Summary and Conclusion

Summary

This report covers the status of the national Gap Analysis Program over the 1994 and 1995 federal fiscal years (October 1, 1993 to September 30, 1995). During this period, the program has been effective in overcoming technical limitations as well as catalyzing cooperative efforts on a state-by-state basis to map land cover, model habitat types, predict species distributions, and map land management. This information is finding many different uses at all levels of the public and private sectors, including the original purpose of assessing the conservation status of species and land cover types that are still common, in order to prevent future conservation crises.

The national Gap Analysis Program is supported by the National Biological Service, the Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency. By the end of the 1995 federal fiscal year, state projects were funded and operational in 40 states, with 430 state-level partner organizations. Nine states had developed data that are being used in one way or another, and the land cover data were being edge-matched across the borders of many Western states.

The two most significant operational achievements during this period were: (a) the assembly and acquisition of the first set of Landsat TM satellite imagery for the 48 contiguous states and the development of the MRLC partnership, and (b) the advances in the land cover classification system, its acceptance by the Federal Geographic Data Committee, and the formation of the Ecological Society of America's Vegetation Panel. Important progress was also made with airborne GPS-registered video, image interpretation software converted from Cold War applications, and vertebrate species models. The compilation of animal specimen collection records and exhaustive literature references into a database is proving to be a powerful tool in itself. The aquatic component of GAP was developed in concept, and a pilot project is under way. Additionally, state- and region-wide maps of land cover and species distributions are being assessed for their accuracy, where, in the past, similar maps have not provided statistical measures of data performance.

The three greatest challenges facing GAP in the 1996 fiscal year are: (a) given limited resources, fostering the development of state projects in those states that do not have a GAP project, (b) the development and implementation of an affordable procedure for assessing the accuracy of all maps, and (c) securing state-level capabilities for archiving, distributing, and updating GAP data. In addition, GAP will continue working to edge-match data from adjacent states and to meet the recommendations of the peer-review panel.

Conclusion

Gap Analysis began in 1988 as "a quick overview of the distribution and conservation status of several components of biodiversity" (Scott et al. 1993). As state GAP projects in the West complete the development phase of synoptic land cover information, vertebrate species distributions, and land management criteria, the iterative analyses of these data are beginning to affect natural resource management decisions of local, state, and federal agencies. This information is also providing a capability for emerging statewide biodiversity planning efforts, for example, in Tennessee, California, and Oregon. Of equal importance, though, is the way natural resources institutions (private and public) are coalescing around the concept of a standard large-area information base.

The concept underlying GAP promotes the importance of assessing the conservation status for the elements which make up biological diversity rather than putting off any real action until perfect methods have been conceptualized, tested, published, replicated, adopted, diffused, funded, and applied. Today, we have the capabilities to build powerful sets of information that correspond to the multiple levels of biotic organization. And, we have the ability to foster the application of that information, by all concerned, to help solve the seemingly inexorable problems of accommodating the development and use of our natural resources while maintaining our biological heritage. Doing so requires that professionals and their institutions put aside past disciplinary and institutional differences, assume some risk, and commit to work together with whatever resources they have. The GAP state projects show how this can be done successfully.

In its simplest form, GAP represents solutions to a planning problem. GAP applies emerging science and technology to solve some of our most difficult resource problems. Because of that, GAP necessarily spans not only the issues of new science and technology in the fields of geography, computer science, remote sensing, ecology, biology, and others, but broader issues which are organizational in nature. These include overcoming barriers between disciplines as well as redefining institutional roles, organization, and cooperation.