Natural Resources

In 2007 GSS began looking for opportunities to diversify its GIS operation into the natural resources field. Its Director and lead project management staff were biologists looking to develop projects built on natural resource assessment and, hopefully, would utilize our strong GIS capacities.

The National Park Service Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) program was just migrating from its coastal assessment program into NRCA projects for all NPS parks. NRCA seem like they were designed for GSS. They require a strong ecological knowledge and a core geospatial capacity. GSS competed for and was awarded the cooperative project to implement the Wrangell-St. Elias NP NRCA. This project opened the door for GSS to grow its nationally recognized natural resource program. It currently employs six full time natural resource specialists with backgrounds in forestry, fisheries, wildlife, social and ecological science, conservation biology, wetlands, and avian ecology. It also has a fluctuating staff of graduate students that provide substantive project investigative and report development support. The GSS natural resource team is making its mark in the NPS. It developed a new NRCA assessment methodology, bringing efficiency, structure, and replicability into project implementation.

In addition to the NRCA projects, GSS has begun a new natural resource project with the NPS. The Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA) for the Badlands National Park (BADL) will support the development and implementation of adaptive management strategies based on the potential impacts of climate change on BADL resources. A CCVA essentially determines “vulnerability” of specific resources to these climatic shifts or associated changes. Allowing park staff to develop strategies to best mitigate negative effects on these resources.