Yellahoose launches ESIP site for Gulf of Maine Council

August 2007 - Yellahoose launched a revamped version of the Ecosystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) website for the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment. ESIP is a committee of the Council, and it is developing indicators for the Gulf of Maine Council for ecosystem monitoring.



The website and tools Yellahoose developed provide information regarding monitoring programs in the Gulf, including types of data collected, availability of data, and georeferenced positions for monitoring locations. Sites can be queried by clicking on a map, or searched on by organization, project, indicator type or date.

In addition to the public map, located here, Yellahoose developed web-based tools enabling ESIP's Program Manager, Christine Tilburg, to update and add to the data.

To facilitate planning and online collaboration, Yellahoose also implemented an open source content management and groupware solution for ESIP committee memebers.

Yellahoose designed all these solutions with ESIP's Program Manager and with Peter Taylor of Waterview Consulting.

The interactive map uses open source software, including MapServer, PHP/MapScript, PostGIS and PostgreSQL. The data management tools use PHP, Perl and PostgreSQL. The collaboration tool uses Plone and Zope. All tools are hosted on Debian Linux.

Links:

Gulf of Maine Council and ESIP
http://www.gulfofmaine.org
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/esip/

Waterview Consulting
http://www.waterviewconsulting.com

MapServer, PHP/MapScript, OGC and PostGIS
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu
http://www.maptools.org/php_mapscript
http://www.opengeospatial.org
http://postgis.refractions.net

PostgreSQL, Perl, PHP, Plone and Debian
http://www.postgresql.org
http://www.perl.com
http://www.php.net
http://www.plone.org
http://www.debian.org

Gulf of Maine Council issues winter '08 Gulf of Maine Times, publishes salt marsh ecology booklet, and launches project progress report tool

March 2008 - March was a busy month for product and information updates from the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment! And Yellahoose provided critical IS and consulting services.

The Spring / Winter 2008 edition of the Gulf of Maine Times was released. This edition includes new web features for Times readers, including tools to share articles with others, and on the back-end a new (to the Times!) template system to improve workflow and reduce the effort and cost it takes to release the online paper. JavaScript, CSS and PHP were all used in this edition.

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The Council also published Salt Marshes in the Gulf of Maine, a 42 page booklet on salt marsh monitoring and restoration in the Gulf. The publication was edited by Peter Taylor of Waterview Consulting.

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Yellahoose developed a number of easy-to-use, web-based applications for the Council to track users interested in Salt Marshes in the Gulf of Maine, including capturing key demographic and professional information, and Yellahoose developed tools for users to request hard-copy versions of the booklet.

Data are managed in PostgreSQL, and the web application was written using PHP and JavaScript.

Habitat restoration grants were awarded also, and part of this year's grant monitoring process is the implementation of an online tool for awardees to use to document progress. Yellahoose developed the tool, with Jon Kachmar of the Maine Coastal Program and Peter Taylor of Waterview Consulting, using technologies, tools, methodologies and best practices already developed for and in use by the Council.

And we don't have nice screenshots for work did for the Christine Tilburg in the Council's Ecosystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) and Christian Krahforst in the Gulfwatch Contaminants Monitoring committees, but that doesn't mean the services provided weren't fundamentally enabling — or, to be honest, terribly time intensive:

Yellahoose implemented PostgreSQL databases for Christine and Christian to use to manage and massage ESIP and contaminants data. The databases are password-protected. Christine and Christian can import data, tweak tables, and they can even link data to other data the Council already has at its disposal. They the good, cross-platform software, DbVisualizer, to manage their databases.

Links:

Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment
http://www.gulfofmaine.org
Gulf of Maine Times
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/times/
Salt Marshes in the Gulf of Maine
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/saltmarsh/
Habitat Restoration
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/habitatrestoration/
Ecosystem Indicator Partnership
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/esip/
Gulfwatch Contaminants Monitoring
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/gulfwatch/

Waterview Consulting
http://www.waterviewconsulting.com

Maine Coastal Program
http://maine.gov/spo/coastal

PostgreSQL
http://www.postgresql.org

DbVisualizer
http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis

PHP
http://www.php.net

MapServer
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu