October 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 69

Why GIS?
T h e p ow e r o f a G e o g r a p h i c I n f o r m at i o n S ys t e m (G IS )
like PRORAGIS comes from the ability to relate different information in a
spatial context and to form conclusions about those relationships. After all,
most of the knowledge we have about our world includes some sort of location reference-and can be " pinned " to some spot on the globe. Part of the
power of GIS is in laying one kind of data on top of another-a process a little
like overlaying several different transparencies on top of the same basic map
outline. The first transparency placed upon the map might contain data about
where parks and recreational facilities are. Another might depict population
clusters (U.S. Census). Still others might show flood zones or topographical features (U.S. Geological Survey) or obesity data (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention). Seeing information layered in this way can help park professionals
make inferences about how people interact with public lands and facilities-as well as
what barriers may be preventing their interaction.
PRORAGIS will, in fact, be offering users these multiple public-information layers over
the next year. Stay tuned for further updates on the demographic, geological, and sociological data add-ons planned to enhance the core platform.
creation of this system.
" When I came to NRPA, " she says, " the numberone request I got from members was, " Bring back
the standards. " Standards, she explains, that were
derived mostly from population size. " But as the industry has evolved and communities have become
more diversified, " she adds, " you have to take into
account much more than population size. PRORAGIS
allows you to compare yourself to a community very
similar in numerous aspects other than size. " In short,
PRORAGIS puts agencies in charge of deciding upon
which standards of comparison to use in each individual data research project they conduct. And the
survey's data parameters ensure that each agency
enters its data in the same format.
Fundamentally, explains Tulipane, this is an industry-wide networking project intended to put agencies in control of their own data. " If we don't make
our own database the industry standard, " she cautions, " someone else will. And we will all be paying
to use it. "

The Stories the Numbers are Telling
While the system is still in its infancy, the list of participating agencies is now about 600 and is growing steadily. Park managers have many different
reasons for investing staff time and labor into profile
creation-and just as many different data-crunching
uses to report.

San Diego County, California
Brian Albright, director of San Diego County Parks
and Recreation, heads one of the larger agencies to
have completed the PRORAGIS profile. " We wanted

data to support our business plan before our board
of supervisors, " he says. " And we also wanted, within
our own agency, to have a better idea of where we're
at and where we need to go. We wanted to use this
as a decision-making tool. " Albright says the agency performance report alone has gone a long way
toward serving those purposes-and the custom
reporting and GIS features are helping him and his
staff to do the following:
■■ Educate the county board of supervisors about many
different aspects of the agency's performance.
■■ Encourage community commentary.
■■ Take a high-level, satellite view of the design of a
park system where " some of our parks are 75 miles
away from our administrative office. " The GIS tool,
says Albright, helps him to keep all the lands in the
system " visible for analysis. "
■■ Identify gaps in public access to habitat corridors. As
the recipient of federal conservation funding through
the Cooperative Endangered Species Act, says Albright, PRORAGIS promises to help San Diego County
" evaluate the balance in our park system between
environmental preservation and recreational use. "
The goal, he says, is " to have every resident in the
county less than five miles door to door from one of
the county's conservation areas. And, with a mapping tool, it's easy to do that. "
While the new system has been useful to San Diego County so far, Albright concludes, " in the end it
is only as good as the data we all enter. "

Two Michigan Agencies: Oakland County
and Canton Township
In Michigan, park agencies, along with all other local

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October 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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