| [ HOME | Ranging Home | Table of Contents | The Finder | Glossary ] |
October 1996
Abstract
System Shenandoah is a design document for a system of that name which may one day be created. Advice and suggestions are sought to improve the concept and venture capital is sought to make the concept real.
There are three large related parts of the system:
1. The Shenandoah National Park (190,000 acres) and all of its resources, staff, and infrastructure.
2. The University (Virginia Tech) with its library, consulting, and research resources.
3. A new multi-dimensional natural-resource-based enterprise unifying the Park, its region, and the University.
The objectives of the System are to set standards of excellence in resource management in the region, improve employment, increase Park benefits to citizens, and open diverse opportunities for Virginia Tech students and graduates. Profits are foreseen and dedicated funding from these profits will stabilize longterm wildland-related research.
Examples of integrative projects developed by the three-part System are:
1. A computer-based land management game and educational unit, one eventually being used in a notable regional competition.
2. Innovative diverse eco-tourism with memberships in new organizations, new nature "sports", and new educational events.
3. Integrated deer damage management dealing with auto-strikes, threats to endangered plants, and crop loss to deer at the edges of the Park.
Over 25 components of System Shenandoah together result in a new, dynamic public-private partnership for an eight-county region of the state.
System Shenandoah
All National Parks are beset with problems and needs in an ever-changing political environment. Pressures increase from an increasing new set of diverse users whose range of interests, values, knowledge, and outdoor experience is now very great. There has always been uncertainty about parkland management and what complete naturalness (a hands-off concept) may mean contrasted to various levels of manipulation, control, intervention, even restoration, to achieve some previous state. The Shenandoah Park is beset with these and other problems. It is a Park ahead of the curve, probably experiencing problems of types and magnitude likely to be experienced by other similar national parks in the near future. It needs support systems now, but those that are developed are likely to have their greatest effect when used as general systems, examples, or as prototypes for other Parks for their coming problems.
A new spirit of need for less public and more private involvement in life has been expressed. Often expressed as reduced public agency employment and reduced funds for established agencies, the perceived spirit can have profound effects on the land and on its managers, especially as public land use increases while funds for protection and management decrease. There is no singular solution but System Shenandoah is one effort to provide some assistance. It seeks to create a new complex enterprise, a diverse, for-profit company working in the Park region, utilizing Park land, gaining support from the University, encouraging students, using research from Virginia Tech, and stabilizing employment for local citizens.
With the U.S. having an international reputation for scientific research, the citizens of the U.S. have turned against supporting research, reports the National Science Foundation. Drastic cuts and re-organizations have occurred. Many (but not all) areas of research in the University have been cut and costs have increased. The University seeks new ways to continue to produce research results as it has in the past, to maintain momentum. The environmental research areas have suffered greatly, often because of unclear linkages and agency assignments. The needs for ecological knowledge, for understanding biodiversity and its proper care, for reducing wildlife damage, for protecting rare species, for assuring enjoyment without losses to the wilds ... all are real. The faculty and students of the University have a history of progress in these areas, superior studies and models, and a risk-taking dedication required to do such studies under very trying and dangerous conditions. The union of these three -- the Park, the new company, and the University -- in a unique effort can bring new benefits to citizens at lowest possible tax costs, and can move new research findings from publication to practice, making a National Park the centerpiece of a rich area of Virginia for Virginians and -- because of the large number of visitors -- to many people of Earth.
The following sections outline the parts of the System.
Decision Aids
Decision makers make decisions. They are people who take risks in an instant, then proceed to implement a decision. No computer or other system, no committee makes decisions. There is eventually only one decision maker. Decisions discussed herein are formal, high-value, and profound --- not of the simple but often difficult type such as whether to stay at the desk or go to the field. The singular system proposed is highly integrated. Parts of it probably can be found elsewhere. Parts have been developed but laid aside because they were not related, well integrated with other aspects of the Park operation. A decision for condition A may have adverse effects against condition B if there are not substantial efforts to relate the two. Experienced managers do this well now, but the problem now and for the near future is that 50 factors must be integrated and the people may not be experienced due to agency changes, rapid personnel moves, and rapid changes in the parks themselves (e.g., interior storms or fires; exterior industrial development).
Integrated decision aids are needed. A system of such aids is needed. Because of past experience and extensive study, most of those needs are now known. No costly needs assessment must be done. By intensive application of feedback and adaptive work in a system designed for it, new needs can be seen and cost-effective responses made in the context of the existing system with synergistic results. Change need not require a new step, an additional unit, but only a new nested subsystem to achieve the precise desired result.
Scattered within the literature of the past 40 years is the premise of operations research specialists that if your client can state objectives, then use optimization procedures; if not, use simulation. The results of presenting a computer system with a question like "What if I change x? What will be the consequences?" is to engage a simulation. There are legal and other bases for goals and objectives but it is an area needing much work. Now, with limited stated objectives, only simulation is feasible. The situation or context for decisions is that if you change x, then the following 150 changes will occur (each with 80% confidence); some positive, some negative. Now decision maker, integrate them and decide! The situation is not imaginary. It is unusual, because only 10 - 20 factors are considered, confidence is less than 80%, and staff probably should integrate many more than 20 factors in the brief period of many parkland decision situations.
System Shenandoah as proposed and if implemented will contain a new procedure for setting and measuring achievement of objectives. This procedure includes:
The concept of any system has at its most fundamental level the need for clear objectives. No decisions can be tested without them; nothing designed, no evaluations made, no feedback implemented, no cost-effectiveness decided without them.
Decision Aid Units
After 30 years of experience and effort, it has become clear that one (or a few) large systems will not meet the many, diverse, daily needs of managers of the average large public land holding. Both large and small systems or programs are needed. They range among those used to make biomass estimates per unit area, do conventional statistics or simple economic computations (e.g., break-even or present value estimates), compute gravel needs, specify gulley control structures, estimate seed germination, or make population estimation (e.g., 66 programs by Giles in heuristic convergence disk). Many staff educational units are available. Increased efficiency is the objective, for eventually it may mature to increasing effectiveness -- efficiency in achieving the stated objectives.
There are many programs available. More are needed. The new computer environments give us unique capabilities to work in programming hyperspace -- to use one program, get results, then link to another and use data from a third program or data file to solve a problem before going to the field tomorrow. New approaches called expert systems are to be developed with these aids.
Shenandoah: The Game
Support for creating a computer game like Myst will be sought. The educational potentials, outreach, and broad-scale influence of such a system -- and its support -- are almost unlimited. The game will contain elements of most of what is described herein and will be useable by children or adults. An annual competition will be held on site or near the Park.
Knowledge-Base
Limited funds, restricted interests, and shifts in public appreciation of research all lead to limitations in funds for classical park science. Herein we propose to develop a knowledge base needed for effective operation of the system. Remaining true to past practices of allowing scientists access to the Park for many purposes of their own, the present approach will be to fund and encourage studies that contribute in likely ways to System objectives. A knowledge base is built in many ways; certainty is approached -- within limits. Induction for learning has served well and will continue to do so. There are alternatives, however, and while they may not be desired (and counter-effort launched), they do exist and need to be used in the present situation.
The key premise is that once a System is seen clearly and modeled, then the needed inputs can be specified. All knowledge is potentially good but in the systems view, and in a resource-restricted environment, only necessary inputs can be afforded. Rational allocation of limited funds requires (1) that the system run, and (2) that objectives be achieved at lowest feasible costs (i.e., the cost-effective state). One dollar spent for knowledge not certain to be used (at some high probability) is good knowledge but irrelevant to the present and planned (50-year horizon) system. Need-to-know replaces nice-to-know. It is a difficult and often unpleasant premise given the influence of past educational systems. It is one of the difficult decisions made by people who will commit to creating System Shenandoah.
Karish has recognized the need for collecting all available information on the Shenandoah National Park. This is a massive project and may not be completed because of limited resources. An alternative, within the System context, is to attack the needed knowledge first, then as resources become available, to gain other information. Of course, needed knowledge cannot be decided without a view of the total system and analyses of the factors to which objectives are most sensitive... and that cannot be developed without objectives.
No further debates about basic or applied research, studies, monitoring, surveys, descriptions... etc. are relevant. If knowledge is gained and made retrievable within a common source, then it is "good" necessary for an operational system.
Most scientists can list 50 topics or questions of interest or that can be studied well and hypotheses tested. Herewith, we propose the same quality studies but only to support and encourage topics that may improve the System operation and score.
"Findings" of any type, of quality, are primary system input. Following our success in developing a national wildlife information system (now used in 20 states and countries) we propose to implement it for all national parks, expand it to include a national parks botany information system, and develop a separate invertebrate information system.
With the extensive, expanding electronic library base of the Virginia Tech library and the internationally prominent VTLS library system we propose to develop a knowledge base, an access center (not a physical "holdings" center).
We also propose to add relevant documents (scanned, etc.) to an "asksam" data base allowing complete-text word searching.
Permanent Staff
Often viewed as operators or as part of any system's process, permanent staff may be viewed as input agents -- ideas, knowledge, energy. Part of the system's operation is continual education, staff involvement and team work, and clear points of contact where inputs are expected and can be made with appropriate feedback. Staff become a resource for students as student volunteers become a resource for the Park. Volunteers or graduates may become staff of the proposed enterprise.
Operation Center
In systems work, staff and facilities are often omitted from plans and descrip- tions. Emphasis is on software and hardware. If staff cannot be achieved and stabilized, then the system will fail. Initial support needs to be translated into long-term dependable service. The system envisioned is one scattered around the state with some staff within the Park, others at Virginia Tech, others in office and lands throughout the region.
The major software/computer operation is proposed for the Park. Development of some products and software will be at Virginia Tech. Offices of the various components will be scattered, partially to assure wide-spread regional employment.
A war-room-like space is proposed for small-group education, for visiting dignitaries, and for intensive staff meetings. This is conceived as a high-technology room.
Guidance
One use of such a room is for presentation of Guidance reports (see Appendix 2). R-star Guidance is a planning system that replaces conventional "book" plans. It serves the Park, adjacent counties if they so desire, and other clients. The general nature of the system allows its widespread use and a means by which knowledge of park staff may be exported to others. The planning system incorporates research and descriptive elements of the knowledge base, uses current data, and uses optimization.
The Learning Center
Users of the Park now get a pass. Where feasible staff provide information on road conditions, safety hazards, and new developments. Addresses may be gained for future contacts for events; memberships are solicited for Friends, Nature Folks, and others. User satisfaction and interest surveys are conducted.
For ecotourists, a center may be developed, like one in Williamsburg and other heavily used areas provide information about the Park and its rules--a primary step in law violation prevention and site protection.
Special programs teach campcraft, nature, and ecology. A series of advanced classes and workshops (distance learning) are taught. A special unit to expand the Park and all of its potentials onto the internet is formed.
Cultural Work and Park Users
If a meteor struck Earth and all human life was lost in the northern hemisphere, it would be almost impossible to re-construct the present society from our remains. It seems reasonable to start from the present and work back in history. Opportunities need to be seized but known-to-unknown seems essential. A verbal history needs to be collected, automated, and indexed before the elders are lost. A set of ecologically-related questions needs to be prepared and used as part of efforts to collect local expert elders' knowledge about the area.
The dynamics of park users needs to be determined. Society changes, especially as a function of age structure. To design park facilities to meet needs of a population no longer interested seems unreasonable. The value derived from scenes, sightings, services, and experiences need to be known and relative values determined for subpopulations. As these groups change, natural "succession" of values and benefits derived change. These can be modeled and managerial responses made.
Volunteer efforts by youth and others are needed. Intensive work on optimal sample size, exact location (GPS), careful recordings in electronic form ... all are needed to support the ecological model. If surplus effort exists beyond that determined from the design, or if other work is desired, then that is up to the individual and they are unlikely to gain support or encouragement until all needed studies are completed.
How is need established? By an objective, one in the large list developed for the Park. An example objective may be: To stabilize native plant species abundance at or above an estimated minimum viable population level.
It would result in a GIS-based plant survey with area-proportional sampling near roads. It would also result in a paper and model precisely defining minimum viable population level. The level will differ for each species. Since many species will be abundant and risks of error or failure slight, emphasis will be concentrated on unusual areas (low proportion of map cells) and rare plants. A general plant model is developed. Studies of the rare plants are assembled in the plant data base. Dominant spatial conditions are used in first phase analyses:
Using GIS with the above, re-introductions may follow intensive surveys to increase the occurrence and reduce probabilities of losses from catastrophe of the plants. Fire suppression efforts in select areas might be adjusted to enhance some species, reduce some competitors.
The same GIS-based models will be used to achieve other objectives. An invertebrate model (especially the human disease vectors) will be linked to the plant model (e.g., tree-hole mosquitoes, culicoids, and ticks). A human hazard map will logically result from ecological maps and allow managers to discourage seasonal use of some areas, encourage use elsewhere, and provide advice to area users about needed protection and practices.
Trail building, as another example, becomes an ecological problem and its solution is derived from dynamic programming that, for example, locates across the landscape a trail connecting two points that achieves:
Funding
The Park has access to federal funds and these are likely to continue. Increases, even stability, remain in question. Stabilizing funds, for many reasons, seems desirable, at least one reason being high protection of the Park and increasing benefits to the people of Virginia, the U.S., and world visitors. Another is that any system, of the type described herewith, must be maintained and used if it will payoff. Many good systems have been created; their expected value never materialized because of staff changes, organizational change, or innovations that replace rather than improve or display adaptive improvement.
Part of the strategy of System Shenandoah is to achieve a diverse funding base. This includes:
Enterprises
Parts of the base funding, the items listed above, (e.g., 1,2,4,5 and 6) are probably well known. The enterprises (3) are new developments needed as additional funding sources for studies, park protection, education of the staff and public, reduced conflicts, and expanded citizen benefits from the rich Park resources available. Preliminary proposals are available for the following private, for-profit enterprises, with percentage profit to the Park System:
1. Guides - A resource and cultural guide service for visitors operated by Virginia Tech students and trained local people
2. Nature Folks - A new nature-study organization with phenology being an emphasis. Newsletter, annual conference, tours, eco-tours, etc.
3. Staff - Sale of a new multipurpose walking/hiking staff or cane
4. Deer Group - Comprehensive region-wide deer management group with major work in the Park
5.Publications - Nature and natural resource publications, photographs, GIS maps, etc.
6.Research Team - Conventional research as a non-profit group, funded by foundations, etc.
7.Wildland Knowledge Base - Based in the VA Tech library, providing reports, literature, bibliographies, re-print service.
8.Software - Natural resource based software, a new "game", custom work on web sites and programs.
9.Trail Crew - Contract trail construction and maintenance
10. Hotshots - A regional fire-fighting crew
11.Lasting Forests - Sophisticated private land management achieving economies of scale
12.The Fishery - Private pond, lake, and stream management.
13. Avi - A new sport of bird watching with the first courses on the Park
14.Wild Turkey Guild - Intensive land management for the wild turkey on private land (tours, etc. on the Park)
15. Guidance - A planning system for large land ownerships, counties, and others
16. The Advance - A group to assist the courts in supervised community service work -- required by the courts constructive, meaningful, planned work on the Park.
17. The Owl Group - Membership in a tour group that has keen interest in owl ecology. Night expeditions; international eco-tours. A life- list of owls of the world is promoted; services are provided to enable people to expand their list.
None of these will "work" by itself but will become profitable and stable as a single, integrated, diverse company. It will succeed with emphasis and orientation on the Park, with percentage profit going to the Park budget and to the University. As public pressure reduces tax support and encourages enterprises, then the strategy suggested above may be a proper response.
Specific-user fees (item 6 under funding strategies above) are seen as part of the enterprises or separate from them. Fees are not for use of the land or staff but as payment for extra personal services related to the Park use (e.g., guides, safety).
Often matching funds are needed to achieve grants or support. It may be that some Virginia Tech faculty salaries or use of equipment may be used as matching, thus enhancing the potentials for gaining support for the Park.
Post-Graduate Evaluation
The System Shenandoah "Pinnacle" is a certificate given to a person who has demonstrated ability to perform 500 acts recognized by a board of experts as needed by the modern sophisticated graduate of any university forestry, ecology, or environ- mental program. These are demonstratable skills. An evaluator observes: do X or not. The events range from build a fire, through measure a tree, to write a program to calculate the standard deviation of a set of numbers. People from all over the eastern U.S. come to the area, pay a fee, take the tests, and display the perform- ance that they desire. A certificate of the competency displayed is awarded. After many visits, the 500 or pinnacle level is reached. Current grade inflation and highly variable course requirements in universities and alternative modes of learning will make this certificate as valuable to some employers (and employees) as a university transcript. Part of the tests may be conducted on the Park.
The Deer Subsystem
A book on the Shenandoah deer is needed to unify the knowledge about the deer of the Park and its 8 counties, present current problems, help develop objectives and policy, and present a document that lays out for the public the alternatives for herd management.
A computer simulation will be used with results shown in the book. GIS will be an essential part of the work. The deer is one of the most pressing problems perceived for the Park because it is visible, emotional, physical, and suggests the control that managers have over it and, by analogy, any other aspect of park management. Like litter in a park, failure to "clean-up" begets more problems. The primary deer problems perceived are:
There is no single solution to deer problems. A cost-effective continuous management program is needed. The problem will continue to be threatening but, under control, the population can be kept under a threshold of concern and above a user-benefits level. A private, sophisticated, cooperative control system is proposed as part of the organization.
Ecosystem Work
A species list is as important to a National Park as a waterfall, a cave, a scene. It is a local as well as a national resource. People come to benefit from a resource. The list is a statement of potential human benefits that may be derived from an area. We can expand the lists, make them seasonal, trail specific, or road-segment specific. Users need to be able to relate to a stream, a mountain, a slope of the Park (only a few will relate to the whole). Competition to achieve sightings of species on lists similar to bird watcher life lists can be encouraged. Sales of the lists and payment for tours and trips to see more can pay for expanded programs.
The GIS is a way to make ecosystem knowledge relevant. The public will seek out maps of potential habitat in the Park where they can get warbler x for their Park life list.
The ecosystem to be mastered is the 30 x 30 meter pixel, the map unit of the Landsat. The Park can lead the way past watershed management, past ecosystem management, past landscape ecology into a multi-level comprehension of the eco-volume, an entity that is pixel size but 8 km above and 8 km below the surface. Map layers of conventional GIS are expanded to include 1000 species maps, geologic strata, nearness-to zones, distance from water (as a terrestrial animal requirement but not directly observable within each pixel or map cell). The new ecosystem is the multi-dimensional, temporal, hypervolume of the Park and its relevant surround.
Structure, dynamics, and relations are classic ecosystem categories. Descriptions of structure will continue. Dynamics are centered on succession and biomass per unit area per unit time (classic ecosystem production estimates). Production must be related to the biomass units, (the tree, fish, snail, grass, mouse, shrew, etc.) so that when the demand units for objectives in each taxonomic unit, deficits or excesses can be assessed. Status, condition at a time, can be thereby assessed (even though no action to change the status may be feasible or known). Human value is attached to each structural element in setting objectives.
Most first-phase models will address:
Congress now has over 20 bills before it addressing risk assessment. We propose to address risk in the ecosystem models in terms of probability of occurrence in a pixel and probability of achieving the level of demand established in objectives. Results may be expressed as a pseudo- expected value, well known in economic models. "Occurrence" becomes probable occurrence or [1.0-the risk of failure]. Expected value will be described in detail as part of the objectives subsystem and where most actively used, in Guidance.
Ecosystem work is critically important, but it achieves new meaning and relevance when it is seen as a major component of the objectives-achieving total system objectives, not some extra scientific work that may or may not be done -- depending on annual budgets. Elucidation of ecological principles is done to improve the functional model. Publication, even in new electronic formats, is secondary. In- creased detail of modeling is laid aside if increased gains in Park performance scores cannot be foreseen. Statistical confidence levels are relaxed to alpha of 0.3 or less. Sample sizes are reduced and operational results are thereby hastened. Ability to model expert decisions well (as well as the ecosystem itself) becomes the new criterion, with pressure for rapid continual improvements.
Emphasis will be on non-migrant species for these are the primary species depending on the Park for breeding and wintering. Park responsibility for species predominantly in the control of others is unreasonable. The Park's support of migrants may be used in justifications, but where migrants are among the objectives, the Park's score may decline for reasons totally unrelated to local, even superior, action. National and international agency work is needed for the migrants.
Ecotourism
An example of the union of the three major parts of System Shenandoah -- the Park, the enterprise, and the University -- is the proposed ecotourism project. Within the System a new concept of a system for a National Park has been developed. It integrates (1) knowledge-base creation and research, 2) local enterprises and employment, (3) comprehensive computer-based decision aids, (4) ecosystem and economic modeling, and (5) teaching-learning systems with expert internet work for staff, students, and the public. The area is the 8 counties in which the 190,000 acre Park occurs.
It has been proposed that Virginia Tech create an office, a specialized business incubator near the Park. It will promote the businesses above, provide computer capabilities for linkages with Virginia Tech's Wildlife Information Exchange, later the Smithsonian at Front Royal, and develop computer presentation media for outreach and education in the region of the Park.
The ecotourism unit seeks to market the rich resources of the Park, create related sales and services of equipment, clothing, food, lodging, and supplies; offer guided tours and unique experiences; develop new organizations with lasting memberships; and attract gifts, bequests, and contract research projects. The tours will provide opportunities for students for work experience and education, funds for tuition, and graduate research opportunities. Because of an unusual planned-research program, visitors may become participants in substantive research programs that are part of the mission of the Park and the University. Local people through youth program support, write about, study and relate to the Park and its base for the local economy.
Summary
A great natural resource, the Park, exists in Virginia. It can be protected and its use and benefits increased for a wide variety of local citizens, park staff, Virginians, and thousands of visitors --- even in the face of stable or declining budgets. System Shenandoah uses principles learned from general systems theory and 30 years of wildland research, systems development, ecosystem structure itself, computer mapping, and creative information system building. It exploits ideas of modern diverse corporations that have parallels in ecosystems.
The concepts here need constructive critique. The next step will be for friends of the Park who see the financial, humane, and ecological worth of the System to aid in identifying and organizing the venture capital that, by first estimates, will pay off well in 3 years. Contacts will be welcomed.
| Quick Access to the Contents of LastingForests.com |
|---|
This Web site is maintained by R. H.
Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.