the final survey instrument.

The resulting questionnaire was distributed nationally to the offices of 160 coastal information managers from Coastal Zone Management (CZM) programs, National Estuarine Research Reserve Sites (NERRS), National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS), Sea Grant Institutions, and Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Fish and Wildlife (F&W) agencies.

Response Rate

A rigorous method of tracking, follow-up, and encouragement produced a rate of response to the survey questionnaire of 64.4 percent. Of 103 questionnaires completed and returned to the Center, 86 were included in the statistical analysis summarized here. Seventeen questionnaires were not used because they were either incomplete or were completed jointly with another agency and were thus not properly representative. Fifty-seven questionnaires were not returned for the Center's use.

Terminology

Because key words and phrases can be construed to mean different things to different readers, it is helpful to clarify their intended meaning here. In the following narrative, "coastal problems" refer to terrestrial or marine problems (including human aspects) occurring at or near land and water margins. "Data/information" refers to numeric, text, graphical, or other representations of gathered facts or knowledge that might be used to make coastal management decisions. Such data/information could either be printed or sorted in electronic or magnetic form.

Organization of Questionnaire

The Center's questionnaire was organized in four areas of emphasis to facilitate assessment of its own operations in relation to the needs of its user community or customers. These four parts and their purposes are explained below.

1. Coastal information management, problems, and opportunities: assesses each office's primary activities and which data and information services might be most useful to them.

2. Computer-based tools and techniques for problem solving: assesses each office's computer resources as well as their GIS and remote sensing capabilities.

3. Communication pathways and data/information exchange: seeks to identify and link users and to define the most effective means by which CSC can deliver its products and services.

4. Current and planned activities and products: obtains information about both present and future activities, enabling the Center to better match development activities with customer requirements.

Summary of Results

Each of the four organizational elements used in the questionnaire is presented in turn below. Key questions within each are explained as are the tabulated answers of questionnaire respondents. Questions or response options are listed in order of frequency with which they were answered or selected.

1. Coastal information management, problems, and opportunities. The coastal information management portion of the questionnaire requested information about the responsibilities agencies have for coastal issues. Knowledge of these matters will help the Center's staff to better understand the context in which information solutions will be used.

Agencies' coastal responsibilities. The primary orientation of agencies to coastal management and information can vary. From a predetermined list, respondents were asked to select as many areas of responsibility as were relevant to their offices.

Identification of coastal information management problems Individual coastal problems can cut across coastal management agencies, their areas of responsibility, and the problem solving technologies they employ. To learn more about how such problems are distributed, respondents were asked whether their offices managed data or information related to a predetermined list of examples. Respondents were able to select as many problems as were relevant to their offices.

Obstacles limiting coastal management efforts. The next suite of questions asks our customers to identify the top three obsta cles most limiting in their coastal management efforts. After listing these obstacles, they are asked to evaluate which they think could be eliminated or reduced with appropriate data/information solutions and what those solutions might be. In contrast to the previous questions, respondents were not asked to choose from a list of options. They were able to write in their response. Only 51 people (less than two-thi rds of the surveys returned) answered all three questions. A total of 75 people listed coastal management obstacles and they varied dramati cally in this open-ended response section. The wide range of obstacles listed can be arranged broadly into 11 categories. Of 202 total obst acles described, 68 were related to data or information needs, access, or interpretation.

Understanding obstacles to coastal management can help the Center determine how to prioritize programs and approaches to reduce the most common obstacles.

All aspects of data transfer, availability, access, interpretation, coordination, and application were mentioned as obstacles especially resource inventory and assessment. Some mentioned a lack of data from other agencies, lack of reliable data, or even an overload of data. Several mentioned needing site-specific data or data on specific issues such as water quality, habitat information or distribution, and specific species. GIS data, bathymetric data, data at a specific scale or in a specific format, modeling data, real-time data, baseline data, or fragmented data sources were other problems described.

Funding obstacles included funding research projects and data collection, support for sufficient staff or research students, funding for land acquisition, or funding for software or training on the use of software packages. Many sites also referenced the lack of the right expertise to collect or interpret data available to their programs, either due to insufficient numbers of personnel or insufficient expertise or training of personnel. In some cases, the need was expressed for training in certain hardware or software applications (especially applied to GIS or digital information).

Poor coordination was referred to as an obstacle in terms of data sharing or collection and in terms of coordination between agencies or layers of government. For a significant portion of the responses, specific resource problems were mentioned, those that would not necessarily be affected by data or information (such as loss of sand or "too many people"). Infrastructure categorizes responses about having insufficient technology, equipment (even Internet access), or hardware capabilities.

Some respondents described not having knowledge of or control over planning tools, such as those at the local government level. Some comments referred to the need to have tools to address issues like development; others named "planning" as an obstacle. Management options are distinctly different from planning tools in that they referenced difficulties in applying specific management options or techniques (such as economic incentives, monitoring or enforcement of resource use, etc.). One comment specifically read, "lack of management options."

A lack of communication between agencies was most commonly listed in reference to communication problems, although resource use conflicts were also sited. Local (or regional) politics can also serve as obstacles. Sometimes the word "politics" was simply used. Somewhat similar to political difficulties may be public support. For some groups, inadequate public support was an obstacle or a limited public understanding of coastal management problems. Public perceptions were also mentioned, either the publics perception of a problem or of government as a management obstacle.

It is worth mentioning in this section, that a distinctive category of response formed about the coastal management problems of U.S. territories. Each of the sanctuaries, reserves, and coastal management, natural resource, or sea grant agencies that responded from this region mentioned enforcement and/or legal authority as obstacles.

Information solutions that may eliminate or reduce the obstacles identified by customers. Of the respondents who listed management obstacles, fewer were able to explain information solutions that would reduce them. The following is an interpreted list of responses that were general enough to potentially be addressed by the Coastal Services Center (excluding requests for specific local data sets or projects).

The most common response related to information exchange. Ten comments described a centralized or on-line source for data/information, including access to expertise, or "the people doing the work:" Specific examples follow:

• Modern coastal/marine library with search and retrieval access from the Internet
• Internet accessible database of site/region information on water quality, resources, projects, etc., with a user-friendly home page
• Knowing how other states deal with [management issues] erosion setbacks, wetland mitigation issues, federal consistency decisions in networked states, non-point source pollution, and management measures
• A clearinghouse of current research, stewardship, and outreach efforts that are going on even before results are in, and on-line database of past projects
• Access to data/locations to data sources, going on-line, receiving assistance
• Availability of baseline data over Internet and distribution of information over Internet
• Develop a network of experts in modeling processes to make information available and conduct problem solving jointly in a use-friendly, interactive environment
• Make commonly used programs available through an on-line service
• On-line forums of reviewing permitting would help; i.e., with a means of locating and accessing appropriate expertise and electric bulletin board (for specific information)

The second most common information solution mentioned was educational products, targeted at both adults and children. In particular, the comments suggested that educational information or programs aimed at influencing voting or politics was most important. Third, after educational information, training was listed as a solution. Specifically, training on information management systems or database management and design were described.

The fourth most common response was integrated GIS systems containing state-level data. Other information solutions listed included normalizing data generated at the local government level to state level; funding for software purchases; GIS data layers, remote sensing imagery, and aerial photography; coastal trends analyses (other than population); digitized baseline information; and examples of policy options or model programs.

2. Computer-based tools and techniques for problem solving. The computer resources portion of the questionnaire requested information about hardware and software capabilities, particularly those involving GIS and remote sensing. Knowledge of these capabilities is important in designing products and services that meet the needs of the Center's customers.

Coastal management activities supported by computer Problem solving requirements can vary widely depending first on the purpose to which computer tools will be put. Respondents were asked to identify the kinds of activities their offices support by using computers to manage or analyze data or information.

Identification of coastal information management problems by computer application Having already been asked about the general case, respondents were asked later in the questionnaire to identify, from among the same coastal problems, those they addressed using GIS and image processing software. The table below compares these different responses. Note that the number of respondents varies with each question.

Coastal problems addressed using GIS or Image Processing Capabilities. After listing which coastal problems are managed using GIS or image processing technologies, the respondents were asked to identify which applications to coastal problems they would implement if these capabilities were available.

Special purpose software. Users' task requirements can be better understood by learning about the functional requirements they meet using software tools. Respondents were asked to identify specific types of software used by their office to manage or analyze data/information.

Computer operating systems. Many computer operating systems are in use today and each involves particular dependencies in the design of compatible software tools. To better understand what computer platforms might host software solutions, respondents were asked to identify the computer operating system(s) used by their office to manage or analyze data/information. Note that only 3 of those offices using PC-DOS and only 12 of those offices using Macintosh operating systems do not also use PC-Windows.

GIS expertise by agency type Although a large portion of agencies surveyed (74 percent) have the capability to handle spatial or geographic data and information, competence in using GIS software can involve a significant investment in time and training. Agencies with operational GISs were asked to evaluate the expertise of their personnel using their system(s).

GIS software products. Although all are designed to manage or analyze spatial data, GIS software products differ significantly in their capabilities and methods. Agencies with operational GISs were asked to identify the GIS software products used in their offices. Note that only 13 percent of offices with an operational capability for GIS do not use ArcView or ARC/INFO.

Image processing expertise by agency type A significant number of the agencies surveyed (35 percent) have the capability to handle data obtained from air and spacecraft-borne sensors. Competence in analyzing remote sensing data can require considerable training and experience. Agencies with image processing capability were asked to evaluate the expertise of their personnel using their software and system(s).

Image processing software products Both the purpose of and methods used in image processing software can differ widely. Agencies with image processing capability were asked to identify from a list those software products used in their offices.

3. Communication pathways and data/information exchange. The communications portion of the questionnaire obtained information useful in determining how CSC can best configure future products and how it might most effectively interact with its customers in the coastal management community.

Internet software tools. Network and web communications are rapidly changing the way information and data are structured and exchanged. To help take maximum advantage of their benefits and to plan for the needs of those not yet connected, respondents were asked to identify Internet software tools used in their offices.

Data/information storage and exchange media. Durable media are important for archival and other non-network functions and for users who need or want to use any of a variety of self-contained, physical formats. To plan for future data interchange requirements, respondents were asked to identify those types of storage media used in their offices.

Comparison of data/information handling capabilities by agency. Respondents are shown below by agency/organization type to provide a comparison of their respective capabilities. The first (left most) set of vertical bars represents the total number of offices of each agency type that responded to the questionnaire. The three sets of bars to the right compare the same office types by their capabilities in spatial data handling (i.e., GIS), image processing, and Internet communications.

Coastal Management Directory. At the time the survey was developed, the Center was considering creating a coastal management dire ctory of individuals and organizations. Users were asked what features of a directory they would find most useful. Some of the features lis ted below have since been incorporated into the Coastal Information Directory (CID); these include library holdings and available data sour ces. Other items, such as coastal management tools and a directory of experts and interested persons, are still being considered for development.

Only six people listed anything in the "other" category and three of them mentioned a need for education and outreach materials. One response was thoughtfully completed and described the need for a clearinghouse for research, stewardship, and outreach efforts of on going and past projects.

Data/information exchange A number of constraints and opportunities influence the ease and productivity of data and information exchange. To better evaluate these elements, respondents were asked to identify those factors that affect distribution/exchange of their office's digital data.

Metadata collection Documenting data about data allows responsible and complete use of data but it also requires greater investment of effort and resources. For those willing or obligated, software and other tools can automate or otherwise simplify the task of compiling metadata. To better understand how users are meeting these challenges, respondents were asked whether their offices are involved in metadata collection and, if so, whether they also used computer tools for that purpose.

4. Current and planned activities and products. The last portion of the questionnaire gave respondents an opportunity to indicate their interest in specific Center-proposed projects. This information will allow the Center to prioritize projects according to customer needs. Products and services developed may include training programs, competitive grants programs, and educational forums.

Training programs. One service emphasis identified by the Center involved training programs in relevant topics offered at low cost in locations throughout the U.S. Respondents were asked to indicate their interests among a list of topics. These topics are distinguished as higher or lower level interests in the tables below.

Other potential CSC Activities. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest), users were asked to rank their interest in:

Library and data/information analysis and synthesis services Other service emphases identified by the Center involved data/information clearinghouse, analysis, and synthesis activities. Respondents were asked to indicate their interests among two categories of such activities. Relatively high interest was indicated in all of the activities in the tables below. Note that 90 percent of respondents identified digital publication of socio-ecological characterization information as useful to their coastal management efforts and 92 percent of respondents named management areas in their region that would benefit from ecological characterization.

Characterizing coastal ecosystems. CSC customers were asked whether they could suggest areas that would benefit from an ecological characterization. About 65 percent of the users responded and most of the responses described regions on a watershed scale. Fifteen of the 21 National Estuarine Research Reserves proposed their sites. Ten organizations requested entire coastlines: Guam, Delmarva Peninsula, southwest Washington coast, California, Southern Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi Gulf coast, Cape Cod, southern Lake Michigan, and Georgia.

Discussion

CSC's Coastal Information Services branch houses the Center's data management and analysis capabilities. Information services objectives are to develop and provide access to accurate, broad-based, and timely information to those people interested in coastal resource management; develop decision-support tools for coastal management; and ensure that the Center staff maintain the professional knowledge base necessary to provide essential services to customers and partners. CSC staff work in partnership with other NOAA, federal, and state organizations to develop information and technology tools for coastal resource managers. CSC's information services functions include GIS, remote sensing, the coastal information library, and Internet access activities. Following are brief interpretations of the survey results as they relate to CSC's functional areas.

Coastal Management Perspective. The results from this customer survey will assist the Coastal Management Services Area in defining training and technical/management assistance activities to the customer. The most interesting results from that perspective actually show significant differences among the three categories of respondents. These categories are defined by the "type" of coastal management responsibilities of the respondent. The coastal management programs and natural resource agencies all have specific state-wide management and regulatory activities, as well as, some education and research responsibilities. The NERRS and NMS have narrow geographic boundaries, and tend to emphasize management, research and education within those boundaries. Sea Grant institutions have research, education, and education responsibilities from the academic community.

Due to the specific differences among these three groups training and management assistance activities and collaboration will be targeted in various ways among the groups. Specifically, the information and tool needs, and the associated capacity-building, for management issues showed interesting trends among these groups.

We are developing training on goals and success criteria for habitat restoration, management assistance in the form of regional restoration planning to address the most common issue to all groups of habitat loss and degradation. Targeted for the Coastal Management Programs is a coastal hazards training course focused on developing the skills to use various information and technical tools for hazards planning and mitigation. The Center has recently compiled policies and regulations for the entire U.S. on beach and dune conservation and management in an effort to address the CZM concerns for erosion.

In the future, issues identified and shared among the natural resource agencies and Sea Grant related to fisheries and shellfish will be addressed through training, workshops, and management assistance activities. For example, CSC collaborated in October 1995 and November 1996 with the NMFS in sponsoring two national conferences on Pollutant Impacts on Marine Fisheries Populations. The third edition of this conference will be held in November of 1997. In another effort the Center is working with selected NERRS and National Estuary Programs to evaluate the use of environmental data and information in making resource management decisions.

GIS Perspective. The customer survey results greatly assist CSC in defining the coastal community's technical needs and specifically help CSC in targeting its spatial data and application development efforts. The survey helps identify the level of expertise of CSC's customers, user's software and hardware format needs, and information gaps that exist in addressing coastal problems. Using this information, CSC can prioritize GIS projects, choosing those that can make the biggest difference to the widest customer base.

The survey has confirmed that a high percentage (74 percent) of CSC customers are using GIS in their daily activities. These customers have varying levels of expertise that span from beginner to advanced. The majority of the agencies are classified as "beginners," with the exceptions of the Natural Resource Departments and the Fish and Wildlife agencies, which tend to be slightly more technologically advanced. A consistent trend identified in the survey results is the gap between the general percentages of coastal problems addressed and the percentage of those who use GIS in addressing those problems. This gap may best be addressed by CSC in a three-fold approach that includes GIS education, application development, and data development.

CSC's GIS education programs will be targeted at users who have little or no GIS experience. As identified in the results section of this report, the desktop mapping software ArcView has the largest market share (81 percent) in the coastal community. CSC can target this segment of its customer base by providing ArcView start-up assistance and beginner classes specifically designed for those in the coastal community.

The survey responses also help CSC prioritize future application development work. In the response section of the report, the critical coastal problems are ranked, with habitat loss/degradation and development pressures listed as the most pressing issues. Combining this information with the GIS software product responses and computer platform information, CSC is able to concentrate development efforts in areas making the largest impact. CSC customers are predominately PC-Windows based, using ArcView, and generally have access to the Internet. This trend in the coastal community mirrors a trend in the general GIS user community and is a function of the availability of powerful, inexpensive, desktop computers and the increased functionality of desktop GIS software. This trend is expected to continue, and CSC will focus development efforts toward the high-end desktop market.

CSC's third approach to addressing the information gap identified by the survey is to increase access to coastal spatial data sets. As identified by the survey, 85 percent of CSC customers have access to the Internet. CSC will focus on identifying and providing on-line access to high quality spatial coastal data. This includes the creation and funding of new data sets; the processing and reformatting of existing data into useable formats; and an effort to create high-quality metadata documentation that will facilitate customer searching and data understanding. As the technology advances, CSC will provide GIS tools via the Internet. In an effort to also serve those customers without Internet access, however, CSC will make applications and spatial data available via CD-ROM. Currently 63 percent of CSC customers have CD-ROMs available on their systems, reflecting the current trend in the desktop computer industry toward CD-ROM data delivery. CSC will continue to use CD-ROMs in conjunction with the Internet to provide data and application access to the coastal community for the foreseeable future.

In addition, the survey results show a beginning of image processing capabilities and expertise within the coastal community. Future GIS efforts at CSC will continue to provide integration of spatial data sets from multiple sources. Remotely sensed raster data from satellite and aircraft platforms will be integrated with vector data sets to provide access to a wide variety of information.

Remote Sensing Perspective. Respondents identified several coastal information management problems that could be addressed effectively through the processing of high-temporal resolution satellite imagery, or low-temporal resolution, high-spatial resolution aircraft-acquired imagery. These management problems, with the identified percentage of active respondents who deal with them, include the following: water quality degradation in rivers and estuaries (63 percent); declining fisheries resources (51 percent); health of shellfish stocks (41 percent); and seafood/ drinking water contamination (24 percent).

The existing capability to conduct the computer image analysis and processing necessary to address these significant management problems is relatively low compared to GIS capability in all respondent categories. Overall, only 13 percent of respondents possess advanced image processing expertise. Only in the NERRS respondent category does significant advanced image processing capability exist (30 percent), and the reported intermediate capability within the Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources, and Sea Grant respondents probably stems from access to ERDAS Imagine.

By far the greatest percentage of respondents (64 percent) reporting some image processing capability cite ERDAS Imagine as their software tool. This may be due to its compatibility with ESRI software. It is apparent that high interest is reported in habitat loss, coastal development, and wetlands impairment, all of which can be addressed through remote sensing.

The generally high level of investment and expertise reported for GIS capability (beginning: 39 percent; intermediate: 25 percent; advanced: 36 percent) implies that the computer hardware and related infrastructure necessary to support more active use of ocean and estuarine remote sensing data is already in place. As noted above, significant coastal information management problems that could be addressed with remote sensing techniques have been identified by the survey; yet, use of these methods lags far behind the utilization of GIS techniques. The explanation for this most likely stems from the following: lack of awareness of new ocean remote sensing data streams; minimal experience in the image processing algorithms used to process high-temporal resolution satellite imagery; and a viewpoint most influenced by training in land, rather than ocean, remote sensing and image analysis techniques amongst those respondents who do possess some image processing capability. Therefore, CSC will investigate the feasibility of providing some remote sensing for coastal applications training, and will continue to integrate spatial information products that show the benefits of using all forms of spatial data in decision making processes.

Information Resources and Internet Perspective. After reviewing the results of the survey, it is apparent that there are a variety of actions CSC can take to provide better information services to the coastal community.

Many of the respondents noted a lack of communication between the various agencies. CSC will address this situation by providing a mailing list (discussion group via e-mail) that customers would subscribe to for discussing various topics, asking questions, and receiving feedback. A general coastal community mailing list will be started and more specific discussion lists, such as those for permits, will be added as appropriate. It already appears that there is sufficient interest to form a GIS discussion group. Mailing lists would be particularly useful for those sites in different time zones. An added benefit of discussion groups is that CSC could determine from this interaction where to best direct its resources to fulfill the needs of the coastal community.

CSC's Library was well received in the survey, and should ensure that surveyed agencies are aware that the library catalogue and web page are available on line. In addition, the e-mail address for the CSC librarian should be distributed, along with a message about available library services.

Respondents who showed an interest in documenting their data or making it available should be made aware of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Grants program. CSC might also contact them for training at CSC or to make them aware of the CSC Metadata web page.

Many respondents also indicated a desire to make their data available, and CSC may contact them to determine how to best facilitate this process. For example, some agencies might need to put up a NSDI Clearinghouse node. By doing this, CSC's Coastal Information Directory could access their data. Other agencies might need help making their metadata FGDC compliant. CSC could either provide help to them, or direct them to the NSDI Grants program.

Conclusion

CSC has designed its Coastal Information Management Survey to facilitate identification and development of technologies and information that support sustainable use and management of coastal resources. The survey results presented in this document help to identify the products and services CSC clients want and need to further this goal; the results also provide valuable information related to computing capabilities in the various agencies, as well as the analytical tools they use. CSC and its partners will use the information provided in this document to develop more effective and efficient methods of bridging the gap between the needs of coastal resource managers and the applied science solutions available to them.

List of Contributors

The Coastal Services Center would like to recognize the generous contributions of the following individuals and organizations that provided assistance in the design and content of the survey tool or in the analysis of survey results.