DeLorme Professional Weblog

Cape Elizabeth, Maine Land Trust adopts XMap for GIS Needs

Christopher Franklin, Executive Director Cape Elizabeth Land Trust.

When our local land trust began looking at potential GIS and GPS products to assist our conservation efforts we considered both the ESRI family of products (ArcView, ArcEditor…) and several other products.  Partially due to our Southern Maine location we also explored the Delorme products, as their global headquarters are only 20 minutes up the road.

 From the outset our experience with Delorme was very encouraging.  Their XMap software contained all of the functionality we desired, and appeared to be more intuitive than the products I had used during an ESRI training program.  After receiving a comprehensive ‘tour’ of the program’s functionality at the Delorme headquarters we signed on.   

 Over the past nine months this program has literally revolutionized the way we communicate with property owners, and the way we approach conservation planning, mapping and property monitoring.  

 While the learning curve for any powerful program such as XMap exists we have found both the user guides and technical support to be very accessible.  During a recent follow-up meeting with one of the program’s developers, we were both pleasantly surprised to see how much of the functionality of the program we had been able to access.  

Like many other land trusts we knew there was a great deal of geographical data regarding our service area that we had seen on other maps, and in reports.  The ability for us to access this information has been remarkably simple.  On a single CD provided to us by our local town hall we were able to instantly access the town’s zoning districts, wetland boundaries, tax parcel data (which when linked to the assessors database provides owner names for each parcel), town roads, trails, and even building footprints.

 This data, when combined with state and federal layers for rare and threatened species, soil types and much more enables us to create a wide variety of maps depicting the entire town down to individual parcels.  Coupled with the native data included with XMap (topo data, points of interest, contour shading, and roads) we are able to portray the same areas in multiple formats and styles.  

While the graphic ability of these programs are somewhat limited in terms of font styles and other design elements, we have rarely found ourselves wanting a design feature that we could not add, or import from another program. 

Since becoming operational there has not been a week that has passed that we have not created or modified a map for new purposes.  The ability of maps to convey large amounts of complex information quickly and clearly cannot be underestimated.  Listed below are some of the ways we are utilizing our new GIS mapping software:

Land Stewardship

• Property Maps:  Utilizing XMap our land trust now has detailed maps for each of our 22 properties.  These maps include local tax lot lines, wetland designation, accurate trail overlays, and aerial photos.  These maps also have a series of waypoints demarking property corners, and other points of interest.
• Property Monitoring:  For years our property monitoring visits included many sites lacking proper monumentation, surveys, or reliable landmarks.  For the most part we were able to approximate boundaries when necessary, and ultimately pay for proper surveys for certain properties.  With the XMap product and any number of handheld GPS devices we are now able to assign geographical positions, or waypoints to our maps created in XMap and export these to our hand held unit.  Once in the field the handheld GPS will now navigate the user to within 30 feet of each property boundary, or property corner.   This functionality has enabled us to become much more accurate in our property monitoring.
• Documenting Property Resources:  The ability to add waypoints to our maps while in the field has also been an extremely helpful tool.  Using our handheld GPS unit we can now capture the geographic location of our vernal pools, nesting sites, photo documentation points, rare species sites and various other natural resource points of interest.  Once back in the office we can transfer these waypoints to our maps.
• Trails Data:  Using our GPS we can now accurately capture accurate trail data.  We also have the ability to combine the data of all local trails as a comprehensive trails layer that we can overlay on the entire town.

 Land Acquisition

While we knew that mapping would strengthen our ability to monitor, and document our properties we had no idea how useful it would be when working with a landowner considering conservation.  Much of a successful negotiation with a landowner centers on our ability to educate the landowner about the benefits of conservation, and to make them feel comfortable with the idea of permanent conservation restrictions.

•  Landowner Outreach and Education:  When introduced to a new potential project, the very first thing we do now is to create a map.  These maps clearly define the property boundary lines (subject to local tax lot map accuracy-typically not very good), covey a sense of vegetation type and/or cover, clearly delineate any existing trails, waterways, habitat areas, and importantly a clear sense of how this property relates to those surrounding it.  These maps are essential tools when working with a landowner, for many it is the first time they have ever seen their property depicted in such detail.  This process also instills a sense of legitimacy to the land trust as a knowledgeable entity clearly considering how the parcel meets land acquisition criteria and conservation goals.
• Strategic Conservation Planning:  Our mapping was initiated by our organization’s commitment to strategic conservation planning.  Through the use of these maps we are attempting to document the remaining open, undeveloped areas within our service area to further prioritize the proactive landowner outreach we do each year.  The maps we have created have been absolutely essential to this process.  Again the ability to see the big picture, and to overlay various geographical information data has given us a perspective that previously had been unobtainable.

In summary the functionality provided through our new mapping software has forever changed the way we approach land planning, property monitoring and even public outreach.  The ability of this software to display such a wide variety of geospatial data, and the user’s ability to layer this data, and symbolize this data in infinite variations is truly remarkable.  As we look forward we are already contemplating how to incorporate interactive maps on our website, as well as developing a workstation to be available for member to map their own properties, bike routes, and/or hiking routes.  

In our geographic region, southern Maine, there are several GIS service centers offering low, or even no cost mapping services.  While these centers may be called upon for some of our more challenging applications we have found that the ease with which we now create our own maps to be invaluable, and the timeliness with which we can produce these maps indispensable.

About the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust

Since its inception in 1985, the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust has permanently protected over 560 acres of land for public benefit. As a community-based organization, CELT strives to maintain neighborhood trail access to protected lands and to provide new and lasting protection of valued lands in Cape Elizabeth. For more information visit www.capelandtrust.org