National FIA Users Group Meeting
August 1-2, 2002
Washington, DC

Thursday Aug 1:

Michael Goergen - Society of American Foresters (host):  Welcome

Rich Guldin: FIA Program Status
•	Heinz report – due out soon, two thirds of data from FIA
•	Watching what data is being downloaded from web
•	FIA will look at Urban Forest Health Monitoring data being piloted by FHM and Dave Nowak (NE) this year to help refine protocol 
•	MOU with USGS signed in June for work with EROS Data Center to develop land cover map in cooperation with 6 other agencies.  It will use Landsat (30 m pixels) to develop three layers:  3 forest classes (hardwood, softwood, and mixed wood), percent canopy cover, and percent impervious.  Expect new map to be done 2005 or so.
•	The House subcommittee thinks the FIA Business Summary is the best example of accountability of any government agency.  The 2001 Business Summary is being shipped today.
•	2002 RPA data up on web very soon 
•	Private landowner survey is now annualized (vs. every 10 years)
•	Soil sampling will help NRCS since have very little data on soils in forested areas
•	The Administration asked for full funding = $20 million.  However, many thought that we are not ready – too much, too fast.  House and Senate reports show additional $7 million in FY03.  Feel we can get balance in FY04. 
•	Currently partners are providing 28% of the program resources.
•	LANDFIRE program – quantify risk and quantify treatment effects to reduce risk.  FIA working with LANDFIRE so FIA data used in their assessments 
•	35 vendors interested in FIA data recorders Proof of Concept being conducted in late August.
•	Era of focusing only on core tables coming to an end. People also want core data layers. What is appropriate transition from tables to layers?  What are the most important 3-4 core data layers?  Is one of these the forest cover from Landsat imagery? 
•	Goals for FY03:
o	Issue new Privacy Guidelines and Policy regarding access to plot data, plot location, and ownership.
o	Implement annual inventories on 94% of forest area (excluding AK)
o	Fully fund FIA in FY04
o	Evaluate Phase 2 to improve efficiency, such as new PDR software and hardware
o	Fully implement Veg. and Down Woody Debris indicators in Phase 3
o	Develop next Strategic Plan

Questions/Comments: 
•	There are differences in how quickly information is getting back to partners from various FIA units.
•	Plans for P3 data will be integrated into FIADB in Build 2 (end of 2003 or so).
•	Regarding the sustainability report (Heinz report), Brad Smith has 1-pager for each indicator available that uses FIA data.
•	Need more consistency in volume and biomass.  Units are working on all shifting to more compatible taper equations that should limit this problem.
•	The next 5-year FIA Strategic Plan will be developed over the next year and will involve user input.  Any additional indicators will not adversely affect current base program.
•	Other surveys with other agencies (NRCS) might be way to gain efficiencies.  Meeting with NRCS Aug. 7-8 to talk about collaborative efforts.

Sue Willits – Agenda review

Brett Butler – FIA Ownership Classification
•	Current National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) started with first of 5 annual panels in 2002. A total of 6,085 landowners were contacted nationally, including AK. The number surveyed in each state is based on number of landowners in each state. Average response was less than 50%.  Different methods will be tried to improve response rates.
•	Law (Food Security Act) that protects FIA from FOIA so that data can be collected and stored with confidentiality. Separate databases for different sets of information are used to keep owner ID separate from actual data.  The three-ownership rule in publications and shared databases will be applied to avoid disclosure problems.

Questions/Comments: 
•	Ownership patterns are shifting away from traditional Forest Industry and towards Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMO), non-governmental organizations (NGO), and such.  The owner codes need to reflect these shifts.
•	There was interest in seeing where the acreage threshold is when people start managing and harvesting from their lands – probably varies by location.
•	FIA is beginning to work with other agencies for assistance with questionnaires and associated statistics. For example, Census of Agriculture picks up family corporations better than FIA does.
•	There was interest in linking the plot data with the NWOS that indicates management intentions.

Sue Willits – Why Are FIA Plot Locations Kept Confidential?
•	Objectives of the amendment to the Food Securities Act are to protect the landowner, protect the integrity of the plots, and protect the reputation of FIA for providing unbiased information.
•	Currently only FIA and its agents have access to coordinates – even fuzzed ones, except that public land managers can request them under an MOU.
•	Draft policy would provide fuzzed and masked coordinates on all lands to all users.
•	Access to exact coordinates would only be through the new National FIA Geospatial Service Center.
•	Users wishing to collect additional data must see Regional FIA Program Managers to see if the request can be accommodated (few can be). 
•	New rules may make data access more difficult, but they assure users unbiased, standardized data on all forests lands.

Questions/Comments: 
•	The criteria for FIA “Agents” come from the guidelines being developed by FIA in response to both the Food Security Act and the urging of the Blue Ribbon Panel to include partners. 
•	The comment was made that relaxation of the privacy policy could jeopardize the Program due to increased denied access.  It was noted that the current denial rates are roughly 1.5-2% nationwide.  After the law went into effect, a number of previous denials were reversed.

John Moser – Confidentiality from University Perspective
•	He supports privacy law.  Need to be careful about who data is released to.
•	Cited a couple of examples of where access to actual coordinates was necessary.
•	University point of view.  Possible solutions:
•	Create tightly controlled MOUs for adjunct inventories and analyses
•	One-time needs could be handled by National FIA Geospatial Service Center
•	Release on public lands but not private lands

Questions/Comments: 
•	In many cases, universities don’t have enough funds to establish plots independently of FIA, nor to pay FIA to do the plots.
•	It was noted that there is far more information out there tied directly to the point on the ground from commercial sources than from FIA.  If FIA can’t find a good solution for data access, then users will ultimately go to these other sources, resulting in less privacy protection.

Steve Prisley – Confidentiality from University and Industry Perspective 
•	He described soil carbon assessment work, which requires overlaying STATSGO on FIA plot data. Need actual coordinates. Could not get it for the following reasons:
o	Some map units with <3 owners
o	Some map units with only one plot
o	Forest type falls on only one map unit
•	Result: research delayed, less control over process, less confidence in results, not repeatable, not verifiable – not a workable research approach.     
•	He can’t be an FIA agent since his work doesn’t advance FIA mission. 
•	Fuzzed coordinates might be good for a wood basket study and teaching, but much of research is an iterative process. Service Center is designed to allow scientists to visit and only take away summarized results and models.

Dave Hyink – Confidentiality        
•	Weyerhaeuser supports intent of Food Security Act.  Fuzzed coordinates are important for wood basket studies. If can’t get fuzzed locations, will find another way of getting information which diminishes value of FIA to industry. 
•	Maybe some different way of doing fuzzing or other way of raising uncertainty about coordinates to allow for plausible deniability about ownership.
•	Should consider possibility that an industrial owner could be an agent for FIA – don’t exclude industry right off the bat.

Sue Willits – Summary of Above Discussions
1)	Need to establish clear criteria for agent status
2)	Penalties for disclosure way too low 
3)	Fuzzed coordinates a good thing
4)	Minimize individual requests

Sue Willits – Confidentiality Alternatives
•	Fuzz all plots, even on public lands, by +0.5 miles to ensure plot integrity
•	Review every county for each ownership category to determine if there is a minimum of 3 owners in each ownership group (to avoid disclosure by subtraction), else combine groups or counties.
•	Use one of the following three alternatives for masking ownership:
o	Fuzz coordinates so that 3 or more owners are in the general area (i.e., increase the fuzz for larger ownerships)
o	Create groups within a county by Forest Type and Stand size.  Provide average data for all plots within the strata, along with fuzzed coordinates for each plot.
o	Swap 25% of the plots with similar plots (e.g., forest type and stand size) across all owners within each county.

Discussion:

Ownership
•	Consensus to have the following 4 categories of owners: non-industrial private (including family corporations?), other private (includes tribal, Non-governmental organizations), other corporate, forest industry (could collapse last two if needed). 
•	The Rule of Three requires a trade-off between detail in ownerships and limiting aggregation of counties.

Fuzzing
•	Draft policy would decrease fuzzing from +1.0 mi (2,000 ac) to +0.5 mi (500 ac). The general consensus was that this would meet most user needs. 
•	Want to prevent a third party from taking another dataset and fusing with FIA data to link owners and plot data.

Masking
•	Need to avoid swapping between ownerships with very different management practices.
•	Swapping would be applied everywhere thus ensuring that even small ownerships are kept confidential.
•	Should tables off website match the published tables?  This was not that big of deal to some; important to others. All county tables using swapped data will be same if swapping is within ownership group.
•	Tentative Consensus:  Swap within each county/supercounty and by owner group.  Within those consider using the following attributes for determining swapping similarity:  Phase 1 stratum (e.g., forest/non-forest), forest type, stand size (seedling, sap, pole, saw), lat/long, volume class, and productivity class.  Using time invariant attributes will help to minimize the need to swap again later and with problems with estimates of change. 

Agent Criteria
•	Agent is allowed unsupervised use of actual coordinates (behind the screen). 
•	Agent status is given to States and contractors that are collecting the field data
•	Some States and National Forests with intensification plots need coordinates and data on a continuous basis for both field data collection and analysis and reporting. 
•	Consensus: Agents must understand database and the need for security.
•	Consensus: Agents must work on a project consistent with FIA mission
•	Consensus: Agents must sign agreement stating when finished with analysis, data will be returned to FIA; no copies made; all people working with agent also sign agreement. Penalties spelled out. 
•	Consensus: Access to actual coordinates will only be via an approved study plan describing study objectives, why actual coordinates are needed, type of data needed, and how processed and reported. 
•	Consensus: Non-agents could be allowed behind the screen to work with actual coordinates if supervised by agents at FIA site – would only leave with aggregate derived info, not plot locations or ownership
•	Landowner should not be agent, since they may treat plots differently if they know where they are. 
•	Three levels of access for non-agents:  fuzzed coordinates on web, send in coordinates to center, or come in and work with data at FIA office.
•	Consider contracted analysis (e.g. at a state university) for a particular state that is a partner in FIA data collection. Would deal with all the analysis requests for that state. One person at the state would serve as gatekeeper to handle all requests. State service centers – participants could differ from state to state
•	List what agent should not be – e.g., regulatory agencies 

Friday August 2:

Chip Scott – Summary of Confidentiality Discussion
•	Summarized common themes of comments received.
•	Summarized what was agreed to.  In addition to those noted above:
o	Standard data set with individual plots.
o	Ownership groups: “forest industry” term is misleading, but should maintain term for consistency over time.
o	Present some examples (one from each FIA unit) and results at the science symposium – send good candidate counties to ctscott@fs.fed.us
o	Metadata should provide the reasons, minimal specifics, and add, “You should not use this data to identify the resources on any land because the data has been masked.”
•	Summarized what more needs to be done:
o	Are States who intensify subject to same rules?
o	What about access by non-FIA Forest Service researchers? and their cooperators?
o	Consider other similarity attributes, especially more permanent ones, e.g., productivity class, slope, aspect, and elevation.
o	Consider impacts of making swap permanent vs. loss of homogeneity over time within MSN groupings
o	Is swapping within an owner OK?
o	Need to test if users can determine which plots are swapped, and more importantly if they can figure out which they were swapped with.
•	Swapping Results
o	Initial test of swapping method is encouraging.
•	 Privacy Policy Timeline
o	Working draft in next 6-8 weeks.  Must be reviewed by FIA Management Team.  
o	Regional user group meetings – where it can be reviewed - by end of November.  Perhaps write up an article that can be made available to various user meetings
o	Publish in Federal Register next March; 6 week review.
o	Fuzzed/swapped coordinates would not likely be available until May 2003. 

FIA Activities in support of the National Fire Plan

Sue Willits – Community Action Prioritization System
•	Described a study to develop an objective prioritization process that identifies geographic areas with high fire hazard, in proximity to populated areas, where management actions might reduce fire hazard and improve local economies.

Chuck Keegan – Strategic Assessment of Fire Risk in Montana
•	Objectives were to:
o	Assess existing crown fire hazard
o	Evaluate effectiveness of fire hazard reduction treatments
o	Estimate treatment costs and revenue
o	Evaluate future treatment effectiveness
•	Significant reduction in hazard required intensive treatment, which also improved revenue, since larger material had to be removed.  Lack of a pulpwood market is a significant factor.
•	FIA data very useful in this assessment

Glenn Christensen – Development of FIA BioSum to Evaluate Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
•	Key Questions:
o	Is there enough biomass to fuel a power plant?
o	Where is the best place to locate a power plant?
o	How long would biomass feedstocks last?
o	How much improvement in fire hazard?
o	How much land area could be treated?
•	Assumed commercial material was sold as saw logs etc, smaller stuff to biomass.
•	Torching Index was not improved by uneven-aged prescription that was tried
•	Hope to develop a tool for users to conduct their own analyses.

Michael Goergen – Wrap-up
•	Steve Fairweather, as a member of Forest Science Technology Board of SAF, asked for honest opinions of what is being proposed for privacy policy as input for Board meetings and actions. 
•	Michael thanked the users for attending and for their input and support.

Note:  Presentations can be downloaded from the FIA website:  fia.fs.fed.us/library.htm