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BioBase: Unified Utah Species Data
Region: Statewide
ID: 7516
Project Status: Proposed
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Project Details
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Need for Project
Currently Utah Species data is siloed in many ways severely limiting its utility internally and externally. BioBase has the potential to be a catch-all database spatially queryable across species and species groups. DWR's Habitat Section has made a great start on BioBase with internal resources but, in order to maintain momentum, outside expertise is required to connect BioBase to national databases, refine user permissions, and allow for advanced data sharing and analysis.
Provide evidence about the nature of the problem and the need to address it. Identify the significance of the problem using a variety of data sources. For example, if a habitat restoration project is being proposed to benefit greater sage-grouse, describe the existing plant community characteristics that limit habitat value for greater sage-grouse and identify the changes needed for habitat improvement.
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Objectives
Building a robust database and application would promote improved wildlife planning efforts. The data will inform management actions and sampling/surveying, avoid species listing under the Endangered Species Act, advise translocation efforts, inform invasive plant species mitigation, support lands management to include monitoring and permitting, and help to identify and maintain terrestrial and aquatic migration corridors. This database will be of use to DWR Habitat, Wildlife, and Aquatic Sections for conservation and game/sport species alike.
Provide an overall goal for the project and then provide clear, specific and measurable objectives (outcomes) to be accomplished by the proposed actions. If possible, tie to one or more of the public benefits UWRI is providing.
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Project Location/Timing Justification (Why Here? Why Now?)
The BioBase concept has been around for at least 15 years but the means to implement it were cost prohibitive and technically challenging. Through the FY24 and FY25 development of the Wildlife Habitat Analysis Tool (WHAT) and the Pay For Performance (P4P) initiative we now have a google cloud database engineer on staff who is able to facilitate data compilation, pipelines, standards, and analysis. SPA and other funding for WHAT kickstarted both the initial underlying data consolidation for BioBase but also allowed our staff member to hone data management and pipeline skills. Modern cloud storage has also evolved to a point where hosting our own data is not only financially viable but also more cost effective than traditional alternatives. Finally, the Google Cloud Platform allows for unique capabilities related to big data ingestion and analysis that were not previously available.
LOCATION: Justify the proposed location of this project over other areas, include publicly scrutinized planning/recovery documents that list this area as a priority, remote sensing modeling that show this area is a good candidate for restoration, wildlife migration information and other data that help justify this project's location.
TIMING: Justify why this project should be implemented at this time. For example, Is the project area at risk of crossing an ecological or other threshold wherein future restoration would become more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible.
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Relation to Management Plans
Examples of Management Plans that will leverage BioBase data include: Utah Wildlife Action Plan Habitat Management Plans for all Wildlife and Waterfowl Management Areas Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan Utah Beaver Management Plan Utah Bighorn Sheep Statewide Management Plan Utah Wild Turkey Management Plan Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan Utah Upland Game Management Plan Utah Conservation Plan for Greater Sage-grouse
List management plans where this project will address an objective or strategy in the plan. Describe how the project area overlaps the objective or strategy in the plan and the relevance of the project to the successful implementation of those plans. It is best to provide this information in a list format with the description immediately following the plan objective or strategy.
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Fire/Fuels
BioBase data could potentially support habitat restoration efforts that reduce the risk of fire in critical wildlife habitat areas.
If applicable, detail how the proposed project will significantly reduce the risk of fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels including the use of fire-wise species in re-seeding operations. Describe the value of any features being protected by reducing the risk of fire. Values may include; communities at risk, permanent infrastructure, municipal watersheds, campgrounds, critical wildlife habitat, etc. Include the size of the area where fuels are being reduced and the distance from the feature(s) at risk.
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Water Quality/Quantity
BioBase data could potentially support aquatic and terrestrial habitat restoration efforts that improve water quality and/or increase water quantity on the landscape (e.g. analysis resulting in optimal beaver dam analog or guzzler placement).
Describe how the project has the potential to improve water quality and/or increase water quantity, both over the short and long term. Address run-off, erosion, soil infiltration, and flooding, if applicable.
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Compliance
BioBase will help ensure protected records remain protected but are also able to be used by DWR staff and partners to manage and protect wildlife and their habitat.
Description of efforts, both completed and planned, to bring the proposed action into compliance with any and all cultural resource, NEPA, ESA, etc. requirements. If compliance is not required enter "not applicable" and explain why not it is not required.
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Methods
Contract with a firm that can help achieve the following: Identify project key members and coordinate resources Establish the mechanics of project communication, reporting, collaboration, risk management, and change management Establish status meeting cadence Review and verify the scope of work and project approach Review project risks and risk mitigation strategies Review and finalize task assignments
Describe the actions, activities, tasks to be implemented as part of the proposed project; how these activities will be carried out, equipment to be used, when, and by whom.
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Monitoring
Project monitoring will take place through at least monthly status updates to ensure timelines are met on key milestones and deliverables.
Describe plans to monitor for project success and achievement of stated objectives. Include details on type of monitoring (vegetation, wildlife, etc.), schedule, assignments and how the results of these monitoring efforts will be reported and/or uploaded to this project page. If needed, upload detailed plans in the "attachments" section.
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Partners
The DWR has solicited feedback from Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining; Utah Division of Transportation; Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands; Utah Division of Water Resources; the Bureau of Land Management; and various non-profits. This database and application could be applicable to state and federal government agencies and state educational partners and could facilitate collaboration more effectively.
List any and all partners (agencies, organizations, NGO's, private landowners) that support the proposal and/or have been contacted and included in the planning and design of the proposed project. Describe efforts to gather input and include these agencies, landowners, permitees, sportsman groups, researchers, etc. that may be interested/affected by the proposed project. Partners do not have to provide funding or in-kind services to a project to be listed.
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Future Management
The continued investment in BioBase will allow DWR and partners to conduct management work to help prevent species of concern from being federally listed as threatened or endangered, and work to delist those species that are currently listed. It will also support management efforts for valuable sport species. Data quality assurance and quality control will be possible in new and transparent ways. Future Utah Wildlife Action Plan revisions will be supported with more robust data but also quicker access to more complete species distributions and range extents to help inform S-ranks. BioBase will also contain some threat information such as disease data and will make data gaps more apparent, also supporting more accurate and efficient S-rank decision-making.
Detail future methods or techniques (including administrative actions) that will be implemented to help in accomplishing the stated objectives and to insure the long term success/stability of the proposed project. This may include: post-treatment grazing rest and/or management plans/changes, wildlife herd/species management plan changes, ranch plans, conservation easements or other permanent protection plans, resource management plans, forest plans, etc.
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Sustainable Uses of Natural Resources
Consistently formatted and accessible data for biologists and other project champions is necessary to protect wildlife resources in Utah. This solution also has the potential to support the 2015 Wildlife Action Plan call for wide-scale and robust species distribution models or habitat selection models using occurrence data from any species or group of species. In addition to modeling species distribution and habitat, biologists will be able to model occupancy, density, abundance, home range, temporal trends in survey, and seasonality. This information will provide staff and partners the ability to decrease risk to species and their habitats through integrated implementation of the Wildlife Action Plan, species recovery plans, conservation agreements, and other management plans.
Potential for the proposed action to improve quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, timber harvest, biomass utilization, recreation, etc. Grazing improvements may include actions to improve forage availability and/or distribution of livestock.
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