Community Integrated GIS Pilot Project: Sharing Scientific and Local Knowledge

Island Institute, Rockland ME

Investigators

Abstract

Community Integrated GIS Pilot Project: Sharing Scientific Knowledge This project develops a Regional Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Resource Center that will be part of a small but expandable GIS-based network for the dissemination and exchange of scientific data. The pilot structure initially consists of three community GIS workstations (separately- funded) on the Maine islands of Vinalhaven, Islesboro and Peaks, which will be integrated with and supported by the regional center at the Island Institute's facility in Rockland, Maine. The project is supported by other community-oriented research agencies, including: The Lobster Conservancy (Friendship, Maine), The Fisheries Atlas (MIT/Rutgers), the Maine Office of GIS, the Maine State Planning Office, the Gulf of Maine Information Exchange (GOMINFOEX) and the National Mapping Project (USGS). GIS, while increasingly a common medium for the management and exchange of data between the science community and the lay audience, has great, and largely unexplored, potential as an educational and spatial decision support tool in small communities. However, training and capacity-building are needed on the ground in order to forge an effective and lasting link between communities and scientists, and to increase the practical use of scientific data locally. Two of the primary assumptions of this proposal are that 1) small towns have unique strengths which often are not maximized in the current education and information management paradigms; and 2) that new technologies like GIS create new opportunities to reconsider these paradigms. This project explores ways in which communities can be uniquely empowered through linkage to locally relevant scientific data. The aim is to create a truly integrated capacity to access, process, create, and share scientific data through GIS in small communities and to facilitate the connection between this local information and the broader world of science and research. The local GIS workstations will be common-format repositories for locally relevant geospatial information - a valuable resource for formal and informal place-based education, research activities, and community-based resource management.