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South Florida Ecosystem Program Web Site

The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Program is an intergovernmental effort, involving a number of agencies, to reestablish and maintain the ecosystem of south Florida. One element of the restoration effort is the development of a firm scientific basis for resource decision making. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of the agencies, provides scientific information a part of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Program (SFEP). The USGS began their own program, called the South Florida Ecosystem Program, in fiscal year 1995 for the purpose of gathering hydrologic, cartographic, geologic, and biologic data that relate to the mainland of south Florida, Florida Bay, and the Florida Keys and Reef ecosystems (fig 1).

The U.S. Geological Survey is committed to using the World Wide Web to make its earth science information available to Internet users. The South Florida Ecosystem Program web site is an example of this information management strategy. The South Florida Ecosystem web site effectively organizes and delivers information to internal and external customers via the Internet and facilitates communication across disciplinary and administrative boundaries. The USGS provides several services using the capabilities of the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW). Internet users can reach these services through basic procedures, such as TELNET and FTP (file transfer protocol) or HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) through software such as NCSA Mosaic. With WWW browser software such as Mosaic (available for UNIX, Macintosh, and MS Windows), the USGS can distribute information and include hypertext links to documents, photographs, sound files or video clips.

The USGS South Florida Ecosystem Program web site is part of the database development project of the USGS South Florida Ecosystem Program. The database development project is a 3-year effort to organize and deliver information to internal and external customers. The goal of the project is to provide a metadatabase for storing and maintaining information on reports, tabular, and spatial data sets which have been produced by the USGS, with links to metadatabases from participating Federal, State, regional, and local agencies. For most USGS data sets, geospatial data itself will be available from various servers on the internet. Pre-existing USGS data sets relevant to the restoration initiative will be included.

South Florida Ecosystem Program web site home page as viewed through a standard world wide web browswer. [larger image]

The development of the web site will be done in two phases. Phase 1 consists of the development and implementation of a permanent WWW site available to the public at U.S. Geological Survey Center for Coastal Geology, St. Petersburg, FL. The goal of Phase 1 is to make available information concerning current and future South Florida Ecosystem project descriptions as well as hypertext links to individual project data. Access to the South Florida Ecosystem Program web site can be found at the following WWW address: http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov.

Phase 2 concerns the integration of the South Florida Ecosystem Program web site with a USGS metadata data base. This integration will provide an easy-to-use system for customers to access a complex and powerful data base of existing USGS data. Upon completion of Phase 2, customers will be able to quickly and efficiently locate important data sets through common and readily available WWW browsers.

The South Florida Ecosystem Program web site offers an effective medium to coordinate information from all projects involved in the ecosystem program. By localizing all basic information at one WWW location the USGS allows easy access to the information by the public. Presented in a uniform and organized format, the web site provides a simple hierarchy of information (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 South Florida Ecosystem Program Web Site Structure. (http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov)

Internet users with one of the popular software applications can use hypertext links to browse descriptions of the South Florida Ecosystem programs starting with the main South Florida Ecosystem Program home page and navigating through individual project home pages subdivided into several categories. When users find information of particular interest, they can see details about the subject and instructions on how to find more information and people to contact. Features such as indexing and search tools will make information retrieval as simple as entering a keyword. Clickable image maps will allow easy access to information by simply clicking on a location on a graphical map, and programs such as common gateway interfaces (CGI) will be added to increase interactivity between the web site and the customer.

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Davie, FL 33314

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