Location, Location, Location

Continued

The Conservancy credits much of the success of its Conservation by Design initiative to the expert use of geospatial information and analytics to identify various hotspots where resources are needed to promote biodiversity efforts. The organization creates layers of digital maps using ESRI’s ArcGIS applications and multiple implementations of Oracle Database 10g to analyze information from third-party publishers and government agencies. Using spatial-savvy algorithms, Conservancy experts pore over the digital maps and underlying data about plant and animal species, climate, and nearby developed areas to make quick decisions about where to dedicate the Conservancy’s expertise or where they might acquire easements to preserve a particular geographic area.

“We set priorities through a rigorous process so that when opportunities come up we have a way of evaluating whether or not they fit within our portfolio of conservation areas,” says Matthew Merrifield, the Conservancy’s geographic information system (GIS) manager for California. “Our planning is based on scenario building—we look at future possibilities to assess the risk to biodiversity.”

Relying on Geospatial Technology

Although the Conservancy has long been a proponent of geospatial applications, its reliance on the technology has taken off since the launch of its Conservation by Design initiative in the mid 1990s. The systematic approach that the initiative promotes is able to pinpoint key conservation areas in the U.S. and 30 other countries and help determine what resources to conserve in each location, and how best to achieve the goals of individual projects. The overarching goal of the initiative is to conserve “enough of everything” through ecosystems that sustain people, plants, and animals, while its near-term objective is to conserve a minimum of 10 percent of every major habitat type on Earth by 2015. The chances for success seem good given the Conservancy’s track record—the organization estimates that it has protected more than 117 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide since 1951.

Merrifield emphasizes that geospatial applications are essential for analyzing the data his organization relies on. “We could study a pile of paper maps and augment them with field information, but with GIS we aggregate all the information into a digital database that lets us make informed queries,” he says. Merrifield estimates that about 500 staff members—nearly 20 percent of the organization—use geospatial applications in their work. “We’re pretty spatially literate,” he says.

The Conservancy isn’t alone in recognizing the value of spatial analysis. It’s becoming important for everything from retailers that are determining the right mix of demographics and traffic for a new location to law enforcement and intelligence agencies looking to identify hideout locations for criminals. “The big breakthroughs in GIS are in spatial analytics—the ability to decide where to locate a new store, or, from a scientific perspective, to model changes in landscapes, for example,” says Jack Dangermond, ESRI president.

Thus, the issues that businesses face correspond to those that challenge the Conservancy. “Enterprises need to understand where to best deploy their limited resources and what kind of returns they are getting by region,” says Oracle’s Steiner. “Spatial technology, like [those] from ESRI and in Oracle Spatial and Oracle [Application Server] MapViewer, can help them analyze a service area or a sales territory to better understand how assets are deployed and if they’re being used most efficiently.”