GIS for the Big Sky Partnership

The Partnership's GIS activities involve three core elements:

(1) Big Sky Carbon Cyberinfrastructure development and maintanence,
(2) creation of and regular updates to the GIS Databases, and
(3) ongoing updates and improvements to the Carbon Atlas web-based geoportal.

All three core elements cross-cut scientific disciplines to support research and outreach applications for terrestrial projects, oil, gas, coal, and basalt research, and even economic modeling.

In Phase I of the Partnership, GIS efforts included completion of a preliminary geologic sequestration capacities assessment, a regional greenhouse gas emissions inventory, and agricultural carbon flux modeling. The base physical architecture of the cyberinfrastructure was also established, along with initial regional datasets and maps, an early interactive map, and links to NatCarb.

Phase II, to date, has seen an emphasis placed on regional-level data staging (collection, creation, and QA/QC), metadata documentation, expanded cartographic production in support of Partnership outreach and education efforts, and upgrades/maintenance of the database management approach. The GIS team worked with neighboring Partnerships and Natcarb to resolve mutual data issues, including preparation of a revised methodology for estimation of point source CO₂ emissions, and contributed to the first edition of a national-level NETL Carbon Atlas on carbon sequestration. In the summer of 2008, BSCSP also contributed to the second release of the NETL Carbon Atlas II which includes updated point source CO₂ emissions information and completed estimates of storage capacities. Lastly, web support and data layer finishing were completed for the release version of a new, customized interactive mapping service.

As the Partnership prepares its transition into Phase III, GIS staff will be expanding the spatial databases to further regional characterization, especially expanding our region of interest into Saskatchawan, Cananda, and begin to provide site-level project characterization and modeling. The Carbon Atlas, in addition to hosting distributed data and GIS services for use by the Partnership’s technical teams, will assist Phase III education and outreach efforts and provide decision support to stakeholders through expanded cartographic products and interactive mapping. Midway through Phase III, the Data Libraries will be enhanced to inform both operational and post-injection monitoring and modeling.