6.0 Observations and Conclusions
The analysis of this project has lead to a number of observations and conclusions. These have been addressed below. The format used describes the issue (in italics), presents discussion of the issue, followed by a conclusion. The following are all considered significant issues and are not priorized.
In may ways, the combination of these topics is somewhat artificial. Although there are numerous overlaps, the three topics of Culture, Recreation and Tourism are uniquely different. The information collected is different among the three and is used for different purposes.
What these three topics have in common is a distinct difference from the topics of the other six task forces. The other task force topics are all biophysical; they tend to represent physical aspects of the landscape and have a strong connection to the land and land use decision making. Culture, recreation and tourism are aspects of land use and are more commonly thought of as pursuits or activities that take place on land.
Conclusion: Separate but coordinated inventories should be established to serve the purposes of culture, recreation and tourism.
The scan of available culture, recreation and tourism inventories turned up 38 separate products. These are, by and large, provincial in scope. Local and regional inventories probably number in the "hundreds". Most of these inventories were produced by a single agency for a specific purpose. Since there is no central focus for this information, knowledge about those programs is generally available through an informal network of contacts..
Conclusion: A directory or catalogue of Culture, Recreation and Tourism information should be prepared. The catalogue should be distributed to interested departments, ministries, and non-government agencies and updated regularly.
Typically, inventories have been developed as single issues projects, designed by one agency to meet a specific requirement. Although this may have met the objective of the agency, it has created data gaps as well as data overlaps with other agencies. With an increasing need by many agencies for more and better resource information, cooperation among agencies will improve results and their cost-effectiveness.
Conclusion: The development of new inventories should be coordinated through a central agency.
There is a high level of agreement among resource managers and inventory users that currently available inventory information is not very effective. The most common reasons for this lack of effectiveness are: a lack of confidence in the accuracy of the data; lack of consistent standards; incomplete provincial coverage; and a lack of knowledge about what actually exists. Other issues of concern deal with the level of detail, linkages with other systems, and the judgmental factor used by inventory codes.
Conclusion: The specific needs of the users must form the basis of the inventory's design.
At a basic level, inventories are lists, descriptions, and tabulations of physical information. Of interest to users is the ability to assess what the information means. This infers that some level of interpretation needs to be applied to the information. This could involve, for example, an assessment of the significance or relative importance of inventoried features. This requires evaluation and judgement on the part of the inventory staff.
Conclusion: Culture, recreation and tourism inventories should be capable of including data which may be used to measure resource significance and sensitivity.
The main objective of this review is to determine what culture, recreation and tourism information is necessary for effective land management. A step in the process is to record features and their relative significance. Another element of the process is to determine capability of the resource to sustain use. This could reflect carrying-capacity issues, or could deal with market or economic issues. In any event, measures of land use capability are critical to evaluations of suitability of the land for various uses.
Conclusion: Include the ability to assess resource suitability and capability as part of the inventory system.
Based on the survey of existing inventories and user needs, it is clear that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are the appropriate technology for development and maintenance of culture, recreation and tourism inventories. However, few users expressed a requirement for GIS data. Rather, most users expressed a requirement for more readily available, more reliable, and more complete inventory data. This requirement could be satisfied by conventional hard copy map and report products. In fact, most users have limited or no access to GIS. (Also, there will always be a need for hard copy products for presentations, for decision-making, and for archival purposes.)
GIS will likely be the most efficient and cost-effective means to produce maps and reports. It also has the potential benefit that GIS data may be used in analyses. However, it should be emphasized that data to be used for analyses must be structured appropriately and requires more rigorous compilation that does data used only for "inventory" purposes (i.e., to address the basic question: "what's out there?").
Currently there is limited use of inventory information for analytical purposes. Most users and potential users have limited access to inventory information and therefore have never pursued how it might be used or incorporated into analyses. Where culture, recreation and tourism related GIS systems currently exist (i.e., Ministry of Forests), they are for specific purposes and are not intended to be comprehensive. As a consequence, there is limited experience regarding how culture, recreation and tourism inventory information should be structured.
The level of effort required to implement a Province wide inventory is significant and would involve: standards development; preliminary design; prototyping, and pilot projects; acquisition of hardware, software and digital map bases; staffing and training system development; data compilation and loading; user documentation and user training; and subsequent maintenance.
Given this situation, it is important to not be too ambitious in implementing GIS technology for culture, recreation and tourism inventories. It is likely that recent GIS projects will be learning experiences rather than systems that will serve long term requirements.
Conclusions:
a) Priority should be given to definition of standards for attribute data.
b) Pilot projects will be important to confirm that the inventory design, content, and presentation are appropriate.
c) Many users require information about resources that falls within the scope of one of the other RIC Task Forces. There will be a need for compatibility with the other inventories.
d) There are no constraints regarding what GIS software or hardware should be used. Computer mapping and computer aided design (CAD) software could also meet minimum inventory requirements. The requirement is for a graphic display package capable of producing maps that is coupled with a database. An important selection criterion is the ability to exchange data with other inventory systems.
To be of use to the tourism industry, information required includes facility capacities, (number of rooms, boats, attractions,...), performance information (occupancy, attendance,...), and economic information (revenues, employment,...). Recreation also requires "utilization" information and comparable statistics. Culture also addresses a number of issues (i.e., beliefs, language, religion,...) that are not typically land-based. Therefore, the ability to collect, integrate and manage very different types of information is of critical importance.
Conclusion: The inventory system design should be flexible enough to accept new related data such as market, financial, and economic information.
Although government is currently the greatest user of culture, recreation and tourism inventory information, survey results indicate that the potential for non-governmental organizations to make more effective use of such information is significant. Because the inventory information needs of these two groups are quite different, it is important that the range of end users be confirmed prior to finalizing operational guidelines and standards.
Conclusion: Given the range of potential uses and users of tourism, recreation and/or culture inventory information, the full spectrum of groups identified during the survey process needs to be served by the system which is eventually set up. While this suggestion has notable implications for issues such as data requirements and access opportunities, targeting a broad range of user groups will be the key to maximizing the system's relevance and cost effectiveness.
Currently, inventories are maintained by different agencies, at different locations, with different geographic coverage and level of detail, and with different scope in terms of content. It seems likely that this situation will continue. Nonetheless, there appears to be common desire to be able to easily integrate this information for various purposes. There also is a desire to use the inventory information for purposes other than that which the agency responsible for developing the inventory intended. These objectives can only be achieved through common standards:
Conclusions: Ignoring for the moment, requirements that potentially may be imposed by initiatives such as CLISP, standards must address several areas:
Culture, Recreation and Tourism inventories will likely be in many locations and require integration with other resource information. One of the most basic factors influencing confidence in the data is the registration of information from different maps, i.e., when information is lifted from one map and overlaid on another, how well are the spatial relations preserved. Obviously, road-side facilities must be adjacent to roads; marinas must be beside the water; etc. When this does not happen, users lose confidence in the inventory. The best solution is that a common map base be used by all inventories. Other solutions are possible but involve more effort. In this context "map base" refers to the precise spatial position of the coastline, rivers, roads, etc. and not the map projection, coordinate system, or other map properties that are easily modified using GIS.
The map scale used for data compilation determines the spatial accuracy of the data and limits the scales at which the data may be used. Generally a location or boundary can never be entered more accurately than ±0.2 mm. at scale. Data compiled at large scales (i.e., 1:20,000) can be used at smaller scales (i.e., 1:250,000) relatively easily. However the reverse is not true. Therefore the key question is how detailed should the greatest level of detail in the inventory be. Most users expressed a requirement for data at 1:50,000 scale. However, there are no immediate plans to develop 1:50,000 scale digital map bases for the Province.
Typically, users will be interested in information about specific types of resources or will need some breakdown of the types of resources in an area (i.e., recreation may be subdivided into recreational boating, hiking, and camping, etc.). It will be helpful if all agencies' definitions are the same and a common classification scheme is used by all inventories.
"Size" is a loose concept. It includes considerations such as spatial extent, how much resource is there, and intensity of use. Generally, most users will want information about size, use levels, etc.
"Importance" is also a loose concept. For some types of resources, importance is defined in economic terms. In other cases, the criteria may be aesthetic or in terms of "value to society". Most users will want to be able to obtain a simple map which illustrates "most important" to "least important" locations of a specific type of resource.
Age of resources should be of interest to may users because it pertains to rate of development. It also will have importance to the cultural inventories.
Information on vulnerability is critical to protection decision making and assessment of land use conflicts. "Very important" and "very vulnerable" resources are the focus of protection; "low importance" and "low vulnerability" resources generally receive lower priority. Vulnerability will likely be different for different types of resources.
Some resources are seasonal operations or show distinct patterns of timing. Others may vary substantially from year to year in terms of location or availability. It is important to most users to know that a particular resource may not be present one year but be there the next, or may vary in location by several kilometres.
A basic requirement is information about who owns or is responsible for a particular resource.
Undoubtedly, the resource information in inventories will vary in quality. There is a desire to use the inventory information for decision making. Some of these decisions will likely have important consequences (economic and otherwise). It will be important to provide the user with some feedback on level of confidence in the information.
A basic requirement for most users to have any confidence in data, and to facilitate the maintenance of inventory data, is information on where the information about a specific resource came from, and where a user should go to check or update this information.
Ultimately there must always be somebody or some agency responsible -for maintaining a specific block of information. Frequently significant effort has been invested in development of databases. The Task Force/RIC will need to determine who "owns" the information, who has the rights to update information, and who should be contacted to report errors or updates.
In the normal course of operations o ' f an inventory, some information is in draft form, other information is current and suitable for release, and other information may be considered obsolete or incomplete. There should be a method for tracking the status of information. This will be important to ensure that users do not accidentally gain access to inappropriate information.
Cartographic representation refers to many factors including the types of symbols, colours, line styles, and fill patterns used to display data; how data are labelled; and, map scale, projection, coordinate system, annotation, and legend. Cartographic representation is frequently contained in GIS data files. Exchange between GIS systems is frequently complicated if different cartographic standards are employed.
There are two detailed and thorough resource inventories currently in operation in the province, one deals with recreation and the other with tourism. These are the Forest Recreation Inventory and Coastal Tourism Inventory. Both have had considerable effort devoted to their development.
Conclusion: A culture, recreation and tourism inventory system should be based on these two inventory processes.
Who "controls" the culture, recreation and tourism inventory information is a critical issue. Because issues of resource significance and land capability or suitability are judgemental, it becomes important how and where the information is housed. This issue could be a real problem if the agency responsible is not qualified or capable to fairly evaluate the resource. The issue could become a perceived problem if the agency responsible is not viewed by others as "neutral".
Conclusion: Consider the appointment of a central inventory agency to manage inventory process.
It is impractical to consider culture, recreation and tourism inventories existing without linkages to other inventories and computer/GIS/database initiatives. There are three main areas where linkages with other systems are expected:
The implementation of culture, recreation and tourism inventories using GIS will require a series of digital map bases covering the entire Province and adjacent marine waters. Likely there will be a requirement for three series of map bases: provincial (about 1:1,000,000), regional (about 1:250,000), and local (1:20,000 to 1:50,000) scales. The cost of acquiring digital map bases will be large and probably not be affordable unless shared with others.
A list of information required/expected from other inventories should be developed while a list of other inventories with requirements for culture, recreation and tourism data should also be identified. Data compilation standards should be reviewed with the other inventories to confirm expectations and information needs. It is possible that levels of detail may be greater or less than desired. Either situation poses problems for the user and would limit potential use.
There is a major initiative by B.C. Lands to develop a Province wide computer infrastructure that would tie together GIS and other databases at various locations and in different formats. This concept, the Land Information Infrastructure (LII), would provide a common means for a user in one location to access and query information from any Ministry at any location (subject to access restrictions) without worrying about details of hardware, software, format, etc. This initiative is under the auspices of the Corporate Land Information Strategic Plan (CLISP) of Crown Lands.
While there is no absolute requirement for existing or new Provincial information systems to participate in the LII, there would be considerable resistance to non-participation. When completed, the LII should simplify access to GIS and database information for most users although there will also be some additional burden of effort and complexity in maintaining databases in a manner that is appropriate for the LII This is expected to impose a requirement for highly skilled professionals to serve as database and systems administrators.
Conclusions:
a) Share map bases among the other inventory agencies to maintain linkages, and compatibility, and to reduce costs.
b) Culture, recreation and tourism inventories should not attempt to maintain duplicate information to other agencies, but should share it as other agencies will want relevant information in return.
c) Recognize the need to interface with the Land Information Infrastructure (LII).
With the exception of only a few agencies indirectly involved in tourism, recreation and/or culture, the majority of respondents to the User Needs Survey indicated that they expect their need for culture, recreation and tourism inventory information to change in the future. This observation has important implications for an inventory system in terms of technological considerations, information/data requirements, and access opportunities. Given that cost-effectiveness and maximizing system relevance are key objectives of this inventory initiative, it is critical that design decisions be based on the need to maximize the system's ability to adjust to changing user requirements.
Conclusion: A culture, recreation and tourism inventory system should be designed from the outset so that changing user needs can be accommodated.
To ensure that the full range of potential users can benefit from tourism, recreation and/or culture inventory information, it is important that access to such information be available at numerous locations throughout the province. Many of the most critical land-use decisions are made outside of the Lower Mainland and Victoria. Having quick and easy access to culture, recreation and tourism inventory information was identified as an important inventory feature by most survey respondents. Generally, providing such access makes sense and will maximize the benefit of inventory information to regional government and non-government organizations involved in tourism, recreation and/or culture. The actual centres and agencies where this information will be available will need to be confirmed by RIC following consideration of the recommendations of all the Task Forces.
Conclusions: As a minimum, hard copy information and user access terminals for accessing on-line data should be available to a full range of users throughout the province.
To maximize the benefit of tourism, recreation and culture inventory information to land-use, resource allocation, development, and other decision making processes, users should have access to the full range of available culture, recreation and tourism inventory information. However, two key qualifications need to be considered. First, survey respondents expressed concern that not all users be able to access specific information regarding the location of sensitive cultural, heritage, or environmental sites. Uncontrolled use of this kind of information has resulted in accidental or deliberate damage being done to such sites. Second, most users should not have access to sensitive economic information such as non-aggregated operational revenue data.
Conclusions:
a) Users should have access to the full range of available, relevant culture, recreation and tourism inventory information.
b) Descriptive information regarding sensitive cultural, heritage, and environment sites should be available, although locational. information should be generalized in order to prevent uncontrollable activity from occurring on these sites.
c) Any economic information available through the culture, recreation and tourism inventory system should be inputted and available in summary form only.
It is clear that implementation of culture, recreation and tourism inventories using GIS has staffing implications. New responsibilities/positions will be created:
While it is likely that existing staff can be readily trained in attribute data entry and report production, the other responsibilities generally require substantial training (ranging from 6 months for graphic entry to several years for systems administration and support). Existing information systems personnel, particularly database professionals, may be trained or may take on some of these responsibilities without training. However, new staff will likely be required. Generally, the positions will require highly skilled individuals, preferably with experience.
Conclusion: The Culture, Recreation and Tourism inventory should be adequately supported in terms of staffing.
The breadth of the topic covered by this analysis requires that any new inventory system be carefully designed and implemented. The information requirements of literally dozens of agencies (government and non-government) will be affected. Many of these agencies have regulatory roles requiring accurate information. Great care will need to be exercised in the delivery of an effective system.
Conclusion: Develop a pilot project to test implementation of an inventory which would deal with tourism, recreation and/or culture.