- Author: Grace Dean
For the past four years, Kim Ingram has been listening closely to the private forest landowners who participate in her Forest Stewardship Workshop series. During the workshops, landowners share their experiences clearing thickets of vegetation, replanting post-wildfire and tackling invasive species, and their concerns of who will take care of their forest when they're gone.
To alleviate their stress, Ingram–Forest Stewardship Education coordinator with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources–turns to natural resource professionals from CAL FIRE, local Resource Conservation Districts, and the U.S Forest Service who can share knowledge and resources with participants. Recently, Ingram developed a story map that aims to provide landowners with a platform they can use to share their experiences and ways that they have been empowered to manage their land.
"It's not uncommon for small forest landowners to feel overwhelmed with their forest management responsibilities and uncertain over what steps to take first," said Ingram. "Through the Forest Stewardship Workshops and this story map project, we hope to show that there is an entire community of forest landowners in the same situation, learning from each other and moving forward towards their management goals."
The Forest Stewardship Story Map team used ArcGIS StoryMaps to design the project, with 15 participants providing interviews and visual content. StoryMaps provides a user-friendly interface where website visitors can either click on a county to view specific interviews or scroll to view the stories.
The forestry team plans to interview at least one landowner and natural resource professional in every forested county in California so private forest landowners have a local contact or can become inspired by a project in their area.
Theresa Ciafardoni, a forest landowner in Nevada County, said that the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Workshop helped her manage postfire restoration and long-term land use planning.
"It opened up so many options and possibilities," said Ciafardoni. "All the individuals who presented in the Forest Stewardship Workshop were open to phone calls for specific questions and provided invaluable technical assistance."
Involving landowners and forestry professionals with this project was an early decision made by Ingram, who believed it was important that the map held appeal beyond hosting stories. Now, the project functions as a networking tool for landowners seeking professional assistance, too.
Past Forest Stewardship Workshop presenters shared their contact information and the motivations behind their forest management work so that landowners could find assistance in their area. The professionals currently hosted on the map include Resource Conservation District managers, UC ANR forestry advisors and private contractors.
"The most motivated landowners are invested not only economically, but their heart is into it," said Ryan Tompkins, UC Cooperative Extension forestry advisor for Plumas, Sierra and Lassen counties. "The natural world is full of uncertainty, but they're committed to continuing education and learning about how to be a good land steward. This takes a certain level of humility recognizing that our tenure as a steward on the land is a very short period of a forest's lifetime."
Looking ahead, the team envisions the map as a working document that will eventually include interviews with indigenous tribal members who focus on traditional ecological knowledge projects, interviews and information from the UC ANR Postfire Forest Resilience Program, and a feature that will filter stories by topic (e.g. reforestation or prescribed burning).
"This isn't a project that could be completed by one person," explained Grace Dean, Forest Stewardship communications specialist. "The same way that Kim and other presenters explain forest management as a collaborative process holds true for this project."
The Forest Stewardship Workshop series gives participants the ability to start as beginners and build upon their knowledge and experiences. In the same vein, this story map provides the Forest Stewardship team a solid base of real stories to add on to over time. The hope is that it will grow into a multifaceted tool reaching new forest landowners, eventually enveloping their stories within the small forest landowner community.
To view the Forest Stewardship Story Map, visit: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/bd062108d9894da7920d7aef06fe2c2c.
- Author: Grace Dean
For the past four years, Kim Ingram has been listening closely to the private forest landowners who participate in her Forest Stewardship Workshop series. During the workshops, landowners share their experiences clearing thickets of vegetation, replanting post-wildfire and tackling invasive species, and their concerns of who will take care of their forest when they're gone.
To alleviate their stress, Ingram–Forest Stewardship Education coordinator with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources–turns to natural resource professionals from CAL FIRE, local Resource Conservation Districts, and the U.S Forest Service who can share knowledge and resources with participants. Recently, Ingram developed a story map that aims to provide landowners with a platform they can use to share their experiences and ways that they have been empowered to manage their land.
"It's not uncommon for small forest landowners to feel overwhelmed with their forest management responsibilities and uncertain over what steps to take first," said Ingram. "Through the Forest Stewardship Workshops and this story map project, we hope to show that there is an entire community of forest landowners in the same situation, learning from each other and moving forward towards their management goals."
The Forest Stewardship Story Map team used ArcGIS StoryMaps to design the project, with 15 participants providing interviews and visual content. StoryMaps provides a user-friendly interface where website visitors can either click on a county to view specific interviews or scroll to view the stories.
The forestry team plans to interview at least one landowner and natural resource professional in every forested county in California so private forest landowners have a local contact or can become inspired by a project in their area.
Theresa Ciafardoni, a forest landowner in Nevada County, said that the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Workshop helped her manage postfire restoration and long-term land use planning.
"It opened up so many options and possibilities," said Ciafardoni. "All the individuals who presented in the Forest Stewardship Workshop were open to phone calls for specific questions and provided invaluable technical assistance."
Involving landowners and forestry professionals with this project was an early decision made by Ingram, who believed it was important that the map held appeal beyond hosting stories. Now, the project functions as a networking tool for landowners seeking professional assistance, too.
Past Forest Stewardship Workshop presenters shared their contact information and the motivations behind their forest management work so that landowners could find assistance in their area. The professionals currently hosted on the map include Resource Conservation District managers, UC ANR forestry advisors and private contractors.
"The most motivated landowners are invested not only economically, but their heart is into it," said Ryan Tompkins, UC Cooperative Extension forestry advisor for Plumas, Sierra and Lassen counties. "The natural world is full of uncertainty, but they're committed to continuing education and learning about how to be a good land steward. This takes a certain level of humility recognizing that our tenure as a steward on the land is a very short period of a forest's lifetime."
Looking ahead, the team envisions the map as a working document that will eventually include interviews with indigenous tribal members who focus on traditional ecological knowledge projects, interviews and information from the UC ANR Postfire Forest Resilience Program, and a feature that will filter stories by topic (e.g. reforestation or prescribed burning).
"This isn't a project that could be completed by one person," explained Grace Dean, Forest Stewardship communications specialist. "The same way that Kim and other presenters explain forest management as a collaborative process holds true for this project."
The Forest Stewardship Workshop series gives participants the ability to start as beginners and build upon their knowledge and experiences. In the same vein, this story map provides the Forest Stewardship team a solid base of real stories to add on to over time. The hope is that it will grow into a multifaceted tool reaching new forest landowners, eventually enveloping their stories within the small forest landowner community.
To view the Forest Stewardship Story Map, visit: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/bd062108d9894da7920d7aef06fe2c2c.
- Author: Shannon A Klisch
- Author: Jen Miller, SLO Public Health
- Author: Allen Dailey, SLO Information Technology (GIS)
- Author: Leo Ontiveros, SLO Public Health
- View More...
CalFresh (also known as SNAP or food stamps) is one of our most effective tools for increasing food security; however, not everyone who qualifies for the benefits are receiving them. This adds up to a big loss in terms of potential health and economic benefits. Analysis shows that if 100% of eligible people in our county participated in CalFresh, that would bring in $32.5 million in additional federal dollars locally. This additional money for low-income households would also free up dollars for individuals to spend on other basic needs, like housing, transportation, and medical care. However, CalFresh utilization in SLO County remains low.
With the last of the emergency allotments for the SNAP/CalFresh program distributed in March, families will be facing a shrinking food budget. Emergency allotments raised each household's monthly allotment by at least $95 and helped many households in California and San Luis Obispo County stay out of poverty and continue to put food on the table.
Exploring the issues through data and geography
In a new project to continue working toward increasing food access and food security, partners from UC Cooperative Extension and the CalFresh Healthy Living programs; San Luis Obispo County departments of Public Health, Social Services, and Information Technology (GIS); and the SLO Food Bank are collaborating to, literally, put food access in SLO County on a map.
The map is called SLO County Food Assistance Programs: Access and Participation Map. It incorporates data from our county CalFresh program, U.S. Census data, local farmers markets, school meal programs, and food bank partners to visually explore the gaps in food access and food assistance. The map can be used to plan outreach strategies, to raise awareness of the CalFresh program, to identify priority areas for increasing food distributions, and to see how close farmers markets that accept CalFresh and offer nutrition incentives through the Market Match program are to low-income households and people actually on CalFresh.
How to use the food access and participation map:
Go to the map by clicking the link above or cutting and pasting this address into a web browser: https://gis.slocounty.ca.gov/sites/foodassistance.htm
Click on the icon that looks like a stack of papers to see all the possible data layers and start exploring. Click the small gray drop-down arrows to expand categories of layers, and click the check box next to layer names to turn layers on and off.
Questions to explore:
Plan Outreach to Food Insecure Communities
In SLO County, only 47.6% of the people who are eligible to receive CalFresh are actually enrolled in the program. Eligible individuals who are not enrolled could be receiving hundreds of dollars in food assistance each month. We can change that by learning which communities have low CalFresh enrollment, even though they are income eligible and then planning outreach strategies that are tailored to that particular community. To learn where there is a need for more CalFresh outreach, select the CalFresh Use Among Income Eligible layer. The darkest census tracts are the areas where outreach should be focused - a high percentage of income eligible households (at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level) but few people enrolled in CalFresh.
Use CalFresh at Farmers Markets Near You
Compare where there are farmers markets that accept CalFresh with census tracts where high percentages of people are on CalFresh. Click the Farmers Markets and CalFresh Households layers.
Food Distributions by Neighborhood
See where food is distributed and how that aligns with low-income census tracts. Click the SLO Food Bank layer and the Median Income by Census Tract layer.
How will you use the map to support food access in SLO County?
To apply for CalFresh:
Visit GetCalFresh.org, call the CalFresh Info Line 1-877-847-3663 (available in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Russian), or visit your local Department of Social Services office.
To find a farmers market near you that accepts CalFresh, WIC, and has the Market Match program, visit FarmersMarketFinder.org.
On Hunger Awareness Day (June 2, 2023) the SLO Food Bank and DSS will host CalFresh Application Assistance sites throughout the county. More information here.
/h2>/h2>/h2>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h2>/h2>/h2>- Author: Ben Faber
What a difference a few days can make in the life cycle of a fire. In this particular case, the Thomas Fire that is ongoing in the Ventura County around (and surrounding) in Southern California. The following images were taken by the Terra and Aqua satellites on Dec. 16, 17, and 19, 2017, and during those times fire conditions improved visibly. A difference in winds, in humidity, in the ability of firefighters to control the fire's perimeter, and in the amount of fuel left for the fire to consume can bring a raging fire to heel. This does not mean the fire cannot gain strength again if conditions worsen, but it is heartening to realize that weather conditions can allow firefighters to get a better handle on events as they have in the last few days.
This the the Thomas Fire on December 16, 2017 as seen by the Terra satellite. There were multiple areas of "hot spots" where the satellite indicates the fire is and where telltale smoke also pinpoints fire spots. These areas are numerous and the clouds of smoke coming off the flames are all consuming.
By December 17, 2017, conditions had obviously changed for the better and the fires were able to be somewhat contained. This image taken by the Aqua satellite on December 17, 2017, shows a much more subdued Thomas Fire. There are still hot spots visible but the number has vastly improved.
By December 19, 2017, hot spots are not showing up via satellite instruments. This does not mean the fire is completely out, but large hot spots are no longer detected by satellites. So, too, the copious smoke that was spewing from the fires is no longer in evidence. This Aqua image shows a much calmer landscape due to improving weather conditions at the time.
Per Inciweb today, the Thomas fire is 60 percent contained at present. At 272,000 acres, the Thomas Fire is now the second largest fire in the recorded history of the state of California. Unfortunately, weather conditions that allowed the fire to be contained to the 60 percent mark are destined to change as weather conditions deteriorate this afternoon. Inciweb reports that a forecasted strong north wind event will bring wind conditions similar to those experienced when the fire made its push into Montecito. With the introduction of these winds, critically dry fuels will be highly receptive to fire spread. During Santa Ana wind events three things happen: the weather warms, winds pick up, and humidity drops precipitously. All of these events promote fire growth. The Thomas Fire has experienced winds exceeding 70 miles per hour, temperatures in the mid 80's and humidity below 10 percent.
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NASA image courtesy NASA Worldview application operated by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb.
- Author: Ben Faber
Historically if you wanted to know what soil type and the description for it, it was necessary to go to the library, NRCS office or Coop Extension office to find the soil survey. It is a book out of print now, but it has maps with outlines of the soils of that county and the descriptions that characterize those soils. The USDA put the Soil Survey online about 10 years ago
http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm
and it is great unless the internet goes down.
Toby O'Geen at UC Davis has taken the same information and repackaged it so that it is easier to use
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/
Try it.
![soil soil](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/19376.jpg)