Analyzing

Public Par/cipa/on
Data for Transporta/on Planning
in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie
Na/onal Forest, WA
Alexa Todd, alexatodd@gmail.com
David Banis, dbanis@pdx.edu

GIS in Action - May 5, 2015 - Vancouver, Washington

Na#onal Forest Road System

380,000+ miles of roads (paved, gravel
and dirt)
15,000 log trucks per day (down from
42,000 in 1990)
1.7 million recreational vehicles per day
80% of use takes place on 20% of the
system
$8.4 billion maintenance and
reconstruction backlog

2005 Travel Management Rule

All National Forests must analyze their road systems by 2015

All National Forests must

propose transportation
management systems that
meet travel, administrative, and
resource protection needs
within their available budgets.

Decisions will be made about :

Upgrades
Closures
Decommissioning
Road-to-trail conversions

Mt. BakerSnoqualmie
National Forest

MBS Na/onal
Forest Road
Network
Road miles: 2,500+
Road users: 5 million
visitors/ year
Budget sufficient to
maintain only 25% of
current road miles

MBS Na/onal
Forest Road
Network
Most roads initially
created for timber
harvesting.
Today roads provide
access to trails,
campgrounds, rivers,
timber, and other
recreational, commercial
and non-commercial
activities.

Criteria for Road Closures

Economic
Economic opportunity (timber,
tourism)
Maintenance costs
Ecological
Forest health
Aquatic habitat; wildlife habitat
(endangered species)
Practical
Physical geography (floods,
landslides, erosion)
Engineering analysis (road
condition; public safety)

Social
Visitor use (recreation)
Diversity of activities that road
may support
Community needs (firewood,
forage, access)

Sustainable Roads Mapping:

Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie Na#onal Forest
1. Engage the public about use and importance of national
forest roads.
2. Create socio-spatial data to display public values, uses,
and priorities for forest roads.
3. Integrate socio-spatial data with other information to
develop a sustainable roads strategy.

Collabora#ve Process
Mt. Baker
Snoqualmie
Na#onal Forest
(Facilitation)

WTA
Sustainable Road
Cadre (SRC)
(Implementation)

PNW Research Sta#on

TWS

(Research design/
information broker)

PSU

(GIS
Analysis)

Info.
Funding

Public Engagement Process:

Workshops
8 Public Meetings
(May-November 2013)

Demographic Survey
Mapping Activity
Guided Dialogue

Mee#ngs capped at 52 par#cipants due

to space and logis#cs limita#ons.

Public Meeting
SRC [pilot test]
SeaTle
Sedro Woolley
Issaquah
Enumclaw
Darrington
Bellingham
Monroe
EvereT
TOTAL

Attendance
22
24
22
24
24
52
52
36
28
284

Mapping Forest Des#na#ons

ON THE MAP
1. Place a dot on the map for
each destination.
2. Trace the route you travel to
reach that destination.

FILL-IN BLANKS
Identify 8 forest destinations
Roads you use to get there
Why destination is important
Activities you do there
Frequency of visits
Type of vehicle used

Addi#onal Informa#on
o Basic demographics
o Frequency of forest visits
o Frequency & types of roads
used
o Reasons for road use
o Prioritizing forest functions
o Open comments

Stats
Ave. participants per meeting:
35 (Range: 22-52)
Gender:
74% male / 26% female
Ave. years in area: 36 years
Ave. age: 55 years
Percent retired: 33.3%

Public Engagement Process:

Online Survey
Online Survey Available to Public
Summer 2013
Afterthought - to provide
access to those who could not
attend workshops
Data collected & owned by
Washington Trails Assoc.

Participants

Count

started survey

1775

provided zip-code

1538

provided zip-code and

loca#on data

898

provided zip-code and

map-able data

719

Dierences of the Online Survey

Workshop

1.trace roads on map;

place s/ckers on
map for
des/na/ons
2.paper maps - 2, 4
foot tall
3.share map with
group at table

Online

4. write road
and
des/na/on
name/
number
5. ll-in
demographic
informa/on

1.NO MAPPING
2.digital version of the
workshop maps - as
big as the monitor
3.par/cipate on
computer from
home or other place
with internet

Summary of Analysis
1st Stage

PSU hired to do analysis

Provided background
information and data
Digitization (ArcMap),
attribute data entry
(Excel), and
querying (Access)

Analysis of
workshop
data

Classify activities and values;

Density of roads and destinations;
Diversity of uses;
Diversity-density index

Production (and edits) of

material for presentation

Multiple rounds
of QC 5 people
Evaluation of online survey data
processing
data
Develop method for incorporating
online survey data

2nd Stage

3rd Stage
4th Stage

Workshop Map Data

images of maps (see David)

Ac#vity Classes
Activity Class

Count

Percentage
of Features

Hiking

913

53%

Winter Recreation

207

12%

Motorized Recreation

341

20%

Strenuous Recreation

370

21%

Observation

321

19%

Collecting/ Harvesting

183

11%

Camping/ Relaxation

329

19%

Sociocultural

226

13%

Challenging to create
classes that everyone
agrees with!

Value Classes
Percentage of total value counts

Extracted from
comments
Informed by
literature on
values mapping
Not the focus
of analysis

3%
6%
9%

18%

3%

Access/Proximity
Recrea/on/Ac/vity
Sociocultural
Aesthe/c
Serenity/Solitude

16%

Nature/Wilderness
37%
8%

Economic/Work
Subsistence

Road Density

1. Workshop roads digitized

using USFS roads data
2. Intersected roads to
segment based on where
participants marked
3. Dissolved [on road length]
to create single road
density counts

Des#na#on
Density
1. Destination points digitized
2. Wilderness destination
points snapped to nearest
road end (when possible)
3. Kernel function creates a
smooth surface from the
points density of
destinations per square
mile
4. Weighted by frequency of
use

Analysis of Data Subsets

Represent different stakeholder
groups
Evaluate differences in road and
destination users
View patterns that are hidden by
dominant data
Data Subsets:
Zip-code areas
Ranger districts
Activities

Whatcom

Zip-Code Areas

Pierce/S. King

Skykomish

Ranger Districts

Snoqualmie

Motorized Rec.

Activities

Collec/ng &
Harves/ng

Diversity of Uses
Based on 1) number of
activity classes and 2)
how evenly those classes
are distributed
Evaluated several
diversity indices
Chose Inverted Simpson
because it yields the
effective number of
activity classes (max. 8)
Each participant worth 1
activity multiple activities
converted to fractions

Density-Diversity
Index
One way to look at data
results for decision-making

Diversity

Diversity increases with

density of users (nonlinear)

Density

Equally weigh density of

users and diversity of uses
(Road density/max density)
+ (diversity/max diversity)

Issues with Online Survey Data

ONLINE SURVEY ISSUES

Small percentage of
respondents provided
complete information
Frequent mismatch between
destination and road numbers
Occasional mismatch between
road number and road name
Multiple destinations included
for a feature
Destinations are too vague
(ex., Mount Baker, Snoqualmie
Pass, Alpine Lakes
Wilderness)

Impact
Destinations more likely to be
accurate than roads.
Cannot analyze online road
data like the workshop data only have numbers/names.
Moral of the story:
If you want to do spatial
analysis, it helps to have
spatially explicit data!

Des#na#on
Areas Areas
Thiessen
Des/na/on
Need method to identify spatial location of online survey destinations

Based on clusters of workshop

destination points

Areas contain multiple place

names

Places with relatively close

proximity and the same access
route interpreted as the same
destination

Evalua#on Thiessen Des#na#on Areas

Manual classica/on
Method
1. Optimum Hot Spot Analysis =
destination points
2. Create Thiessen polygons
3. Calculate total destination
points within each Thiessen
4. Manual adjustments
Written destinations/roads
GNIS +
Re-center destination points

Des#na#on Types
Multiple types of destinations:

hot spots

Multiple destinations in small area

popular places

High counts of the same name

linear activity areas

Linear feature (primarily a road) is

the destination

less-popular places

dispersed activity area

Limitation of the kernel density is the results are based on a

general spatial pattern of data
Thiessen destination method is better suited for roads

Requires more time, but results in higher quality, more specific data

Workshop

Online

Workshop vs. Online Destinations

Kernel
Density

Thiessen
Des/na/ons

Kernel Density vs. Thiessen

Combined
Analyses
1.High density
2.High diversity
3.Leads to a top destination

Evalua#on of Methods
Diversity index has great potential for providing data that can
support decision-making.
Standard GIS analyses (ex. kernel density) not easily understood - if
at all - by decision-makers, and even more challenging to apply.
Thiessen method provided more site-specific results (compared to
kernel density) results are user friendlyso long as the method is
not described.
Future research: is it possible to create Thiessen destination areas
without collecting spatial data? May require a robust set of
destination points.
How can these results be practically incorporated for use in
decision-making? (In progress)

Acknowledgements Rebecca McLain (ISS, PSU)

research collabora/on
Lee Cerveny (PNRS, USFS)
research collabora/on/
demographic analysis
Mike Psaris spa/al data analysis

Sustainable Roads MBS Na#onal Forest:

hWp://mbssustainableroads.com/sustainable-roads

Urban Wildland Interac#ons Team:
hWp://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/ruwit