EXPLORING CLIMATE CHANGE, ECOSYSTEMS AND WELL-BEING
CONNECTIONS: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE APPLICATION OF A
GEOSPATIAL KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE TOOL IN THE NECHAKO
WATERSHED

by

Joseph Gothreau
B.A., University of New Brunswick, 2009
B.A., Mount Allison University, 2016

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER
IN
NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF NOTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
August 2021

© Joseph Gothreau, 2021

Abstract
The Nechako Watershed is a large system in northern BC that exemplifies the
challenge of integrating information across climate, environment and well-being. This
research responded to this need with the goal of enhancing how information about the
Nechako Watershed is communicated and shared. Informed by the development of a
geospatial ‘portal’ tool in northern BC, this research sought to establish the Integrated
Watershed Research Group (IWRG) Portal, gain insight on establishing accessible
knowledge exchange strategies, and identify its perceived benefits and limitations. The
research had two phases. Phase I involved working with a development team to understand
this tool, testing, establishing the IWRG Portal, finding and formatting content. Phase II
brought members of the Portal User Research Group together to further refine the IWRG
Portal and content through scoping discussions, workshops, and a focus group. Thematic
analysis was used to code and analyze the transcribed focus group. The research identified
benefits of the portal with how it dealt with complexity and its integrative features.
Limitations were also found, including the need for intentional framing of data, a steep
learning curve, and the need for an internet connection. Analysis also identified the need to
tailor content for specific audiences. The research has shown that tools such as the IWRG
Portal can create new pathways to understanding and finding information. The research has
also identified paths for further refinement and development of the portal tool by expanding
the user base and continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of this tool in various contexts.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One: Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Study Rationale ................................................................................................................ 2
1.2 Research Questions and Specific Objectives ................................................................... 4
1.3 Study Context................................................................................................................... 5
1.4 Positionality ..................................................................................................................... 8
1.5 Thesis Roadmap ............................................................................................................... 9
Chapter Two: Literature Review ......................................................................................... 11
2.1 Concepts ......................................................................................................................... 11
2.1.1 Climate Change Communication ............................................................................ 12
2.1.2 Watershed Scale ...................................................................................................... 15
2.1.3 Ecosystem Services and Well-being ....................................................................... 18
2.2 Applied Processes .......................................................................................................... 22
2.2.1 Knowledge Exchange .............................................................................................. 22
2.2.2 Geospatial tools ....................................................................................................... 25
2.3 Synthesis: linking concepts and application through geospatial tools ........................... 31
Chapter Three: Research Design ......................................................................................... 34
3.1 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 35
3.1.1 Pragmatism .............................................................................................................. 36
3.1.2 EcoHealth ................................................................................................................ 38
3.1.3 Knowledge Exchange .............................................................................................. 39
3.2.1 Phase I: IWRG Portal Research and Development ................................................ 41
3.2.2 Phase II: IWRG Portal Showcase ............................................................................ 42
3.2.3 Phased Research Design Summary ......................................................................... 43
3.3 Phase I Methods: Hands-on Learning with the Portal ................................................... 43
3.4 Phase II: Methods: Qualitative data collection with portal users .................................. 46
3.4.1 Phase II: Recruitment .............................................................................................. 46
3.4.2 Phase II: Scoping discussion using semi-structured guide ...................................... 47
3.4.3 Phase II: Portal Workshop and Focus Group Data collection ................................. 48
3.4.4. Field Notes ............................................................................................................. 51
3.3.5 Thematic Analysis ................................................................................................... 52
3.5 Research Ethics and Research Rigour ........................................................................... 54

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3.5.1 Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................. 54
3.5.2 Research Rigour ..................................................................................................... 55
Chapter Four: Findings ........................................................................................................ 58
4.1 Phase I Findings ............................................................................................................. 58
4.1.1 The Integrated Watershed Research Group Portal Tool ......................................... 58
4.1.2 Portal Architecture .................................................................................................. 61
4.1.3 Data used in the IWRG Portal for the Phase II Workshop ...................................... 64
4.2 Phase II Findings ............................................................................................................ 73
4.2.1 Group Scoping Discussion Findings ....................................................................... 73
4.2.2 Focus Group Findings ............................................................................................. 75
4.2.3 Tailoring Content for the Audience......................................................................... 76
4.2.4 Perceived Benefits of the Portal .............................................................................. 80
4.2.5 Perceived Limitations of the Portal ......................................................................... 83
Chapter Five: Discussion and Conclusion ........................................................................... 87
5.1 Discussion of findings .................................................................................................... 87
5.1.1. Discussion Findings in relation to Research Question 1 ........................................ 87
5.1.2. Findings in relation to Research Question 2 .......................................................... 90
5.1.3. Findings in relation to Research Question 3 .......................................................... 95
5.1.4 Other insights in relation to the literature ................................................................ 99
5.2 Implications and Recommendations ............................................................................ 101
5.2.1 Implications for future research ............................................................................ 101
5.2.2 Recommendations for geospatial development and practice ................................ 104
5.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 107
References ............................................................................................................................. 108
Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 122
Appendix One: Python Code to Clip ANUSPLIN Data .................................................... 122
Appendix Two: Python Code to find Mean Temperature ................................................. 123
Appendix Three: Portal User Research Group Consent .................................................... 125
Appendix Four: Workshop and Focus Group Invitation Letter ......................................... 129
Appendix Five: Portal User Guide ..................................................................................... 131

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List of Figures:
Figure 1. Map of the Nechako Watershed, showing human communities and main water bodies throughout the
Stuart-Nechako system. Map created by Aita Bezzola. ......................................................................................... 6
Figure 2: The Evolution of Web GIS Functionality ............................................................................................. 28
Figure 3: Nechako Decadal Mean Air Temperature (3a: 1950 – 1960 and 3b 2000-2010) ................................ 67
Figure 4 Nechako Wildfires 1920 – 2017. Showing 4a. 1920-1929 and 4b. between 2010-2017........................ 69
Figure 5: Map of anthropogenic disturbance in the Nechako (Map created by Jordan Brubacher) ................... 70
Figure 6: Identifying Youth Place-Based Values in School District 91 (from CIRC 2017) ................................ 73

List of Tables
Table 1: Thematic Analysis adapted from Braun and Clarke (2006) .................................................................. 53
Table 2: Summary of data and information focused on climate, ecosystems, and well-being that were submitted
to the Portal for Phase II workshop ..................................................................................................................... 65
Table 3: Summary of Themes and Sub-Themes .................................................................................................... 76
Table 4: Focus Group Quotations relating to “Tailoring Content to Audience” theme ...................................... 78
Table 5: Focus Group Quotations relating to "Perceived benefits of the Portal" theme…………………………..81
Table 6: Focus Group Quotations relating to "Perceived limitations of the Portal" theme…………………….…84

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List of Acronyms
BC: British Columbia
CWB Index: Community Well-Being Index
GIS: Geospatial Information System
IWRG: Integrated Watershed Research Group
LEO Network: Local Environmental Observer Network
MEA: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
NEWSS: Nechako Environment and Watershed Stewardship Society
PGIS: Participatory Geospatial Information System
PPGIS: Public Participatory Geospatial Information System
PURG: Portal User Research Group
REB: Research Ethics Board
WMS: Web Map Services

vi

Acknowledgement
I want to thank everyone who contributed to this research, without the support of many
people this would not have been possible.

vii

Chapter One: Introduction
Understanding and being able to communicate the complexities and uncertainties of
climate change is extremely difficult (Groot et al., 2015; Picketts et al., 2017; Tàbara et al.,
2017). Climate change is a complex, global phenomenon that many organizations and
researchers have devoted their time and energy to understanding and communicating. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been working internationally since
1988 to guide the world’s governments in mitigating, adapting, and planning for a future with
a different climate than experienced in the past or present (Pachauri et al., 2015). The IPCC
has been effective at synthesizing a large body of science to create reports that present the
risks of a changing climate (Sterman, 2011; Tàbara et al., 2017). The IPCC’s work
exemplifies how communicating climate change information to policy makers, the media,
and the global public remains challenging despite the Panel’s extensive expertise and long
history of synthesis on the topic (Sterman, 2011).
However, presenting the information in an accessible manner has proven to be
difficult and dependent on identifying the targeted audience (Gislason et al., 2021). These
communication challenges are further exacerbated by the impacts that climate change asserts
on global and local ecosystems, and in turn, human well-being (Charron, 2012; Parkes et al.,
2010; Watts et al., 2015). Whereas communicating information about climate change,
ecosystems, and well-being recorded in the past or present is already difficult, additional
challenges arise when discussing how the future may look. Furthermore, a growing body of
literature argues for a need to discuss complex topics, such as climate change, in a more
localized manner (Groot et al., 2015; Ring, 2015; Tàbara et al., 2017).

1

To address these converging communication challenges in a way that responds to local
needs, this research is focused on the climate, ecosystem and well-being interactions in
Nechako Watershed. In response to the increasingly uncertain future of the Nechako
Watershed, researchers have been studying approaches to better understand what is occurring
in the region, and how to respond to changes in the environment (Integrated Watershed
Research Group, 2021). The Nechako Watershed, part of the Fraser River Basin, forms a
large system in central British Columbia (BC) (Albers et al., 2016; French & Chambers,
1997; Hartman, 1996; Macdonald, 2007; Picketts et al., 2017). Amplified climate change in
the Nechako Watershed, relative to more southern regions in the province, provides a unique
research opportunity (Picketts et al., 2017).
Watershed scale approaches are an emerging means of framing ecosystems for research
and planning purposes, in part due to the holistic scope that watershed scale and related
watershed management provides (Jenkins et al., 2018). Watershed approaches often include
considerations accounting for land use, human activity, non-human activity, and the
combined impacts these have on land and water, as well as communities and health (Parkes
et al., 2010). Informed by these potentials, this study focuses on the Nechako watershed as a
context to address the complex challenge of communicating climate change, ecosystem and
well-being connections.
1.1

Study Rationale
The University of Northern British Columbia’s (UNBC) main campus in Prince George

resides alongside the boundary of the Nechako Watershed. The university has a long history
of collaborations and partnerships throughout the Nechako Watershed. Much of this research
falls under the umbrella of the UNBC Integrated Watershed Research Group (IWRG). The

2

range of interdisciplinary research focused on the Nechako is exemplified by the scope of
publications by IWRG team members (e.g. Gateuille et al., 2019; Islam et al., 2019; Owens et
al., 2019; Picketts et al., 2020; Sharma & Dery, 2015). The IWRG research in the Nechako
comprises three main themes: 1) Climate Change and Water Security; 2) Sediment Sources
and Dynamics; and 3) Tools for Integration in Watershed Management and Governance.
This third theme explores tools that support management and governance to “create a webbased tool that can provide a single point of access to information that is relevant to the
Nechako River Basin” (Integrated Watershed Research Group, 2021). A key component of
this research theme is the use of the IWRG Portal, which is software developed as a web
portal that has been created by Scott Emmons and his team, in partnership with the UNBC
GIS lab and UNBC researchers. The current Portal is the result of over ten years of
development of previous versions that have been used and guided by First Nations
communities throughout British Columbia (BC). This Portal is a geospatially enabled
database that allows users to upload and share a diverse range of data. The Portal can be
thought of as a spatially enabled library that provides a unique web-GIS experience. Since
2014, the IWRG Theme 3 research team has partnered with the Nechako Environment and
Watershed Stewardship Society (NEWSS), the Cheslatta Carrier Nation and more recently
School District 91, to explore using the Portal to support their goals (Integrated Watershed
Research Group, 2021).
Interactions across IWRG research themes in the Nechako have identified a need to
improve knowledge exchange to reflect the nexus of climate, ecosystems, and well-being
issues in the Nechako Watershed (e.g. Picketts et al., 2017). During the development of this
study, participation in lectures, presentations, and informal conversations related to the
Nechako and the IWRG research reinforced a willingness among different researchers and
3

research partners working in the Nechako Watershed to exchange information about topics
such as climate change. There was also a growing interest in making connections across
various groups, organizations, and individuals spanning UNBC, the IWRG, School District
91, the Nechako Watershed Roundtable, the municipality of the District of Vanderhoof, and
the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, among others. Some examples of this interest has been
published (e.g. Picketts et al. 2017, 2020).
These converging interests have created the rationale for research that explores new
opportunities for climate change communication strategies within the Nechako Watershed,
with a particular focus on the role that the IWRG Portal can play as a tool to support the
exchange of information. This research therefore combines a focus on climate change
communication with a need for further research on the potential for web-platforms including
web portals to facilitate knowledge exchange processes (Cvitanovic et al., 2015).
1.2

Research Questions and Specific Objectives
The goal of this study is to collaborate with researchers to develop a knowledge

exchange approach that enhances discussions on the interrelationship of climate change,
ecosystems, and well-being in the Nechako Watershed. This knowledge exchange approach
will use the Portal as a geospatially enabled communication tool. The research explores the
following three research questions:
Research Question 1: How can complex systems such as climate change,
ecosystems and well-being be better understood through the use of a map
centric web-portal that connects and aligns different sources of
information (based on geospatial attributes)? (RQ1)

4

Research Question 2: What are the perceptions of knowledge ‘users’ about the
utility of the web-portal as a tool to communicate the links between
climate, ecosystems and well-being? (RQ2)
Research Question 3: How can existing data about climate change, ecosystems,
and well-being be leveraged in a way that fuels conversation, new
perspectives and awareness of connections? (RQ3)
To answer these research questions, the specific objectives of the research are to:
1. develop a knowledge exchange approach that will enhance discussions and sharing
of information about climate change, ecosystems, and well-being in the Nechako
Watershed, through the use of a map centric web-portal.
2. apply this knowledge exchange approach within the context of the Portal to
iteratively evaluate and refine strategies for presenting and sharing data within the
Nechako Watershed.
3. critically examine the strengths and weaknesses of fostering discussions of climate
change, ecosystems and well-being at the watershed scale.
These research questions will be answered and research objectives addressed through a
qualitative research design focused in the Nechako watershed. This study context is
introduced here, and the research design is described further in Chapter 3.
1.3 Study Context
The Nechako watershed is one of the largest in BC and, at approximately 47,200 km2,
which is the second most expansive tributary watershed draining to the Fraser River Basin
(Déry et al., 2012). The size of the Nechako can be appreciated when considering that it is
over 1.5 times the size of Vancouver Island (which has an area of 31,285 km²). The

5

headwaters of the watershed lie in the Coast Mountains and the main stem is the Nechako
River, which flows into the Fraser River, within the boundaries of the City of Prince George
(Picketts et al., 2017). The Nechako Watershed has approximately 100,000 residents (Fraser
Basin Council, 2016), with 86,622 people living in the City of Prince George (Statistics
Canada, 2017). There are many smaller communities dispersed throughout the watershed,
including (listed in from largest to smallest population) population, as follows: Vanderhoof,
Burns Lake, Fort St. James and Fraser Lake (Picketts et al., 2017). These communities are
depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Map of the Nechako Watershed, showing human communities and main water bodies
throughout the Stuart-Nechako system. Map created by Aita Bezzola.

The Nechako Watershed also overlaps with the traditional and unceded territories, Indian
reserve-lands and Band Council office locations of 15 First Nations, including those around

6

the Nechako mainstem (Cheslatta Carrier Nation, Lake Babine Nation, Wet’suwet’en First
Nation, Nee-Tahi-Buhn Indian Band, Tsʼil Kaz Koh [Burns Lake] Band, Stellat’en, NadlehWhut’en, Saik’uz, Lheidli T’enneh) and within the Stuart Takla system (Binche Whut'en,
Nak’azdli Whut’en, Skin Tyee Band, Takla Lake, Tl’azt’en, and Yekooche First Nation)
(Picketts et al., 2017).
The Nechako River has been regulated by the Kenney Dam and Skins Lake Spillway
since 1952. This has impacted the annual streamflow rates (Déry et al., 2012). The
development of the Kenney Dam also forced the Cheslatta Carrier Nation off of their
traditional territory due to flooding (Hartman, 1996). The impacts of climate change, in
conjunction with other human activity, such as damming, are clearly visible throughout the
watershed. A notable example is the negative impacts on salmon populations, largely as a
result of altered streamflow levels and increasing water temperatures (Déry et al., 2012;
Islam et al., 2019). The watershed’s forest and timber supply is being altered drastically by
mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) as well (Picketts et al., 2017).
Some initial studies on stakeholders’ concerns for the future have been conducted
throughout the Nechako Watershed, looking at integrating watershed framings of local
environmental phenomena (Matthews et al., 2015; Picketts et al., 2020). Ongoing research in
the Nechako Watershed identifies a need for “geospatial watershed portal tools capable of
integrating diverse forms of spatially related data, documents, audio-visual materials across
health, social and ecological realms within watersheds” (Parkes, 2016, p. 127). In response
to these needs, the IWRG team, especially Theme 3 lead researcher Margot Parkes, has
worked closely with Scott Emmons to establish an IWRG Portal. This IWRG Portal is
designed to be a database that incorporates the aspects noted above by Parkes (2016), while
also being a tool for stakeholders throughout the Nechako Watershed that can foster
7

engagement and conversation (Tools for Integration in Watershed Management and
Governance, 2021).
1.4 Positionality
Positionality is a reflective process of declaring “our own philosophical, theoretical,
and political dispositions” (Hay, 2016, p. 127). This can be done by locating oneself in the
context of the project, and explaining life experiences that have led to the research. While
this can be difficult it is argued that acknowledging positionality can increase research rigour
and objectivity (Hay, 2016). While potentially controversial in some disciplinary traditions,
one way researchers can explicitly locate themselves in their research is to reject the common
practice of writing in third person narrative, and to make use of personal pronouns (Hay,
2016). In this thesis I have chosen to introduce myself in this section and, where relevant, to
use the first person in relation to my role and position as a researcher.
This section on my positionality therefore introduces the readers to some of my own
background and relates them to my way of interpreting the world. I grew up in the
Maritimes, and spent the vast majority of my life living in Nova Scotia, which is the unceded
territory of the Mi’kmaq. I have two previous degrees, both of which are Bachelors of Arts.
One degree is a double major in English and philosophy from the University of New
Brunswick, and the most recent one is in environmental studies from Mount Allison
University. The English aspect of my first degree had a strong focus on studying literature
from Chaucer to the Victorian era, while the philosophy focus was split between the
philosophy of science and environmental philosophy. A large portion of my environmental
studies degree was dedicated to GIS and learning how to perform spatial analysis. It was
during my time studying environmental studies that I became a proponent for experiential

8

learning, thinking about my surroundings at a watershed scale, and truly began to realize the
importance of people who could be classified as generalists, or as I like to say, ‘a jack of all
(or many) trades.’ I began to see GIS work and analysis as a great position from which to
draw from the array of experts around me and to respond to complex questions and
challenges. UNBC drew my interest for three main reasons. The first reason being the
interesting research being conducted by the IWRG team as a whole, and the challenge of
taking on this particular project as it was presented to me by Dr. Margot Parkes and Dr.
Stephen Déry. The second was the allure of a smaller campus at UNBC, similar in size to
Mount Allison University, which had provided me with many positive experiences as a direct
result. The third reason to come to UNBC was a previous visit to Western Canada for a field
course. During this course, I realized it would be beneficial to spend some time away from
home to hopefully gain new perspectives and exposure to new things and opportunities.
During my stay at UNBC I was fortunate to spend time and work within the
traditional territories of many First Nations, including the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, Lake
Babine Nation, Lheidli T’enneh, Nee-Tahi-Buhn Indian Band, Skin Tyee Band and
Yekooche First Nation, and other nations in the wider Dakelh or Carrier speaking nations
(Reconciliation, 2021). After having spent two years undertaking research based at the
UNBC Prince George campus, I have moved back to Nova Scotia and am working full-time
in New Brunswick as a GIS specialist.
1.5 Thesis Roadmap
This thesis is the outcome of the research conducted during my Master’s degree. It
commences in Chapter One with an introduction that presents the rationale for the research,
guiding questions and objectives and also introduces BC’s Nechako Watershed as the study

9

context for this research. The literature review, Chapter Two, comprises two sections:
concepts and applied processes. The big picture concepts and theories guiding this research
are examined in relation to climate change communication, watershed scale approaches, and
ecosystem services and well-being. The applied processes section of the literature review
details the theories that focused on processes such as knowledge exchange, and the use of
geospatial tools and web-based tools. Chapter Three describes the methodologies that
influence this work, the two phased design of the research, the various methods used, and
ethical considerations. Chapter Four is presented in two main sections that look at the
findings for both phases. Chapter Five provides a discussion of the findings, how they relate
or do not relate to the literature, and concludes this thesis.

10

Chapter Two: Literature Review
This literature review presents the main concept and processes that, in combination,
provide the backdrop to and impetus for this research. The chapter commences with a focus
on concepts and literature spanning climate change communication, watershed scale
approaches, and ecosystem services and well-being, prior to a section focused on applied
processes and practices relating to knowledge exchange, and the use of web-based geospatial
tools. The knowledge exchange and climate change communication sections draw from
academic literature and complementary sources are used to provide brief review of useful
web-based geospatial tools relevant to this research. Since no academic papers and
publications have been published on the web-based Portal tool used in this research,
communication with the developers of the Portal have assisted in the section relating to the
portal, making this thesis one of the first publications that describes the form and function of
this Stewardship Portal. The literature review chapter does not focus specifically on
methodological influences such as pragmatism and ecohealth, which are addressed in the
methodology section of Chapter Three. This literature review was conducted from
September 2016 to May of 2018, but some literature that has been found and published
beyond the completion of this literature review is referred to in Chapters One and Five.
2.1 Concepts
This section explores key concepts that this research draws on. While the argument
could be made that each of these fields (climate change communication, watershed scale
approaches, and ecosystem services and well-being) has applied components, they are more
closely aligned with the theory and concepts supporting this research. For example,
watershed scale approaches to research can provide a context to anchor issues in a particular
11

place and develop management practices that pertain to the specifics of that watershed
(Parkes et al., 2010). There is an obvious applied nature to establishing and conducting
management policies but the emphasis in this section is on the theory and reasoning
determining when watershed scale approaches are beneficial and/or necessary.
2.1.1

Climate Change Communication
Climate change is the change in the climatic patterns and norms that can be measured

over long periods of time. For example, thirty-year periods are a common timeframe used by
the World Meteorological Organization when calculating climate (Bates et al., 2008).
Climate change communication can be thought of as being both a theoretical concept and an
applied process. The emphasis here is on the conceptual considerations relevant to climate
change communication strategies that provide a series of steps to link watershed scale
approaches and ecosystem services and well-being, while also complementing knowledge
exchange processes. There are also obvious overlaps between climate change
communication and knowledge exchange, recognising that communicating about climate
change can be very unidirectional, and does not always focus on processes for knowledge
exchange explored later. Even so, many of the researchers whose work is introduced in this
section do mention the need for a true exchange or conversation between knowledge
‘producers’ and ‘users’ (Groot et al., 2015; Picketts et al., 2012, 2017; Tàbara et al., 2017),
meaning that experience and advice from this literature also has direct relevance for
knowledge exchange.
A starting point for this section on climate change communication is an examination
of Ring’s (2015) approach for delivering in-person presentations. Ring developed an
approach with four principles: 1) start by identifying a target audience; 2) balance the content

12

and tone of the presented information; 3) focus on the present situation; and 4) attempt to tell
or create narratives. While recommended for giving in-person presentations and talks, these
general concepts can be applied to other types of presentations and approaches to climate
change communication. The first step in Ring’s (2015) approach is to identify the target
audience, or the people you wish to communicate with. By identifying a target audience, it is
then possible to better adapt materials for this audience’s specific spheres of knowledge
(Ring, 2015). Ring (2015) also suggests making a personal connection with the audience, in
the form of an introduction, where you also make a point of stating common ground between
yourself (the presenter), and the audience.
Ring’s emphasis on a specific target audience also aligns with the value situating
climate change issues in a specific place. Global and regional scales can be difficult to relate
to in terms of what individuals experience in their daily lives, and also may not reflect the
local situation (Tàbara et al., 2017). The impacts of climate change are not uniform, and
some areas, such as the Nechako Watershed, are experiencing amplified rates of change than
other regions (Picketts et al., 2017). Bringing climate change information to a scale that
reflects the experience of the audience helps to create a connection between people, place,
and the associated challenges and opportunities (Ring, 2015).
Another important benefit from establishing a specific audience is the opportunity to
craft the wording or language of the content to better reflect the audience’s language. If the
audience is not a scientific one, the language of ‘experts,’ or scientific language, can
depersonalize the content (Ring, 2015), and make it difficult for audiences to connect with
and interpret the material. This is not about ‘dumbing’ down information; rather, it is about
valuing and accounting for the diverse backgrounds of different people (Gislason et al.,
2021). Technical reports and policy briefs, such as those coming from the IPCC, can be
13

difficult to understand (Sterman, 2011; Tàbara et al., 2017), which has often limited their use
to academics and policy makers (Tàbara et al., 2017). Even amongst academics, the
language can be drastically different between disciplines, and potentially even more
confusing when these different disciplines use the same terms to mean different things (Groot
et al., 2015). It has also been established that there is a generally low degree of scientific
literacy throughout the public of the United States and other nations (Sterman, 2011), which
makes it even less appropriate to default to scientific communication styles. Targeting
specific audiences in a place and time provides the opportunity to craft more accessible
materials.
After establishing a target audience, Ring (2015) suggests balancing the content by
focusing on solutions and not relying on just emotional or intellectual content. Ring (2015)
provides three key approaches to balancing climate change information that can improve the
communication strategy. The first consideration is to focus presentations on local solutions.
The second is to highlight the most important risks that are posed by climate change and
acknowledging different types of presentation bias. The final consideration is to appeal to
both the intellectual and emotional aspects of climate change.
An important step in finding a balance to emotional and intellectual content is to
acknowledge the emotions caused by discussing topics such as climate change, and to focus
on positives such as solutions and specific actions the audience can take (Ring, 2015). This
focus on solutions and producing action is reverberated throughout the literature. Tabara et
al. (2017) also suggest that promoting knowledge at the local scale helps to focus on
solution-based communication, and to avoid spending too much time highlighting the
negatives. In addition to Tabara et al.’s balanced and solutions-focused approach, Sterman
(2011) suggests communicating the most important risks as well as the different types of
14

presentation bias that exist. Some of the biases Sterman (2011) emphasizes as important to
be aware of include: violating the rules of probability, overconfidence, wishful thinking,
illusion of control, framing, and anchoring (Sterman, 2011). Focusing on the most important
or pressing risks may be a good approach to finding balance in how material is presented, as
the important information can be presented and then potential solutions or action(s) can be
addressed.
Ring (2015) suggests that there is a need for balancing material and whether it draws
on emotional or intellectual perspectives because of how the human brain reacts to both
emotional and intellectual stimuli. Emotional or experiential processing is “centered in the
amygdala, is emotional, visual, rapid, intuitive, automatic, and based on past experiences”
(Ring, 2015, p. 412). Analytic processing is located in the “anterior cingulate cortex, is
intellectual, abstract, rational, and deliberative” (Ring, 2015, p. 412). Ring also points out
that survival responses are often handled by experiential processing and explains why
scientific content may fail to get public support and action (Ring, 2015). So how can
information about climate change be presented in a balanced fashion? One approach is to
focus on the current situation, while anchoring this to the place of the target audience (Ring,
2015). In the context of the Nechako Watershed, Picketts et al. (2017) found that participants
in their study felt more comfortable discussing climate change implications situated in the
present, and had more difficulty when looking to the future.
2.1.2

Watershed Scale
In a commentary on optimism versus hope, Knight (2017) proposes that “if watershed

after watershed is made healthier, if the human communities living in these watersheds
prosper, might not Earth itself over time be made healthier?” (p. 1398) As explored in the

15

Climate Change Communication section, there is a desire to downscale the way we address
climate change to a more local scale. Using a watershed scale approach has the potential to
link people living in a watershed to climate change, the ecosystem services they rely on, and
their general health and well-being.
A common starting point to define a watershed is an area of land that is drained by a
stream or river (Benke & Cushing, 2005). The term watershed is used often in North
America, while other synonyms commonly used are drainage basin and catchment (Benke &
Cushing, 2005). Another way to think about a watershed is, as areas where rain or water
flows under the force gravity towards a watercourse (Ison et al., 2007). Moving beyond
these standard definitions that pertain only to their hydrological aspects, watersheds provide a
useful “geographical unit for where water concentrates along with solar energy, nutrients and
soil, and where functions of water purification, nutrient recycling, waste decomposition and
flood and drought resilience are performed” (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009, p. 96). By expanding
on our understanding of what a watershed is beyond its hydrological definition, the
complexity of watershed scales and the range of interactions becomes more important.
While the actual size and spatial extent of watersheds is highly variable, they are
often considered to be small enough to be more manageable than a nation. Watersheds can
be thought of as being a mesoscale feature (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009) that typically provides
good examples of a geographic boundary that intersects and contains various other
boundaries. For example, watershed boundaries can be used to delineate ecosystem
boundaries (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009). Watersheds not only delineate geographic areas of
drainage patterns, but also often intersect with jurisdictional boundaries created by society
(Ison et al., 2007; Morrison et al., 2017; Parkes, 2016; Parkes & Horwitz, 2009), such as
local municipal governments, health authorities, school districts, provincial governments, and
16

even federal governments. In addition, watersheds do not exist in seclusion, and instead are
impacted by upstream and downstream dynamics (Morrison et al., 2017).
There is a developing field of research and action that uses watersheds as spatial units
within which to better understand the connection between land and water, but also
ecosystems and human health (Jenkins et al., 2018). Jenkins et al. (2018) found that
increases in upstream tree cover had effects similar to improved engineered sanitation
infrastructure. Parkes et al. (2010) present a heuristic tool, ‘The Watershed Governance
Prism,’ which aids the understanding of the relationships and interconnectedness between
watersheds, ecosystems, social systems, and health and well-being (Parkes et al., 2010).
They also state that “[w]atersheds provide an ideal context to design integrated governance
that addresses health, environmental and socio-economic proprieties” (Parkes et al., 2010, p.
694). This is also in keeping with themes introduced in the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment that made connections between watersheds, ecosystems, and human well-being
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s
adaptive mosaic scenario is considered to be a more desirable future, in which watershed
scale ecosystems are the focus of government and economics. This scenario may have
potential to provide greater diversity of culture, health benefits, better development of
networks among communities, regions, and entire nations, all based on a heightened sense of
place (Morrison et al., 2017; Parkes & Horwitz, 2009).
Echoing back to the themes of Climate Change Communication (Section 2.1.1), is the
common theme of locating research and action in a particular place. This place-based focus
is also effective in public health initiatives (Morrison et al., 2017). Thinking about and
acting on complicated topics such as climate change, ecosystems and well-being at the
watershed scale is perceived as more manageable. Conservation students are challenged to
17

solve global problems, but find some ease in solving problems for a single watershed at a
time (Knight, 2007). The connections between watershed scale approaches in research and
ecosystem services and well-being are a result of the complex and dynamic nature of
watersheds.
2.1.3

Ecosystem Services and Well-being
Influenced by the impacts of climate change, and compounded by human actions,

there is a need to think, plan and act at various scales. Watershed scales are one of the
approaches being researched and implemented when trying to solve the complex issues
resulting from climate change. This is due to the places people live, work, and play having
an impact on their health (Horwitz & Parkes, 2016), or the environment and ecosystems that
people are a part of are a contributing factor to their overall health and well-being.
Ecosystems and ecosystem services, and their relation to health and well-being will be
explored in this section, also acknowledging their complex relationship with climate change.
This includes consideration of ecosystems and the services they provide, the links with
human well-being, discussion about how ecosystem services are valued, and the implications
for how research is conducted, as expressed by the emerging field of ecohealth.
While the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) was not the first to define
ecosystems, ecosystem services and health, the MEA definitions have guided how many
researchers think about these concepts. This assessment document defines ecosystems as
being “dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the nonliving
environment interacting as a functional unit” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, p.
V). The same report explicitly states that humans are imbedded and important parts of
ecosystems when discussing the connection between ecosystems and human well-being

18

(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), which is a sentiment expressed by many others
(Charron, 2012; Waltner-Toews et al., 2003).
While people may think of humans as being outside of ecosystems, or their
surrounding ecosystems as being a part of nature that they are separate from, it is important
to recognize that ecosystems provide services and goods that humans and other living
creatures depend on. These goods and services are defined as ecosystem services, and have
been subdivided as follows: provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and
supporting services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Oosterbroek et al., 2016).
Provisioning services are things like providing food, water, and timber (Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Oosterbroek et al., 2016). Regulating services provide a
comfortable and stable environment such as: air and water purification, climate stabilization,
protection from natural hazards such as wildfires, floods, etc., and regulation of the spread of
infectious diseases (Oosterbroek et al., 2016). Cultural services from ecosystems are
recreational opportunities such as swimming in a lake or hiking through a forest, as well as
the aesthetic benefits (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Much art depicts ‘natural
beauty,’ and quite often good scenery is considered to be mountains, forests, fields, or water.
These cultural services also include the spiritual benefits that form many religions and
worldviews (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The last type of ecosystem service
is supporting services, which often are less direct in providing an end product or service to
humans and other living organisms, but include important processes such as photosynthesis,
soil formation, and nutrient cycling, which provide many of the key cycles that are the
foundation for life on Earth (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). There is a growing
understanding that ecosystem services have a direct impact on the health and well-being of

19

people (Horwitz & Parkes, 2016), which makes it important to define what is meant by the
terms health and well-being.
Oosterbroek et al. (2016) integrates the World Health Organization and Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment definitions of health together as, “a state of complete physical, mental
and social well-being not merely the absence of disease or infirmity… [t]he health of a whole
community or population is reflected in measurements of disease incidence and prevalence,
age-specific death rates, and life expectancy” (Oosterbroek et al., 2016, p. 238). Well-being
includes health, but also extends to other important factors, such as the context in which
health exists. This understanding of well-being moves beyond the mere absence of disease
and instead is a more holistic state that includes “physical, psychological, and social aspects
of wellness” (Ford et al., 2015, p. 661). It follows that if a person or community’s well-being
is based on physical, psychological, and social determinants, that one’s surroundings have a
role to play in their overall well-being.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment makes the connection between human wellbeing and the ecosystem services those humans depend on (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment, 2005; Parkes et al., 2010). These direct connections between place, ecosystem
services and well-being have been explored throughout the literature (Horwitz & Parkes,
2016; Oosterbroek et al., 2016; Parkes et al., 2010; Parkes & Horwitz, 2009; Webb et al.,
2010), and can be thought of as a foundation for exploring health (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009).
Horwitz & Parkes (2016) outline nine areas in which ecosystem services determine health
and well-being:
1. Contributors to hydration and safe water
2. Contributors to nutrition and microbiomes
3. Sites of exposure to infectious diseases
20

4. Sites of exposure to pollution or toxicants
5. Settings for mental health and psychosocial well-being
6. Sites of exposure to physical hazards
7. Places where people derive their livelihood
8. Places for lifestyles, personal behaviors and community engagement
9. Sites where medicinal and other products can be derived or accessed
These connections and pathways of influence are not new. Many aspects of these
pathways have been explored by health researchers over the past decades, including a study
that found that patients recovering from surgery recovered faster when they had a view of
nature in comparison to those who had a view of a wall (Jackson et al., 2013). An additional
concern, when considering the dependence of human well-being on ecosystem services is
that many ecosystems - and their services - are being quickly degraded. The Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment found that around 60% of these services, such as air and water
purification, are degraded or being exploited at unsustainable rates (Oosterbroek et al., 2016).
This is even more concerning when it has been found that 25% of diseases globally are
directly related to environmental causes, and 80% of these global disease rates are indirectly
related to the environment (Parkes et al., 2010). Making the connection between which
ecosystem services have a specific impact on particular people is not a clear task.
While ecosystem services can be understood as foundational for health and well-being
benefits for people, it is important to be aware of the degree of complexity that is at play
when dealing with ecosystem services. Improving the health benefits one group of people
receives from an ecosystem service may result in another group of people experiencing a
worsening of their own well-being as a result (Horwitz & Parkes, 2016). Attempts to better

21

understand the spatial scales in which certain ecosystem services operate have produced the
concept of servicesheds (Mandle & Tallis, 2016). Servicesheds are the areas that specific
ecosystem services provide benefits to a specific people, and have been found to have various
scales depending on the particular ecosystem service being considered and the place it is
being considered in (Mandle & Tallis, 2016). In addition to the complexity of finding the
appropriate scale of influence from an ecosystem service, there are also complex challenges
in dealing with: the multiple drivers of ecosystem change, long and complicated cause and
effect chains, multiple health impacts, the role of socio-economic factors, and the site
specifics of impacts. This small sample of the complexity of dealing with ecosystem services
impacts on well-being is why it is necessary for health researchers and providers to interact
and engage in transdisciplinary work (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009; Webb et al., 2010). This
recognition of the need to find better ways to deal with complexity has led to the
development of approaches such as ecohealth (Charron, 2012; Webb et al., 2010) that will be
explored further for its methodological implications in Chapter Three.
2.2 Applied Processes
This section of the literature review focuses on content that pertains to knowledge
exchange and geospatial tools (with a focus on web-based tools), as expressions of the
applied fields and processes that have provided the background to the research. While there
are significant theoretical elements to each of these topics, this research is interested in their
application to address the questions and objectives introduced in Chapter One.
2.2.1

Knowledge Exchange
There are many different terms used interchangeably when it comes to knowledge

exchange, including: knowledge generation, coproduction of knowledge, knowledge transfer,

22

knowledge sharing, knowledge mobilization, knowledge translation, and knowledge to
action. Knowledge exchange can be defined in many ways, and Fazey et al. (2013) provide a
useful generalized definition as being a “process of generating, sharing, and/or using
knowledge exchange through various methods appropriate to the context, purpose, and
participants involved” (p. 20). This is the preferred term and definition used throughout the
thesis, due to the emphasis and assumptions of an exchange of knowledge, as compared to a
term such as ‘knowledge translation’ that focuses on simply modifying the content that is
relayed to an audience (Fazey et al., 2013). Knowledge exchange as a process incorporates
many of the best features of the other terms. The need for the knowledge exchange process
to be appropriate for the specific situation is important, as one approach may be suitable for
one situation, and not the next. There is not a universal approach that will always work, and
new exchange processes will also often involve some degree of iterative refinement.
Reed et al. (2014) provide a robust structure for understanding the process of
knowledge exchange by providing five principles for practicing knowledge exchange in
environmental management. The five principles are: 1) design; 2) represent; 3) engage; 4)
impact; and 5) reflect and sustain. The design principle begins the process by requiring that
the desired outcomes of knowledge exchange be known from the start of any project. They
suggest that goals are set, a communication strategy is developed, there are suitable resources
to support the process, and there is built-in flexibility that can account for the potentially
changing needs of knowledge exchange participants.
The second principle identified by Reed et al. (2014) is the need to represent the
knowledge needs and priorities of the knowledge users. Projects must identify the potential
users of the research, finding ways to include these people in the research, while remaining
sensitive to ethical implications relating to the research and collaborations (Reed, Stringer,
23

Fazey, Evely, & Kruijsen, 2014). Reed et al.’s (2014) third principle is engagement between
the knowledge ‘producers’ and ‘users,’ to establish two-way conversations where both
parties are equals. In the literature, there is agreement that knowledge exchange should be a
multi-directional process (Cvitanovic et al., 2016; Fazey et al., 2013). The exchange is often
generalized between knowledge ‘producers’ and ‘users’ (Cvitanovic et al., 2016), where
researchers create knowledge and exchange it with the people who want to use it for some
purpose. This is a more unidirectional process, which is accepted as being a less desirable
form of knowledge exchange (Fazey et al., 2013).
The fourth knowledge exchange principle that Reed et al. (2014) propose is the need
to focus on the impacts of the process. Among the many connections between knowledge
exchange and some characteristics of ecohealth as an approach to research (see Chapter
Three), the emphasis on impacts resonates strongly between the two. Potentially one of the
best ways to keep participants and knowledge ‘users’ engaged is by having tangible results
that address challenges they are experiencing (Reed et al. 2014). Ecohealth would refer to
this as being a form of knowledge to action (Charron, 2012). The final principle Reed et al.
(2014) explore is reflection and sustaining the project. This principle focuses on evaluating
how the process you are involved in is progressing, and then refining as learning
occurs. Fazey et al. (2014) refers to this process as formative evaluations. Some of the
potential outcomes of knowledge exchange that can be evaluated are: a change in
understanding, a change in practice or policy, and the resulting changes from changing
practice or policy (Fazey et al., 2014). These features of knowledge exchange are all relevant
to the design and evolution of geospatial tools.

24

2.2.2

Geospatial tools
The use of maps and geospatial tools is useful for aiding people in identifying and

providing a visual aid to make the connection between the human environment relationship
(McLain et al., 2013). This section of the literature review covers geospatial tools to provide
context and understanding of the purpose of using the web-portal in this research (the
Stewardship Portal, introduced in Chapter One). To accomplish this, a brief background on
the development of geospatial tools that led to web-based geospatial tools is provided. An
overview of these web-based tools is provided, and the web-portal being used for this
research will be explained, relative to other geospatial tools.
The first operational GIS dates back to 1962 when Roger Tomlinson, who is
considered to be the father of GIS, developed a GIS for the Canadian Federal Department of
Forestry and Rural Development (Fu & Sun, 2011). As this technology continued to evolve
throughout the following decade, it became apparent that spatial analysis would be a driving
force in geography and many other fields (Dragićević, 2004). GIS are typically focused on:
storing and accessing geospatial data, editing capabilities, analysis, and providing digital
visualizations and maps (Songer, 2010). GIS started as a desktop-based software package,
which is still a prevalent format used today in the field. Examples of current desktop
versions of GIS are ESRI’s ArcMap and an Open Source software package called Quantum
or QGIS. While these desktop GIS have become powerful and efficient at processing
geospatial data, they also have limitations and criticisms. A common issue for individuals or
organizations who want to perform spatial analysis using GIS is the relatively high cost of
computer hardware to accommodate processing, and the high cost of some software options
(Songer, 2010), such as ArcMap, which is an industry standard in North America and much
of the world. In addition to the cost of software, which can be avoided using freely
25

distributed open source software such as QGIS, there is also a significant learning curve
associated with GIS due to their complexity (Songer, 2010). This high entry cost of both
time and money makes it difficult for many individuals, organizations, and even governments
to make use of these powerful tools (Mukherjee, 2015). Thanks to the continuing
development of the internet, in 1993 a new approach to GIS was developed, which is now
known as web GIS (Fu & Sun, 2011).
In 1993, Xerox launched their PARC Map Viewer, a web-based tool that provided the
ability to display maps, zoom in and out, select and deselect different data layers, and convert
map projections, all without having to purchase or install resource intensive software on your
computer (Fu & Sun, 2011). PARC Map Viewer provided a web mapping experience by
generating and visualizing maps and other geospatial data through the web, but it also
provided web GIS functionality through the conversion of data projections (Li et al., 2011).
Web GIS are considered to provide online mapping services, but also provide additional
functionality such as: spatial analysis, querying of data, collection of data, and the
distribution of geospatial data (Fu & Sun, 2011; Li et al., 2011). Another defining feature of
a web GIS is that they have, at a minimum, a server and a client, where the client is typically
a web browser, desktop, or mobile application that requests data and services from a server
through the internet (Fu & Sun, 2011). Web GIS have many advantages over desktop GIS,
as they only require internet access and virtually any computer, and due to their less
extensive suite of tools, they are significantly easier to learn how to use (Songer, 2010). As a
result, people who would not have been able to invest the time and money required for a
desktop GIS can make use of this technology. This more accessible use of GIS provides:
access and sharing of spatial data, the exploration and visualization of data, and analysis and
modeling all at greater rates than could be done using only desktop-based GIS (Dragićević,
26

2004). This increased access to GIS has also made it easier for new mapping approaches,
such as: participatory mapping (Lowery & Morse, 2013), public participation GIS
(Mukherjee, 2015), and volunteered geographic information (Ota & Plews, 2015), all of
which have a common theme of collecting and/or sharing data from a bottom up approach.
Defining the various types of web GIS tools that are available is a difficult task, as the
literature (both academic articles and textbooks) does not make distinctions beyond being a
web GIS or not. A query of the UNBC library catalogue using the following searches all
provide a plethora of products that cover a diverse range of fields and topics, but no specific
typing beyond being a GIS or web GIS: types geospatial web, types geospatial web tools,
web GIS types, and web GIS tools. The distinctions being made in the literature are related
to the design and purpose of each web GIS. Due to this lack of specific categories of web
GIS, this literature review will distinguish between different types of web-based geospatial
tools by their range of features.
The evolution of web GIS has been marked with an increasing amount of
functionality and processing capabilities that have been the staples of desktop GIS. While
Figure 2 depicts a general outline of features that have become available, this is by no means
an extensive feature list, but is instead meant to be a helpful heuristic tool for readers.

27

Map
Viewer

Data Layer
Manipulation

Create
Maps

Spatial
Analysis
Tools

Download
Spatial
Data

Upload
Spatial
Data

Download/
Upload
Non-spatial
Data

Figure 2: The Evolution of Web GIS Functionality

The tools covered in this section are: the Local Environmental Observer (LEO)
Network, the Nechako Watershed Atlas, the Mid-Atlantic Watershed Atlas, EnviroAtlas, and
the IWRG web-portal. This is not meant to be an extensive overview of all the features,
design, and technical details of these tools. The purpose of discussing these tools is to
provide some context for what kind of features they each make use of, which will also
highlight the uniqueness of the combination of features available in the IWRG web-portal.
The Local Environmental Observer (LEO) Network (LEO Network, 2021) is a
networking website and mobile application that connects people observing unusual
phenomena occurring in their surrounding environment to a network of other interested
observers and experts who can shed some light on what is being observed. The LEO
Network is best described as falling on the ‘Map Viewer’ hierarchy of web GIS tools. The
argument could be made that it is not actually a web GIS, but instead displays observations as
points on a map to provide users with an easy way to see potentially interesting posts in areas

28

that are relevant to them. The map centric viewing approach is secondary to the purpose of
connecting a diverse range of people with observations about environmental change.
The Nechako Watershed Health Atlas was created by the Fraser Basin Council,
Community Mapping Network, and other partners from throughout the Nechako Watershed
(Fraser Basin Council, 2015). This atlas goes one step further in terms of web GIS
functionality from the LEO Network. The atlas has the ability to enable and disable an array
of predetermined spatial datasets, which can also have their attribute tables shown. There are
built-in basic spatial analysis tools, such as measuring length and area, and buffering. The
atlas also allows users to create and print or download maps produced with the provided data.
This particular atlas does not provide the option to upload or download any data types.
The Mid-Atlantic Watershed Atlas (MAWA) was a tool that was developed to create
a regionally focused community that provided access to a wide array of data pertaining to
watersheds throughout the northeastern United States (Reed, Bills, Anderson, Ketchum, &
Piasecki, 2010). MAWA is unfortunately no longer a functional tool, so the summary of the
functionality is drawn from the associated paper from Reed et al. (2010). MAWA provided
access to a wide range of imagery products, some of which were available for download
directly from the tool. There were also some basic analysis tools, such as graphing functions,
available. Similar to the LEO Network, MAWA also provided the ability for users to create
points on the map, then type summaries and make direct URL links to websites.
EnviroAtlas is a web GIS tool developed for the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), which uses ESRI systems to create the entire web GIS experience.
The EnviroAtlas has a well-developed user interface and a vast array of functionality thanks
to the use of ESRI products. This atlas is capable of uploading data from other online
sources or a local hard drive, has basic mapping and analysis tools, and is also able to upload
29

additional tools if they work with other ESRI web GIS products. Another aspect of this tool
is the three pre-determined categories for data that are provided. These categories are:
Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity, People and Built Spaces, and Boundaries and Natural
Features. Spatial data are available for download through the EnviroAtlas website.
The final web GIS tool to be discussed in this literature review is the IWRG Portal.
This Portal has all of the web GIS functionality mentioned in previous tools: map viewing
and creation, analysis tools, reporting, and the ability to download data directly from the
Portal. In addition to these features, the Portal also allows users to upload their own data. In
fact, this tool provides base layers but the rest of the content relies on user contributions. The
data that are hosted in this web-portal are more than just geospatial in nature; any digitally
stored data can be included in the database. The linking of spatial and non-spatial data
provides the opportunity to make spatial connections between forms of data where they may
not have been considered before. For example, a person could contribute a study on the
impacts of the Kenney Dam on the Nechako River, and their submission would contain a text
file or link to the article. They could also attach pictures they had taken, a point on the map
to show where the dam is, and a polygon feature that represents the Nechako River itself.
Previous web GIS have provided the ability to link out to other websites, but none found in
this literature review provided this range of data types in one single location. Another critical
feature of this web-portal is the permissions-based system in which data are protected. Since
users can download any data they have access to, it is important to provide a system in which
users uploading data can indicate which users should have access. This allows sensitive
material to be stored in the web-portal and preventing it from being obtained by an audience
larger than what the uploader desires.

30

2.3 Synthesis: linking concepts and application through geospatial tools
The purpose of this section is to highlight both the connections and gaps that exist
between health, ecosystems, climate, and the use of geospatial tools to further understand
these relationships. This will be accomplished by outlining some of the general benefits,
strengths, and weaknesses of geospatial tools for integrating and synthesizing data on
complex topics such as climate, ecosystems and well-being. Some of the connections
between climate change, ecosystems, and well-being will be highlighted. This section
concludes by discussing the challenges with integrative research.
Using maps or spatial visualizations of data can be effective forms of presenting
information pertaining to topics such as environment, natural resources, and demographics
(WHO, 2017). Spatial representations can effectively combine complex sets of data
(Burkhard et al., 2012), reducing the effort and time required to understand the presented
information (Lieske, 2015). Spatial data are also helpful in providing the opportunity to
discover patterns that may have been otherwise overlooked in other formats (Sopan et al.,
2012; WHO, 2017). Exploring spatial data has been identified as an effective way to
represent the connections between humans and the environment (McLain et al., 2013). Maps
and spatial data also have limitations that are important to understand. Maps are never an
objective model of reality; instead, they are the result of choices made about which data
should or should not be included (McLain et al., 2013; Stocker et al., 2012). Not everyone
finds that maps and spatial data are easily understood, and even choices about colour can be
interpreted differently by different cultures (WHO, 2017).
Health and well-being research appears to be one field that has explicitly made the
connection between climate change, ecosystems, and well-being. In this field, it is
recognized that climate change is a significant issue for public health because it increases the
31

risks of disease in many demographics. This increased risk is felt the most by vulnerable
groups, such as the young, elderly, and individuals already suffering from chronic illness and
that having ecosystems that are functional and productive are important contributors to the
overall health and well-being of humans (Galway, Parkes, Corbett, et al., 2016). Galway et
al. (2016) also note that climate change needs to be seen as exerting pressure on ecosystems,
as well as the economic and social structures that support human civilization.
Developing research and/or geospatial tools to explore this incredibly complex
relationship is not an easy task. One response to this challenge that is identified in the
literature is the benefits of scoping a problem to make it more manageable. For example,
geospatial tools that were found under climate change headings tended to have a focus on the
increased vulnerability experienced as the climate changes (Bai et al., 2014; Lieske, 2015).
Vulnerability for these tools is defined as a monetary factor, though both Bai et al.’s (2014)
and Lieske’s (2015) tools use demographic data to develop the monetary risks. Much of the
literature and tools coming from ecosystem services work has a focus on bridging the gap
between ecosystem services and humans by calculating the monetary value of these systems
services (Burkhard et al., 2012; Crossman et al., 2013; Pickard et al., 2015). This type of
ecosystem services literature creates the connection to humans by appealing to their
economic well-being.
Tools like InVEST and ARIES attempt to spatially model the value of ecosystem
services, which provides results that can be used in summaries, briefings, and maps (Pickard
et al., 2015). Ecosystem services tools, such as the Social Values for Ecosystem services
(SoIVES), move away from reducing ecosystem services to how much money they are worth
to society, and focus on the inherent social value (non-monetary) of ecosystems (Sherrouse et
al., 2011). SoIVES approaches ecosystem change as being a result of social changes, which
32

are indirectly impacted by demographic and cultural factors (Sherrouse et al., 2011).
EnviroAtlas is an open access ecosystem services mapping web tool that provides data on
ecosystem services, as well as people and built spaces (Sherrouse et al., 2011). In terms of
mapping health-related data, there are examples of presenting data spatially and presenting
them in a map (Elliott et al., 2001), but there are also examples of including mapping tools as
a core tool in public health and environmental justice research (Maclachlan et al., 2007).
Climate change is considered to be one of the greatest threats to human well-being,
and is a complex problem (Galway, Parkes, Allen, et al., 2016). Galway et al. (2016) present
five lessons for interdisciplinary research seeking to connect climate change, water (a
product/service provided by ecosystems), and health: 1) the need for frameworks that
facilitate integration, 2) emphasize learning-by-doing, 3) the benefit of examining issues at
multiple scales, 4) making implicit knowledge explicit, and 5) the need for reflective
practice. A gap in the literature related to this research is that it is not known if a geospatial
tool (such as the IWRG Portal) can provide an opportunity to understand climate,
ecosystems, and well-being data through the integration of spatial and non-spatial data. It
also is not known if presenting climate, ecosystems, and well-being data using such tools is
an effective means to leverage existing data to assist conversations and new perspectives of
the interconnectedness of these data. Insights gained in relation to these gaps will be
discussed further in Chapter Five.
Geospatial tools, such as the IWRG Portal, have the potential to accommodate learningby-doing, looking at problems at multiple scales, and making implicit knowledge, such as
values, spatially explicit. The subsequent chapters will present how this study has been
designed to explore and provide insights into the strengths and limitations of the IWRG
Portal as a contribution to addressing these challenges.
33

Chapter Three: Research Design
This thesis is the product of research that was designed to answer the research
questions and objectives present in Chapter One, Section 1.2, and to address the gaps
identified in Chapter Two. The research design presented in this chapter is, therefore, a
response to a combined conceptual challenge of integrating and understanding the
interactions of climate change, ecosystems and well-being in the Nechako, with a technical
challenge of iteratively refining a map-centric portal tool to support this integrative
understanding. To respond to this combined challenge the research was designed and
conducted in two iterative phases. Phase I (IWRG Portal Research and Development) was,
overall, concerned with learning about the relevant technical aspects of the Portal. Phase II
(IWRG Portal Showcase) provided a chance to showcase and examine how the map-centric
portal could leverage existing data about climate change, ecosystems and well-being.
A key aspect of developing a coherent two-phase research design was drawing on
different methodological approaches that, together, accommodate the combination of
conceptual and technical or applied aspects of my research questions and objectives. This
chapter is structured in four parts to reflect these different considerations. Section 3.1
describes key methodological influences that supported research design focusing on both
knowledge exchange about climate, ecosystems and well-being and also the technical
development of the web-portal. Section 3.2 introduces the two iterative research phases that
were combined to address the research questions and objectives. Section 3.3 introduces the
specific research methods that were used to gather and analyse data to address the research
questions and objectives. Section 3.4 addresses considerations of research ethics and rigour
that were relevant to this research design.
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3.1 Methodology

As introduced above, the research questions and objectives of this research combine
an interest in both conceptual and technical/applied considerations. One response to this is a
two-phase qualitative research design that will be introduced in Section 3.2. This type of
research design also required careful consideration of both methodological approaches and
specific methods. Methodology and methods are two different terms, which need to be
distinguished and defined. Methods are the actual techniques used to collect data.
Interviews, observations, field notes, and questionnaires are all examples of methods that can
be applied in research (Roberts, 2014), and the relevant methods used in this research are
presented in Section 3.3. This section focuses on methodology, which Roberts (2014)
describes as the reasoning and structure that underpins how, and which, methods are applied
in research.
Methodology has been described as being an aspect of different research paradigms.
A paradigm can be understood as “the basic belief system or worldview that guides the
investigator, not only in choices of method but in ontologically and epistemologically
fundamental ways” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 105). Guba and Lincoln (1994) describe
research paradigms as consisting of three fundamental questions that ask about: 1) ontology,
2) epistemology, and 3) methodology. Ontological questions seek to establish the nature of
reality, and epistemological questions focus on understanding what can be known, as well as
the relationships between the person who knows and one who wants to know (Guba &
Lincoln, 1994). Guba & Lincoln also describe methodology as being how a researcher can

35

approach the things they believe can be known, which is constrained by the researcher’s own
beliefs about epistemology and ontology.
In keeping with these descriptions by Roberts and Guba & Lincoln, this section
introduces the methodological approach of pragmatism and the methodological influences
from ecohealth and knowledge exchange, which have shaped the design of this two phased
research. A pragmatic approach is especially appropriate for the applied place-based nature
of this research that is influenced by more than one research paradigm (Patton, 2002),
including the different types of past research within the Nechako Watershed, that have
generated existing information on climate change, environment and community. In keeping
with the emphasis of Research Question 1, and Objective 1, two other notable
methodological influences are the fields of knowledge exchange, and ecohealth which both
help to ground thinking about and discussing interactions about climate change, ecosystems,
and well-being.
3.1.1 Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a social science paradigm that can be applied to qualitative,
quantitative, or mixed methods research (Morgan, 2014). Pragmatism does not rely on
establishing a metaphysical philosophy of knowledge (Morgan, 2014). Pragmatism as a
paradigm relies on a process-based understanding of knowledge (Morgan, 2014).
Pragmatism understands research as a human experience that differs according to both the
beliefs and actions of researchers (Morgan, 2014). Beliefs and actions for pragmatists are the
combined result of a person’s lived experiences, which are inherently contextual and based
on lived history, culture, social situation, and emotions (Morgan, 2014).

36

Pragmatism can be a flexible methodological approach (Patton, 2002), which
provides the ability to explore the different ways of knowing and interacting with the real
world (Wood & Smith, 2008). Pragmatism considers ideas to be a result of lived experiences
and actions that are continually evolving, which leads to a definition of pragmatism as being,
“a pluralist approach with an appreciation of the fallibism of all knowledge and every style of
knowing” (Wood & Smith, 2008, p. 1527). To clarify, fallibism is “a theory that it is
impossible to attain absolutely certain empirical knowledge because the statements
constituting it cannot be ultimately and completely verified” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). The
scope of pragmatism can be reduced to concerning itself only with what works, which has
been criticized throughout the literature (Morgan, 2014). The scope should not be this
narrow; instead, a pragmatist approach is concerned with understanding what researchers do
and why they do it, the choices that are made about research goals, and the means that are
used to reach research goals (Morgan, 2014). The pragmatic approach could be considered
the return to the linguistic roots of methodology, which is the study of methods (Morgan,
2014). A pragmatic paradigm accepts the value of research conducted under other paradigms
and approaches, because it is recognized that different research communities have their own
set of beliefs that lead to actions and research (Morgan, 2014). The pragmatic approach
provides the flexibility to incorporate Ecohealth, Knowledge Exchange influences, while also
allowing a two phase research design that were broken up into 1) a technical and practical
phase, 2) a qualitative phase. Having an inclusive methodology is important to me because
there are many different approaches to research and knowledge, and they all have value.
Pragmatism also recognizes that people’s own experiences can influence their understanding
of the world and is continually evolving, just as this research evolved through its different

37

phases. These ideas are also consistent with my evolving experience and positionality as a
researcher, as outlined in Section 1.4.
3.1.2 EcoHealth
Ecohealth is an evolving field that is especially relevant to research that combines
social and ecological influences on health, and that also seeks to both improve understanding
of and develop responses to complex issues (Forget & Lebel, 2001). In keeping with
Roberts’ (2014) definition of methodology, the principles of ecohealth have impacted the
design of this research by influencing my reasoning as a researcher, the structure of the
research, as well as the methods applied. Forget and Lebel (2001) note that ecohealth adds
value to this research design by placing people into nature, while attempting to frame this
relationship between humans and nature in a systems manner that connects health,
ecosystems and societal responses (Forget and Lebel, 2001; Charron 2012).
When describing ecohealth, Charron (2012, p. 7) notes “that health and well-being are
the result of complex and dynamic interactions between determinants, and between people,
social and economic conditions and ecosystems. The conditions of ecosystems are also
affected by a dynamic process of interactions, often determined by the social and economic
activities of people.” Charron (2012) makes the direct connection between ecosystems,
people, and their well-being, with an emphasis on six principals, among them ‘systems
thinking’ and the benefits of moving ‘knowledge to action.’ Systems thinking sees the world
as an array of interacting, nested hierarchies, with feedback loops that exist across the spacetime continuum (Waltner-Toews et al., 2003). It is important to recognize the relationships
that exist across and within these systems, and that these systems are truly complex (Charron,
2012; Waltner-Toews et al., 2003; Funtowicz & Ravetz, n.d.).

38

Watersheds, catchments and river basins (such as the Nechako Watershed) can be
seen as a mid-scaled system, which are less complicated to apply systems thinking to than the
entire country or globally, but still complex enough to have examples of intersecting
boundaries of ecosystems and institutions (Parkes & Horwitz, 2009). The watershed scale is
thought to be “an ideal context to design integrated governance that addresses health,
environmental and socio-economic priorities” (Parkes et al., 2010, p. 694). While this
research does not involve designing governance structures, Parkes et al. (2010) suggest that
watersheds are complex systems that facilitate exploring the relationship between human
health and ecosystems.
Charron (2021) identifies systems thinking as a principle of ecohealth that encourages
consideration of interconnectedness, of impacts on health, spanning ecosystems, social
systems, power dynamics and more. Knowledge to action is a related principle that focuses
on the need to use information to enact real world change (Charron, 2012). These concepts
and principles of ecohealth have influenced how research has been designed to address
Research Question 1 and Objective 1. Knowledge to action is closely related to knowledge
exchange, which is the methodological influence discussed in Section 3.2.3.
3.1.3 Knowledge Exchange
Knowledge exchange has been explored in some detail in the literature review, and
has also been one of the important methodological influences on the design of this
research. This research is concerned with understanding the role a geospatial web-portal tool
can play in facilitating conversations throughout the Nechako Watershed relating to climate
change, ecosystem services and well-being. Knowledge exchange recognizes the need to
develop context-appropriate methods for facilitating exchange among different knowledges

39

and knowledge-holders, and seeks to do so in an ethical manner (Fazey et al., 2013).
Although being able to transfer or translate knowledge to other people is important, this
research is interested in incorporating the knowledge others are willing to share. A
unidirectional exchange approach could simplify this research by reducing the number of
phases required, but would not actually consider the value of knowledge held by those who
are referred to as knowledge ‘users.’ To have a true ‘exchange,’ one needs to engage in a
conversation.
In the current global context, complex problems, such as climate change, require new
approaches to thinking about and managing our actions within the environment. A key
principle of knowledge exchange is the need to reflect throughout and after the process (Reed
et al., 2014). This principle is reflected in the design of this project by building research
phases that take the time to reflect and learn, so that the next phase benefits from the
previous. This learning emphasis links to the challenges of evaluating the knowledge
exchange process being developed, as well as the demand for new methods to be created for
this (Cvitanovic et al., 2015). Although this research is interested in learning about the
processes of knowledge exchange enabled using the IWRG Portal, the outcomes of the actual
exchange of knowledge also need to be addressed. Fazey et al. (2014) suggest that some of
the potential outcomes of knowledge exchange that can be evaluated are: a change in
understanding, a change in practice or policy, and the resulting changes from changing
practice or policy.
Knowledge exchange influenced the two phased design of this research by providing
guidance on the importance of intentionally designing collaboration, reflection, and an
understanding of the importance of all types of knowledge into this research.

40

3.2 A Phased Research Design
In response to the research questions, literature gaps and methodological influences
above, this research was designed and conducted in two iterative phases. The first phase was
concerned with learning about the relevant technical aspects of the Portal, developing an
instance of the Portal for the IWRG, finding suitable secondary data for the IWRG Portal,
and testing methods to integrate these data into the IWRG Portal. This first phase concluded
with the creation of Portal-related training materials to assist new users, as well as I achieved
an understanding of how the Portal works. The second phase focused on evaluating the
perceived effectiveness of the integration of data into the IWRG Portal. This was
accomplished by drawing on the combined experience and opinions of members of the portal
user research group (described below in 3.2.1). It is important to note that while this research
is divided into two phases, due to the iterative nature of this work, Phase II did not start when
Phase I concluded. Instead, Phase II started when Phase I reached the point where it was
ready to benefit from the portal user research group’s input.
3.2.1 Phase I: IWRG Portal Research and Development
Phase I had three main goals. The first goal was focused on the technical aspects of
the Portal that were relevant to this research, such as developing an understanding of how the
Portal was designed and functioned, to assist in launching an instance of the Portal for the
IWRG. The second goal was to acquire secondary data that related to climate change,
ecosystems, or well-being within the context of the Nechako Watershed, and to integrate
these data into the Portal. The final goal of this phase was to take the knowledge acquired
through this phase and use it to provide the IWRG and members of the portal-user research
group, with training materials that could be used to streamline the process of learning how to

41

use the Portal for new users. The portal user research group (PURG) involved directly in this
research consisted of: members of different themes of UNBC’s Integrated Watershed
Research Group team, the Nechako Environment and Water Stewardship Society (NEWSS),
School District 91, and the ‘Potential Portal User Group associated with the ECHO Network’
mentioned in the Research Ethics associated with this research. Engagement of these
participants is described in Section 3.4, the Portal User Research Group Consent can be
found in Appendix Three, and the Workshop and Focus Group Invitation can be found in
Appendix Four.
3.2.2 Phase II: IWRG Portal Showcase
Phase II of this research directly builds off the work in Phase I, and was designed to
showcase and examine the data that had been entered into the Portal and had three main
goals. The first goal was to draw on the experiences of the participating members of the
PURG regarding possible communication strategies for presenting data related to climate,
ecosystems, and well-being appropriate to the context of the Nechako Watershed. The
second goal was to evaluate the perceived benefits of using the Portal as a tool to convey
information. The final goal of this phase was to determine the perceived limitations of using
the Portal within the context of the Nechako Watershed.
Phase II consisted of four scoping discussions that occurred in small groups, a
workshop that acted to provide hands-on in-person training to members of the PURG, and a
focus group that was held on the same day, immediately after the workshop. The focus
group was recorded and transcribed. To analyze the transcript from the focus group, a
thematic analysis approach was used. The specific methods used in this phase of research
will be described in more detail in the next section.

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3.2.3 Phased Research Design Summary
To summarise – this study utilized a pragmatic two-phased iterative research design,
with a qualitative approach that supported an iterative research design that evolved as the
research progressed (Gaudet & Robert, 2018). The research methods are presented
separately for each phase of research. The methods sections for Phase I (Section 3.3)
provides a high level overview of the work that went into developing a working IWRG
instance of the Portal. In this context, an ‘instance’ is a different database and website that
has been set up to run the Portal software. For example, while there are multiple groups
using the Portal software, the IWRG Portal has its own database and web URL that are not
shared with other instances of the Portal. The approach used to describe Phase I methods is
not typical in many research projects, and yet is essential to describe and lay the foundation
for the work that Phase II builds on. The Phase II methods section (Section 3.4) is more in
line with a traditional qualitative research design, and will outline specific methods and
related considerations.
3.3 Phase I Methods: Hands-on Learning with the Portal
The methods used for Phase I of this research involved a range of hands-on learning
activities with the portal to develop a working IWRG ‘instance’ of the Portal. Creating an
‘instance’ of the portal required a series of steps:
•

first, to develop an understanding of how the Portal is designed and operates;

•

second, to acquire climate, ecosystem, and well-being data for the Nechako
Watershed and integrate these data into the IWRG Portal; and

•

third to provide direct training and training documents that can be used to help new
users learn how to make use of the Portal (Appendix Five).

43

Phase I was, therefore, designed to inform Phase II, by providing an IWRG-themed Portal
with an array of data related to the Nechako Watershed’s climate, ecosystems, and wellbeing. The intent was that this would provide the foundation for Phase II, whereby the
IWRG Portal tool was ready to be explored by members of the PURG, and data collected to
address the research questions and objectives.
To gain a working understanding of exactly what the Portal was, and how it worked,
it was necessary to spend time with the development team that was actively developing the
third version of this map-centric web portal tool. This involved attending and participating in
development progress meetings where the team discussed what features were being worked
on, bugs that had been identified, and created plans on how to continue making progress. In
these meetings the overall architecture of the Portal was also discussed among a team with
diverse technical and GIS expertise, including: overall design and development,
programming, research and UNBC GIS lab assistants.
Informed by work with the development team, it was also necessary to spend time
using the Portal alone, learning how the various aspects of the Portal worked. While much of
this solo hands on time with the Portal was self-directed, it was not unusual to have a specific
focus that resulted directly from a development meeting. For example, when the
development team was creating a tool that would allow bulk uploading of forms and
information into the Portal, it became necessary to spend time testing this new feature to find
bugs that may be present. Generally, this Portal exploration time was done systematically,
which started with learning the basic functions that general users had access to. For example,
adding spatial data to the map, uploading content, searching for content, and applying the
available spatial tools. After these functions were understood the next step was to become
acquainted with the Portal administrator features. These features included the ability to
44

create custom forms for data entry, schemas to allow spatial data to have attributes, creating
groups to organize users, creating user accounts, and changing the user interface schemes and
banners.
The second focus of Phase 1 was to start acquiring data related to climate,
ecosystems, and well-being in the Nechako Watershed. Data were collected in two ways.
First, I contacted researchers doing work in the Nechako Watershed that was relevant to the
scope of this research (especially those with links to climate, ecosystems, and well-being),
and asked if they would be interested in having their research hosted in the Portal. The
second data collection method involved searching through literature on the Nechako
Watershed and querying databases to explore what kinds of data (spatial and non-spatial)
existed that could potentially be incorporated into the Portal.
To upload data into the Portal, a few steps had to be completed. The first was to
create a form that could be used to capture the relevant aspects of the data. For example, the
forms created have fields to capture citation relevant information, links to the research if it
was published online, abstracts, or where appropriate, the complete data, such as a paper.
The next step was to determine how this information could be presented in a spatial manner.
Often this was accomplished by identifying spatial data that captured where the work focused
on or was undertaken. To provide attribute data within the spatial data, schemas had to be
created. These schemas determined which fields would be displayed within the spatial data.
It was also necessary to develop an IWRG theme for their instance of the Portal, which
involved applying a suitable colour scheme as well as adding an IWRG banner image.
The final goal of Phase I was to provide training and training materials for the IWRG
Portal. Throughout the course of this research dozens of demonstrations and training
sessions were held in person and online. These demonstrations usually involved showing the
45

various features of the Portal, and showcasing some of the datasets that had been uploaded.
In addition, training documents were developed after the scoping discussions (Section 3.4.2)
and workshop and focus group (Section 3.4.3) to guide new users on how to navigate and use
the Portal. These training materials can be found in Appendix Five, and cover everything
from the general layout and features of the Portal, to how to navigate spatial data, upload
personal content, and search for existing content already in the Portal. The findings section
for Phase I will present a detailed description of what the Portal is, and the subsequent
discussion (Chapter Five) will compare the portal to the literature and other GIS based tools.
3.4 Phase II: Methods: Qualitative data collection with portal users
Phase II adopts a qualitative approach that, in keeping with Gaudet & Robert (2018),
supports an iterative research design able to evolve and develop as the research progressed.
Phase II activities included small group scoping discussions, a workshop that showcased the
data within the Portal as well as training on how to use the Portal, and a focus group with
workshop participants.
3.4.1 Phase II: Recruitment
Existing portal users (including those involved with Phase I) were called on to recruit
participants. The selection criteria for these participants were: established PURG members,
individuals who collaborated by providing data for the Portal, individuals with experience
communicating their research to a diverse range of audiences, and individuals with specific
expertise in: development of the Portal, climate change, ecosystem services, and health and
wellness. Two phases of recruitment and participation occurred:
Through March and April of 2018, four small group scoping discussions were held
with members of the Portal User Research Group (PURG) who had been actively providing

46

data to be uploaded into the Portal, as well as other PURG members who had expressed a
keen interest in being involved with this research and the IWRG Portal. In total, nine
individuals participated in these four scoping discussions (see Section 3.4.2). In addition
eleven members of the PURG were recruited to participate in a workshop that focused on
showcasing data representing climate, ecosystems and well-being on May 22nd, 2018 (see
Section 3.4.3). Five participants engaged in both the scoping discussions, as well as the
Workshop and Focus group.
3.4.2 Phase II: Scoping discussion using semi-structured guide
A semi-structured guide was used in Phase II to gather background information and
important ‘scoping’ details from collaborating researchers. The semi-structured guide for
these scoping discussions provided a consistent but flexible way for both parties to have a
discussion and build rapport. The semi-structured guide included discussion-points
pertaining to:
-

the research that is being shared and integrated into the portal

-

the objectives of this research

-

whether there was an audience that the collaborating researcher would ideally like
to reach

-

what, if any, copyright or use restrictions are in place on the data being shared?

-

whether there were other formats of these data? For example, raw data, published
papers, technical reports, interviews, news articles, etc.

-

whether there were other researchers who conduct research relevant to the three key
themes (climate change, ecosystem services and well-being) within the Nechako
Watershed that should be contacted?

47

-

whether the researcher would like to meet again to review and discuss how their
data was formatted within the web-portal?

Field notes were a key form of data collection during these scoping discussions (see
Section 3.4.4). Field notes were taken during the semi-structured scoping discussions, and
reflective notes were taken after each interaction. Detailed analysis of these scoping
discussions was not conducted. Rather, the discussions provided important opportunities to
gather and discuss potential data, and provided the researchers who were sharing data an
opportunity to approve and suggest improvements as to how their work was adapted to be
part of the IWRG Portal. The findings for these scoping discussions can be found in section
4.2.1 (Group Scoping Discussion Findings).
3.4.3 Phase II: Portal Workshop and Focus Group Data collection
In addition to showcasing the data that had been formatted and uploaded into the
IWRG Portal, the workshop and focus group on May 28th, 2018 provided hands on training
to PURG members on how to use the Portal. For many, this was the first hands on, in depth
training they received.
As introduced above, the IWRG Portal is a tool to store, share and present data. For
participants to have the opportunity to discuss their understanding and perspectives on the
data connected to climate change, ecosystems and well-being that are uploaded into the
IWRG Portal, they first need to be able to have basic functional knowledge of how to
navigate the IWRG Portal. To facilitate this functional knowledge and experience the
necessary data within the IWRG Portal, a hybrid session that combined a workshop and focus
group was designed. This hybrid approach was possible and feasible because workshops and
focus groups have similar characteristics. For example, workshops can be effective at

48

providing a learning experience for a small group, usually consisting of less than 12 people
(Vidal, 2009). Focus groups allow a small group of six to ten people to have a discussion
where they can express their thoughts and opinions and learn from the experience and fellow
participants (Hay, 2016). As stated in Section 3.4.2, the goal of this session was to provide
the foundation for participants to navigate the data held within the IWRG Portal to inform
their opinions for the focus group discussion. The workshop directly preceded the focus
group on May 22nd (see Appendix Four). Eleven individuals of varying backgrounds
participated in the workshop focus group session; the eleventh person helped facilitate the
session by note-taking, and was also encouraged to participate in questions and discussion.
The workshop part of the session was designed to walk the participants through a
variety of tasks that would provide the skills required to explore data stored within the IWRG
Portal. The workshop was held in the GIS Lab at UNBC, as this location was available, had
the number of computers required, and had a projector. Each participant was provided with a
printed version of the workshop, and confirmed and obtained consent forms from everyone
participating. After an orientation to the research project, the participants were guided
through the workshop stages and the connections with the focus group discussion to follow.
This part of the session was not recorded, as the intention was to have a discussion during the
focus group.
For the focus group segment, the group moved across the hall and sat at three round
tables that were fitted end to end. The entirety of the focus group’s audio was recorded for
transcription and analysis purposes. The focus group was structured using a collective
learning spiral P4D approach (Mitchell et al., 2014). This learning spiral approach uses four
discussion point questions to structure learning processes: 1) What should be? 2) what is? 3)
what could be? and, 4) what can be? With the exception of ‘What should be?,’ which was
49

outlined in the orientation section before the workshop, these questions provided the structure
for questions asked during the focus group.
The prepared question for ‘What is?’ focused on the current experience of participants
in communicating their own research to people outside their field. This question was
intended to draw from participants’ experience to leverage existing data, and facilitate
knowledge exchange that is specific to the Nechako Watershed context, and made a direct
contribution to addressing Research Question 3. The ‘What could be?’ question focused on
discussing the integration of data relating to climate, ecosystems, and well-being, perceptions
of the effectiveness of this as seen in the IWRG Portal, and sought suggestions for specific
examples that are integrative and improvements to be made. This question was followed up
with a question on the participants’ perceptions of the IWRG Portal as a tool for sharing and
discussing topics of climate change, ecosystems, and well-being in an integrative way.
Finally, exploring ‘What can be?,’ participants were asked to suggest concrete next steps to
improve the exchange of information on the three topics mentioned above.
The focus group discussion was recorded and field notes were made during and after
the discussion (see Section 3.4.4 Field Notes). I transcribed the recording verbatim. The
transcription was done by transferring the recording to a portable hard drive as a .mp4 file.
This allowed for listening and transcribing to occur through a computer. This single device
setup provided an easy way to type up the transcription but also control the audio, so if a
word was not clear, rewinding was quick. The transcription was completed in this manner,
along with a second full listen of the audio while comparing to the text.

50

3.4.4. Field Notes
Keeping consistent and detailed field notes is a critical aspect of qualitative research. It
is so important that some qualitative researchers believe there is little point in conducting any
type of qualitative field work if field notes are not taken (Patton, 2002). Field notes allows
researchers to document and remember details about what is observed as being important.
These notes need to be descriptive and detailed (Patton, 2002). An example of a potential
field note that is not descriptive enough could be, “the focus group was pleasant and the
participants had a good discussion.” This provides nothing of value when it comes to
conducting analysis or writing a report. Instead, field notes need to contain details about:
who, what, when, quotes, your own feelings and reactions to what is observed, the insights
you have when conducting the field work or writing the field notes, and any other specific
details that strike you as potentially being important (Patton, 2002). Writing field notes can
be considered the start of the analysis process (Hay, 2016; Patton, 2002).
Field notes were taken throughout Phase I and II. During Phase I, notes were taken on
a daily basis. This is quite common in the GIS field, and they tend to be quite detailed.
These notes cover working with the Portal Development Team, my own exploration and
learning process with the Portal, and any meetings that pertained to this project. In addition
to the notes taken during the semi-structure scoping discussions, reflective notes were taken
after each interaction. Hosting a workshop focus group session was an intensive task,
making it difficult to take detailed notes during the session. However, reflective field notes
were made after the session, and a GIS-lab member was also tasked with taking field notes
during the focus group. Both types of notes were taken into account when analysing the
transcript of the focus group audio recording. Detailed notes were also taken during the
analysis of data, and writing up of results and discussion, making connections across
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different phases of research and reflecting on connections with literature in conjunction with
technical insights. Field notes from all phases of research were also used as point of
reference throughout the process of writing of Chapters Four and Five.
3.3.5 Thematic Analysis
The data collected for analysis are qualitative, which stems from the perspectives and
opinions of the participants and interpreted through my own understanding. To give some
voice to these participants, a flexible approach is required in analyzing these data.
The previous sections have outlined different phases of research leading to a range of
data being collected spanning technical development, scoping conversations, workshop
design, field notes and most specifically a transcript from a focus group discussion.
Informed by the methodological emphasis on pragmatism and knowledge exchange, a
flexible approach to qualitative data analysis was sought and thematic analysis was
identified.
Thematic analysis is a qualitative method that is used to identify, analyze, and report
on patterns found within data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis was identified as
an appropriate choice for this research because it is thought of as ‘foundational’ when dealing
with qualitative data, while providing a high degree of flexibility that pairs well with a
pragmatist methodological approach. Braun and Clarke (2014), note that thematic analysis is
particularly helpful for applied research, as it can both reflect the reality of a situation and dig
deeper into the context of situations (Braun & Clarke, 2006). While thematic analysis can
pair nicely with pragmatist approaches, it is a method that can be applied independently of
particular theories, paradigms, or epistemologies (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Since being
developed in the 1970’s, thematic analysis has been used to provide, “robust and even

52

sophisticated analyses of qualitative data, but yet focus and present them in a way which is
readily accessible to those who are not part of academic communities” (Braun & Clarke,
2014, p. 1). This aligns well with the previously discussed methodology guiding this
research. A modified approach to Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six phases for conducting
thematic analysis was used in this research and the key steps involved are summarised in
Table 1.
Table 1: Thematic Analysis adapted from Braun and Clarke (2006)

Phases of Thematic
Analysis
(adapted from Braun
and Clarke, 2006)
Phase One –
Familiarizing yourself
with your data
Phase Two – Generating
initial codes

Summary of key steps taken in analysis of Qualitative data

-

Phase Three: Searching
for themes

-

Phase Four: Reviewing
themes

-

Phase Five : Defining
and naming themes

-

Phase Six – Producing
the report

-

-

-

-

Listened to the audio recording and made notes
Transcribed the audio recording through multiple
iterations of listening to the recording
Reviewed field notes taken during the focus group
Made new field notes
Continued reading through the transcription and
noting possible codes
Over the span of months re-visiting this to determine
and refine codes
Created field notes from every session working on
this
Reviewed codes and field notes critically to determine
if codes overlapped in meaning or not
Developed distinct themes
Used SocNetV 2.4 software to visualize codes and
themes
Reviewed notes from transcription, developing codes,
and developing themes extensively
Went through dozens of iterative cycles of evaluating
themes for distinctiveness and overlap.
Developed final theme names and created definitions
for each theme
During this process made some final consolidating
changes to themes
Wrote Chapter Four: Findings and Chapter Five:
Discussion and Conclusion

53

Braun & Clarke (2006) begin their description of the six phases by noting that
thematic analysis requires a continual process of engaging and re-engaging with the data and
analysis that you are providing to describe the data. They also mention that “writing is an
integral part of analysis… writing should begin in phase one… and continue right through
the entire coding/analysis process” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86).

3.5 Research Ethics and Research Rigour
To conduct a proper research project certain quality control measures have to be
taken. Research ethics is an important and necessary process to understand, be considerate
of, and be approved for. Another important concept to implement is research rigour, through
transparency of how the research was conducted and what verification strategies have been
implemented.
3.5.1 Ethical Considerations
To ensure this research is in line with the Tri-Council Policy Statement, UNBC
Research Ethics Board (REB) clearance was obtained through UNBC prior to collecting data
(E2015.0204.010.00; see also, Appendix Three and Appendix Four for Consent form and
Information Letter). This research seeks to respect the need for human dignity, to do no
harm, and to enshrine the three core principles of: 1) Respect for Persons; 2) Concern for
Welfare; and 3) Justice (Government of Canada, 2016).
A potential ethical concern in this research is the role of power dynamics. The
process of knowledge exchange and the implications of this process should not be considered
benign by default. Fazey et al. (2013) explore power implications as important
considerations in a knowledge exchange process. This reflects the fact that deciding who and
what knowledge is included or excluded from the process is important. In this research,

54

attention to and acknowledgment of the role power plays included: asking collaborating
researchers to identify audiences they wish to enhance communication with, striving to have
equal numbers of male and female participants, and seeking to be inclusive of a diverse range
of participant perspectives, while acknowledging that there are more perspectives not yet
being voiced.
In Phase I and II there is the possibility of a conflict of interest as well as
psychological and social risks resulting from including members of the IWRG in data
collection. This is especially due to the fact that Committee members and IWRG team
members who were involved with oversight of the research, were participants in scoping
discussions, workshop and focus group activities, creating a dual role situation. One way to
address this was the fact that one member of my committee was not included in data
collection methods. There was also the possibility that during discussions in the focus group
that differences of opinions could lead to emotional turmoil. However, this possibility is no
greater than would occur in daily interactions.
3.5.2 Research Rigour
Research rigour can be considered the trustworthiness of how research is conducted
(Morse et al., 2002). To maintain research rigour, strategies need to be put in place early in
the research process to establish the trustworthiness of the work (Hay, 2016). One method I
used to maintain rigour is a verification process of checking, re-checking, and confirming
(Morse et al., 2002) through participating in an on-going and iterative research process with
the data, co-supervisors and the larger thesis committee. While this formalized research
process is required by UNBC, it is still an important aspect of maintaining rigour. This
research was approved and complies with the UNBC Research Ethics Board policies.

55

In addition to a verification strategy, this research also recognizes the importance of
reflexivity and triangulation as methods to maintain rigour. Reflexivity is the “process of
constant, self-conscious scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process” (Hay,
2016, p. 34). This concept is built into the research design by having iterative phases of
research. At the end of each phase, analysis and reflection on what has been learned through
the phase is used to refine the following phase. Triangulation or the use of multiple types of
data and data sources to ensure rigour in research (Hay, 2016) is reinforced by having
different sampling groups for the phases, and by conducting workshop focus group hybrid
sessions, keeping field notes, and all the other methods used to collect or analyze data.
The two phased design of this research ingrained the requirement to regularly reflect,
check how the progress was coming along, and adapt when changes were necessary. Both
phases of research were informing the other phase. Phase I and Phase II had plenty of
reflection points built into them. In Phase I, after every meeting or new feature learned or
developed for the IWRG Portal, it was necessary to reflect on my process of discovery and
learning, as well as to consider how this new information may impact future Portal users, and
how data should be presented in Phase II. In Phase II, comments and findings from
participants helped direct focus onto how features may need tweaking or require new features
all together. The interaction between both phases only ended after the workshop and focus
group (Section 3.4.3) was completed. The reflecting and taking an iterative approach did not
end with the focus group though, as it continued right up to the conclusion of this thesis.
This chapter has outlined the two phased iterative design of this research. The
methodology of pragmatism and methodological influences of ecohealth and knowledge
exchange that guided this research were also discussed. The methods that were used were
presented and explained along with consideration of research ethics and research rigour.
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Positionality considerations which inform methodological considerations, were introduced in
Section 1.4. Chapter Four will present the findings of this research.

57

Chapter Four: Findings
This research is divided into two distinct phases, and accordingly, the findings
presented in this chapter are presented in two parts. The first section covering Phase I
establishes some of the technical details of the Portal, while the second section is a more
standardized section and discusses the findings from Phase II. The two sections of the
findings section will be structured differently reflecting the disparate research design and
methods introduced in the previous chapter.
4.1 Phase I Findings
As explained in Chapter Three, Phase I of this research was focused on establishing an
‘instance’ of the IWRG Portal and learning how to properly set it up, administrate, and
establish content that is related to climate, ecosystems, and well-being within the Nechako
Watershed. The findings shared here relate to the establishment of the IWRG Portal.
Drawing on the work done throughout this research, the findings from the Phase I process are
presented as a description of the characteristics of the IWRG Portal. To accomplish this, an
overview of the IWRG Portal is provided detailing what the portal tool is, and also providing
insight into the features and functions of the IWRG Portal. This section of the findings also
describe the architecture that the IWRG Portal is built on and provides a summary of the data
that were prepared and uploaded into the IWRG Portal during Phase I, and in preparation for
Phase II. Training documents that were created during Phase I are provided as Appendix
Five.
4.1.1 The Integrated Watershed Research Group Portal Tool
The IWRG Portal is a web-based tool that integrates non-spatial and spatial data in a
map-centric context. There are multiple, different iterations of the Portal in existence. For
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example, the Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG) has an iteration they have named the
Tsilhqot’in National Government Stewardship Portal (Tsilhqot’in National Government,
2021). The TNG and IWRG Portals are both based on the same architecture. However, their
purpose, use, and look are slightly different. From this point onwards, reference to the Portal
refers to the tool itself, which is shared across multiple iterations, and reference to the IWRG
Portal is referring to the specific instance of the Portal related to the IWRG.
The Portal is probably best understood as the combination of multiple, different tools
and features. The Portal is a database, or digital file cabinet, that allows users to store data
using forms that Portal administrators design and provide for users. These forms are
customizable and can be made to suit virtually any purpose. In addition to the form-based
data, the Portal allows users to attach digital files with each individual form submission.
These digital files, whether they are photographs, videos, document files, audio, or any other
digital file type, are linked directly to the submitted form. The attached files and the
submitted form are related in the database. While relational databases are not new, the Portal
goes a step further and relates the above-mentioned data to spatial data. Key features of the
Portal are presented in Box a.
Box a: Key Features of the IWRG Portal, identified and described through Phase I research

•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Map-centric
A spatially referenced, web accessible database
Uses form-base data
Links spatial and non-spatial data in a relational way
Allows for key-word searches
Permanent and stable records system
Secure sharing platform

The Portal is map-centric, implying there is an obvious orientation towards maps and
spatial data in general. Spatial data, like non-spatial data, require an organization structure to

59

display the appropriate data. However, for spatial data schemas are used. Schemas allow the
Portal to display the attribute data contained within the spatial data. With a blank schema the
Portal will display the actual points, lines, or polygons of the spatial data. When an
appropriately designed schema is applied, the user will be able to explore the full depth of the
spatial data attributes.
In addition to being able to store both non-spatial and spatial data, the Portal goes
another step further and links the two in a relational way. This means that the form-based
non-spatial data and the spatial data are both directly associated with each other. The spatial
data are uploaded directly to the form in a similar manner to non-spatial data. Due to this
relational status, users are able to find and explore both the spatial and non-spatial data quite
easily.
Like many online resources, the Portal allows for keyword searches, which on the
default settings will search keywords throughout the entire form to make matches to the
searched word(s). Seeking data using this method allows users to see the form and the details
it contains, as well as to see if there are relevant spatial data associated with the form. The
user can also download the spatial data directly from the form to their own computer if they
desired. If the user explores the ‘Add Layer’ feature under map tools, they are able to search
through the available data using Portal Schemas or the actual submissions previously made
that have spatial data. In addition to being able to add spatial data to the map without
searching through forms, when spatial data are displayed users can view the attribute data
provided by the schema. Within every schema is a direct link back to the form associated
with the spatial data, allowing users to quickly go directly to the form-based data from the
spatial data.

60

The Portal was also developed to be a permanent and stable records system. This
means that everything uploaded to the Portal is permanent and cannot be deleted or edited in
any way by the original user who uploaded it, or any other users. Since every user has a
unique username, Portal administrators and other users can easily attribute each form
submission to the exact user who made it. This serves as a form of accountability, as no one
is anonymous, and it also means that all uploaded data remain the same as they did upon
being uploaded.
The Portal also provides a secure sharing platform. The administrators of each
instance of a Portal are required to assign individual and group permissions to every user.
When uploading a new submission, the uploading user is able to direct the Portal to share the
submission with the appropriate groups and users, or if they so desire, to everyone on the
Portal. This allows for multiple user groups to use a single instance of a Portal, while also
controlling which data they share with other people.
4.1.2 Portal Architecture
The Portal comprises extensive, custom code in multiple programming languages,
and since this tool is open source, this code is available from Scott Emmons and his team.
Instead of getting into an in-depth and technical discussion about this custom code, this
subsection briefly outlines the various systems that the Portal makes use of as core
architecture. This provides context and understanding about the general structure of this tool,
and a starting point for individuals interested in learning more. This section discusses the
role of PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and Apache in making the Portal a functional web tool.
PostgreSQL is an Open Source object-relational database system that is a well known
for being a reliable database for the past 30 years (PostgreSQL, 2021). This database system

61

(and the data stored within) represents the data foundation of the Portal and is the software
that stores all data uploaded. PostgresSQL works on all the major operating systems and is
free and Open Source. At a philosophical level, it fits well into the Open Source approach
that is at the core of the Portal. In addition to being Open Source, on its website the
PostgresSQL database is described as follows:
“PostgreSQL tries to conform with the SQL standard where such conformance does
not contradict traditional features or could lead to poor architectural decisions.
Many of the features required by the SQL standard are supported, though sometimes
with slightly differing syntax or function. Further moves towards conformance can be
expected over time. As of the version 13 release in September 2020, PostgreSQL
conforms to at least 170 of the 179 mandatory features for SQL:2016 Core
conformance. As of this writing, no relational database meets full conformance with
this standard". (PostgreSQL, 2021).

PostgreSQL is a Relational Database Management System, which is most easily
understood as being the software that stores, organizes, and provides access to data when
properly queried (What Is a Relational Database Management System?, 2021). Another way
to think about PostgreSQL is to imagine software that stores and organizes Excel tables.
Data are stored in tables that are set up by administrators and developers to hold particular
bits of data. In this example, think of the forms that currently exist in the IWRG Portal.
Each form is essentially a table within PostgreSQL, with its own unique columns of data.
The relational aspect of a database means that these tables of data are able to be queried by
individual elements of the table, or in this case, a single cell or record from the table (What Is
a Relational Database Management System?, 2021). Having a relational database then
allows the Portal to be setup to have a keyword search system, because the search is looking
through the various rows and columns of the database to find a match to the word being
searched. When it finds matches, it will provide those as results of the search.

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This section has outlined what PostgreSQL is and the role it plays within the Portal in
terms of non-spatial data. Another reason this software was integrated into the portal is due
to the availability of a geospatial database extension, PostGIS (PostgreSQL, 2021). PostGIS
provides PostgreSQL databases with the ability to store spatial data and display them within
a web map. As PostgreSQL is a relational database, and PostGIS integrates and extends the
databases capabilities, the spatial data are also relational. To illustrate how PostGIS
integrates into the Portal, consider the PostgreSQL database and the forms created within the
Portal to input and display data. Much like this, with PostGIS the spatial data have schemas
that are set up by Portal administrators that fulfill the same role as forms. These schemas are
designed to match the attributes that are desirable to be visible within the Portal when
uploading spatial data. While the PostGIS extension software does significantly more than
what has been discussed here, the general concept of what this software does is sufficient to
gain a deeper insight into the Portal. The last software that is going to be discussed is
Apache HTTP Server, which is how the Portal is brought to life on the internet.
Apache HTTP Server (Apache), is an open source project that has been led with the
same goal since it was first launched in 1995: to develop and maintain in Open Source a
HTTP server that works on UNIX and Windows platforms (The Apache Software
Foundation, 2021). As of April 2010, the developers of Apache recognized over 120 million
servers running this software (The Apache Software Foundation, 2021). This software
provides users the ability to take an offline webpage concept, and share it live with the
internet. Apache allows a single machine to support multiple virtual hosts or machines,
while recognizing that each virtual host requires a unique web address or IP. The ability to
recognize virtual hosts allows multiple iterations of Portals on one computer, allows
administrators to have testing and production versions on a single server. The most critical
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aspect to understand about the Apache software is that it is a tool that provides the
mechanism to share the Portal through the internet.
4.1.3 Data used in the IWRG Portal for the Phase II Workshop
This section describes the data that were collected, formatted, and uploaded into the
Portal, and used in the Phase II workshop. These data are maintained in a separate test
database for the IWRG Portal, and have also been brought into the current or ‘live’ database
that is being used for the IWRG Portal. The findings described in this section do not draw on
the data that were worked with when planning and designing the Phase II workshop. Instead,
workshop participants were provided with datasets enabling them to explore contributions
relating to one or more of the categories of climate, ecosystems, and well-being. In cases
where data had such use restrictions these data were omitted. A summary of the data used in
the workshop is provided in Table 2.
The biggest determining factor if a particular dataset made it into the workshop was if the
data were restricted in use in anyway or not. There were plenty of freely available data that
were identified, however some had restrictions on use.

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Table 2 Summary of data and information focused on climate, ecosystems, and well-being that were submitted
to the Portal for Phase II workshop

Data category

Description

Type

Climate

Nechako Decadal Mean Air
Temperature by Sub
watershed. 1950 – 1960 and
2000-2010
Prof. Stephen Déry
speaking about climate
change

Dataset available
via ANUSPLIN

Nechako Wildfires 1920’s
and between 2010-2017
Nechako anthropogenic
disturbance
“The Community WellBeing Index.”

Shapefile

File
georeferenced
where recoding
was made
Figure 4a and b

Raster

Figure 5

Climate

Ecosystems
Ecosystems
Well-being

Audio file (.wav)
file collected at
Stuart Lake

Excel table
combined with
shapefile
Ecosystems and wellIdentifying Youth PlaceManually digitized
being.
Based Values in School
a photograph of the
District 91
maps from the
workshop
Citation information can be found for each dataset in the text below

Link to Figure
or Map
Figure 3a and 3b

n/a

Figure 6.

The first dataset that falls within the category of climate is titled “Nechako Decadal Mean
Air Temperature by Sub watershed.” This submission made use of processed historical
climate data for Canada from 1950 to 2015, which was provided by ANUSPLIN (McKenney
et al., 2011). Aseem Sharma suggested using these data as they are available in a type of
spatial data known as rasters. These rasters cover all of Canada and consist of two rasters per
day. One raster is a daily minimum temperature and the other is a daily maximum
temperature. To process this information into decadal mean air temperature rasters for the
various sub watersheds of the Nechako, two Python scripts were written (see Appendix One
and Appendix Two). These Python scripts used GDAL spatial processing tools and QGIS to
process the raster data. In brief, this Python script completed the following steps:

65

1. The national dataset was clipped to the extent of the Nechako Watershed. This involved
clipping two raster files (minimum and maximum air temperature) for every day between
January 1st, 1950 and December 31st, 2015.
2. Daily values were organized by decade so that the mean values could be calculated.
First, the decade’s minimum mean temperature was calculated, followed by the
maximum mean temperature for each decade.
3. After the minimum and maximum mean temperatures for each decade were known, the
decade’s mean temperature was calculated.
4. As a final step, the air temperature data were processed through a focal statistics tool
within QGIS. This focal statistics tool used the Nechako’s sub watersheds as boundaries,
which provided the decadal mean air temperature by sub watershed within the Nechako.
As a result of these steps, the Portal contains a form that describes the data, their
source, how they were processed, a spatial layer for each decade that can then be
downloaded, the python scripts can be downloaded. Two examples of this depiction are
provided in Figure 3.
Another climate related dataset that was prepared and selected for the workshop is an
audio recording of Dr. Stephen Déry speaking about climate change. Dr. Déry participated in
a field trip conducted as part of the UNBC Ecohealth course (HHSC760: Field School in
Human Ecology) that took place in the summer of 2017, which involved travelling to Fort St.
James for the day, and participating in the planned activities. One of these activities involved
going to the banks of Stuart Lake, which is where Dr. Déry sat down for a moment to discuss
what climate change would most likely mean for the local area and Nechako. This
submission can be found in the IWRG Portal under the title, “Dr. Déry speaking about

66

climate change in the Nechako Watershed.” The submission itself has a brief introduction,
an audio file (.wav), which can be downloaded. Within the shared layers, this submission
also is linked to a shapefile of Stuart Lake, to geospatially represent where this discussion
occurred.
Figure 3a: Nechako Decadal Mean Air Temperature 1950-1960

Figure 3b: Nechako Decadal Mean Air Temperature 2000-2010

Figure 3: Nechako Decadal Mean Air Temperature (3a: 1950 – 1960 and 3b: 2000-2010)

67

An ecosystem related dataset that was formatted for the IWRG Portal for the purposes
of discussion at the Workshop in Phase II, is titled “Nechako Wildfires 1920 – 2017,” which
showcases the size and number of wildfires within the Nechako Watershed per decade
beginning in the 1920’s. The original data were created by the BC Ministry of Forests,
Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, and are updated on a yearly
basis. These spatial data are available from the BC Data Catalogue under the title, “Fire
Perimeters – Historical” (Fire Perimeters - Historical - Data Catalogue, 2021). Two
examples of this depiction are provided in Figure 4.
For use within the IWRG Portal, the data were clipped to the Nechako Watershed
boundary, then were divided into different shapefiles for each decade, and the size of each
decade’s total hectares burned was summarized in each shapefile. The IWRG Portal
submission for these data is titled, “Nechako Wildfires 1920 – 2017,” and has the shapefiles
for each decade available for download or visualization in the IWRG Portal.
The air temperature dataset was developed first because of the need to acquire climate
related data for the IWRG Portal. The requirement of having robust spatial data to
accompany climate data led to the concept of providing a change over time spatial dataset to
showcase how air temperature trends may have changed over time in the Nechako
Watershed. This dataset was developed prior to the wildfire data, and whenever data in the
IWRG Portal were shown, they seemed to be the dataset that people were the most interested
in. Later, in the search for more ecosystem related data, it was suggested that mountain pine
beetle data would be interesting since this species has had such a large impact on the region.
However, finding appropriate spatial data that I was able to freely share with Portal users on
mountain pine beetle proved difficult. In lieu of this, the idea of wildfire data was proposed,
fuelled in part by the 2017 summer wildfires that had been a significant issue in British
68

Columbia. Prince George and UNBC had hosted people who had been displaced and
evacuated from their homes due to the fires burning throughout the region. It turned out that
the BC government hosted a shareable spatial dataset of historic wildfires throughout the
province.
Figure 4a: Nechako Wildfires 1920s

Figure 4b: Nechako Wildfires 2010 - 2017

Figure 4 Nechako Wildfires 1920 – 2017. Showing 4a: 1920-1929 and 4b: between 2010-2017

69

The idea of creating a change over time spatial representation seemed reasonable, since
the air temperature change over time was accepted so well. This seemed appropriate since
wildfires were such a large issue the year prior and could be argued to touch on ecosystems
and well-being since forestry is a major industry in the area. The only intended link between
the air temperature and wildfire datasets was that they both were well suited to display
change over time. Despite this, it is clear a connection was made for some participants.
Jordan Brubacher, in conjunction with members of the Environment, Community, and
Health Observatory Network (ECHO) Network, developed an interesting way to visualize
and map the impacts of humans on British Columbia. Jordan worked on and was an active
participant in Phase I of this research. Working together, a portal submission titled ‘An
anthropogenic disturbance map of the Nechako Watershed’ was developed from the larger
province-wide spatial product (see Figure 5 below). This work represents an attempt to map
the combined physical impacts of human activities on the landscape.

Figure 5: Map of anthropogenic disturbance in the Nechako (Map created by Jordan Brubacher)

70

An in-depth summary of this work can be found in the Portal submission, along with
the original sources of all the data used, the detailed weighting scheme for how Jordan valued
different impacts, a thoughtful limitations section, as well as a Web Map Service (WMS)
layer that can be added to the map. Note that this work has continued to evolve since initially
being submitted to the Portal in January 2018 (Brubacher et al., 2018).
One of the submissions that focused on well-being is derived from Indigenous
Services: “The Community Well-Being Index.” This index measures socio-economic wellbeing for communities across Canada using four components: education, labour force,
income and housing (Canada, 2015).
To upload these data to the IWRG Portal, a summary, description of the data
catalogue that was applied in the spatial data, and the metadata for all the original data and
sources were input into a submission titled, “Nechako Watershed Community Well-Being
Index 2011.” To create the spatial data for this submission, a point-based shapefile was
obtained from the BC Data Catalogue (BC Major Cities Points, 2019). Using these data, the
various communities within the Nechako were clipped out. A schema was created to provide
the details of how the Community Well-Being (CWB) index was created. After the schema
was setup, the attributes for each community’ income, education, housing, labour and overall
CWB score was applied. In addition to the spatial data that were created for this submission,
the form also contains the original BC Well-Being Map, the Community Well-Being Index
Summary, and a comma separated value (csv) table of the values used for each community.
The last dataset that was entered into the Portal for the purposes of the Phase II
workshop, can be categorized as falling into both ecosystems and well-being (see Table 2).
In 2017, UNBC’s Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) conducted a workshop
in British Columbia’s School District 91 (SD91), that sought to collect and map the
71

perspectives of youth in the school district in relation to their environment, community, and
health values. “The overall goal of this workshop was to learn about the kinds of
environment, community and health values that are important to youth living in SD91 in
relation to resource development” (CIRC, 2017). The workshop involved three classes of
students. Each class was split up into three groups that rotated around three different tables.
Each table had facilitators and a map of the school district on transparent plastic material that
illustrated a large portion of the school district boundary, and some major features such as
highways, lakes, etc. At each table, students would indicate with stickers, or text, the places
of importance as it related to the theme of the table: environment, health, or community. The
students also talked briefly about what that location was and how they valued it, which was
recorded to better flush out their ideas in the final report.
The workshop report can be found at CIRC (2017), or within the IWRG Portal under
the name, “Identifying Youth Place-Based Values in School District 91 – CIRC.” Within the
IWRG Portal, there is a summary of the workshop, and links to the report, CIRC, funders for
the workshop, as well as the contact information for CIRC. This submission (Figure 6) in the
Portal also has instructions on how to access WMS layers created from photographs of the
mapping products the students created.

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Figure 6: Identifying Youth Place-Based Values in School District 91 (from CIRC 2017)

4.2 Phase II Findings
This section examines the findings from Phase Two of this research. The group
scoping discussions generated data and insights about Portal use, but these discussions were
not recorded, nor was there any transcription. Instead, field notes were taken during the
process and these were revisited prior to designing the focus group. The findings from the
group scoping discussion are presented as suggestions and potential ‘action items’ that
resulted from the four small group discussions. The focus group findings have been
analyzed, using a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2014).

4.2.1 Group Scoping Discussion Findings
Four scoping discussions were held with PURG members to allow the opportunity to
visualize data in the Portal, and to make comments and suggestions on possible next steps to
consider for further developing the Portal and its content. Three main types of suggestions

73

resulted from the scoping discussions: 1) new data for the Portal, 2) changes to the forms,
and, 3) user interface changes.
The group scoping discussions resulted in suggestions for additional data that
participants thought could be beneficial to have within the Portal. The perceived value of
expanding the climate-related data was noted multiple times, and one suggestion was to
include updated models of future climatic projections. Another climate-related data source
suggested was to show how glaciers have spatially changed over time. One suggestion was
to try and pair local historic knowledge with climate data to supplement and validate the
climate data. Gaining access to weather stations, owned by the government and private
parties, could also fill in data gaps and be displayed within the Portal.
Climate related data were not the only type of data suggested as being a good fit for
the Portal. There was interest in having data on the mountain pine and spruce beetles, and
historic paper maps scanned and georectified. Data and information overtly linked to First
Nations such as place names, traditional territories, and even the grease trails, were other
suggestions of relevant information that could be potentially uploaded into the Portal.
These scoping discussions also resulted in suggestions on how to improve the layout
and content in the Portal’s forms. One suggested improvement was to generalize the forms
to make them more useful for other users or situations. Additional sections on the forms
were suggested to better capture the limitations of the data, such as how the author(s) prefer
to be cited, and to document where the data originated.
The final grouping of suggestions that resulted from the scoping discussions were to
make some improvements in user-interface elements. There was interest in including a more
diverse range of visualizations in the mapping window. This could include tables, graphs or

74

graphics. There was also interest in adding legends, such as those that would scale
accordingly as Web Map Service (WMS) layers were manipulated.
Overall, the Group Scoping Discussion Findings highlighted suggested improvement
and action items for me to consider, arising from a series of conversations with PURG
members. These can be summarized as potential new sources of data that would work well
within the Portal, changes to the forms and how data are entered into the Portal, and user
interface changes to improve the functionality of the Portal.

4.2.2 Focus Group Findings
The workshop and discussion was informed by the scoping group discussions as
described in more detail in Chapter Three. Eleven people participated in the combined
workshop that took place May 22, 2018. It involved a workshop of sixty minutes, and a
focus group discussion of ninety minutes. I recorded and transcribed the focus group
discussion. Field notes were taken before, during and after the process. Thematic analysis of
the focus group transcriptions resulted in three themes: 1) tailoring content for the audience,
2) the perceived benefits of the Portal and, 3) the perceived limitations of the Portal. Each
are described below in relation to themes and sub-themes (Table 3).
The three themes have evolved through the course of the thematic analysis process.
Tailoring content for the audience is concerned with customizing presentations and
presentation style to be as appropriate as possible for the intended audience. The perceived
benefits of the Portal captures the focus group participant’s thoughts on the Portal as a tool,
whereas the limitations explore the weaknesses of the Portal. In the sections to follow, each
of the themes is described in relation to subthemes that emerged in keeping with Table 3.

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These ideas are explored and demonstrated through quotations from the participants.
Participant quotations are identified as (Participant four) etc.
Table 3: Summary of Themes and Sub-Themes

Theme
Tailoring content for the
audience

Sub-Theme
• Making content relatable
• Using accessible language
• Developing effective visualizations of data

Perceived benefits of the
Portal
Perceived limitations of
the Portal

•
•
•
•
•

Tools that may help deal with aspects of complexity
Many different and potentially integrative aspects
Data require intentional and careful framing
Steep learning curve
Requires an active internet connection

4.2.3 Tailoring Content for the Audience

The theme of tailoring content for the audience emerged as a code during the thematic
analysis. It eventually evolved into a theme because it had so many other codes, which
eventually became sub-themes that contributed to it. The theme of tailoring content for the
audience represents the idea that to effectively communicate to a particular audience, it is
necessary to consider who the audience is, and how the information can be effectively
presented to them. In the focus group, it was generally accepted that to communicate
effectively it is necessary to mold communication strategies to particular audiences.
Participants three, four, and eight all explicitly mentioned the need to know who the audience
was, and to make changes that are appropriate to the content and presentation manner for that
audience. Analysis of the focus group discussion also identified sub-themes and suggestions

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on how content can be tailored for specific audiences (see Table 4), which included: making
content relatable, using accessible language, and developing effective visualizations of data.
The first sub-theme presented in Table 4 is making content relatable for the audience.
This sub-theme is concerned with situating information in the context of the audience. For
example, Participant three said this is about “trying to find ways to ground it in people’s
everyday lived experience.” Participant two mentioned that when giving presentations on the
Nechako Watershed, they start with a story detailing the history of the watershed.
The next sub-theme in Table 4 is the use of accessible language, which strives to use
appropriate language that can be understood by the audience. Participant four provided
concise advice for this sub-theme, “just try to avoid the jargon that we use in our day to day
conversations for my field.” Participants in the focus group discussed the need to get away
from jargon, recognizing it is helpful for people who share a field of study or expertise, but it
also can be a barrier for anyone who is not part of that field. Participants also suggested that
in addition to avoiding the use of jargon, people should try to use language that is concise
and gets right to the key points of the subject.

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Table 4: Focus Group Quotations relating to “Tailoring Content to Audience” theme

Quotes coded in relation to “Tailoring Content to Audience” (with
participant)
“trying to find ways to ground it in peoples everyday lived experience.
If I’m talking about cumulative impacts or cumulative effects, you
know coming with an understanding of the place and being able to
populate the idea with a particular example that people might be
familiar with. So the use of examples, the use of metaphors, use of
stories, trying to find alternative ways to bring your message to life.”
(Participant three)
“you start the discussion with a story about the Kenney dam. And you
gotta back peddle you’ve got to put it into a geographic scope”
(Participant two)
“and it’s a really cool way of telling a story because you need to have
narrative but you also need, you can put slides up but to have a
Google Earth kind of thing it brings the scope and scale that people
need, there are times that I can, when people’s jaws are dropping and
they kind of go … and it did that and it did that” (Participant two)
Umm so the inclusion of a lot of visuals right, just try to avoid the
jargon that we use in our day to day conversations for my field, which
is climate change and water resources” (Participant four)
Participant four’s point about getting away from walls of text, about
using images and graphics really effectively, again this sort of speaks
back to the audience. I’m not going to put up a really big complicated
table with tons of numbers on it at a public workshop. It would be
better to highlight you know in a single sentence what the one take
away is from that wall of numbers that I want people to be engaged
in” (Participant three)

Sub-theme
Making content
relatable

Making content
relatable
Making content
relatable

Using accessible
language
Developing
effective
visualizations of
data

Making effective use of visualizations to summarize and explain complex topics is
another sub-theme of tailoring content for the audience. Understanding that everyone learns
differently, visualizations can be a powerful way to increase the likelihood that your audience
will be able to engage with the content. Participant four noted that they like to include a lot
of visuals, while Participant three followed up on this point by adding that avoiding “walls of
text” and “really big complicated tables with tons of numbers” is important. Participant three
also said that, “using images and graphics really effectively” was an aspect of tailoring
presentations for specific audiences. In addition to the normal suite of visualizations, such as

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photographs, models, charts, etc., the concept of spatial visualizations, such as maps and
spatial data, was brought forth. Participant two provided a description of how they provide a
history of the Nechako Watershed.
“So I start off with a Power Point presentation which is fine and then I need to
switch to Google Earth which is fine, then I switch back to Power Point, but it’s an
incredibly powerful tool because it does exactly what you are talking about. It brings,
you start the discussion with a story about the Kenney Dam. And you gotta back
peddle, you’ve got to put it into a geographic scope, you’ve gotta, you have to be able
to show that one a map, you have to be able to show this is where the dam is, before
the dam was there it looked like this and all I have is a paper map, but that is ok. A
paper map on a Power Point presentation, and then they built the dam and this
happened and to be able to demonstrate, they decided they were going to build the
dam, then they dug these tunnels, so that’s on Google Earth, that’s a clickable thing,
that’s an attribute. Here’s the dam, click, here’s the tunnel, click, here’s where they
put the water in, click, here’s the hydroelectric facility right of way they’ve built,
click, and here’s the smelter in Kitimat. It’s had these implications for this, here’s the
spillway for Cheslatta, click, and it’s a really cool way of telling a story because you
need to have narrative but you also need, you can put slides up, but to have a Google
Earth kind of thing it brings the scope and scale that people need, there are times that
I can, when people’s jaws are dropping and they kind of go … and it did that and it
did that. Then I have pictures from Cheslatta of houses being burnt. You know when
the people in Cheslatta were forced from their homes, the government actually burnt
their homes and here are pictures of the homes being burnt.” (Participant two)

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This quote emphasizes how combining non-spatial and spatial visualizations can complement
and add meaning to a presentation.
4.2.4 Perceived Benefits of the Portal
The perceived benefits of the Portal was a theme that connected across several subthemes all describing benefits and strengths of the portal noted by focus group participants.
This theme is described here in relation to two main sub-themes: first, the Portal has tools
that deal with aspects of complexity, while the second was recognizing that the Portal has
many different and potentially integrative aspects (Table 5).
“[T]oday is the first time that I think I’ve saw some of the true potential of the Portal,
being able to visualize these multiple layers and trace connections between
temperature data, fire data, school district value data, seeing that all in one place to
me the integrative potential is kind of limitless and really exciting” – Participant three

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Table 5: Focus Group Quotations relating to “Perceived benefits of the Portal” theme

Quotes coded in relation to “Perceived benefits of the Portal” (with
Sub-theme
participant)
“So there is something in there about trying to communicate change that I
Complexity
think is very interesting. And so change over time is, is always very
powerful and interesting. And so you can imagine change over time on the
landscape with a visual thing. Let’s just take the wildfires or pine beetle, and
so there’s always how we communicate the change over time of a particular
thing and then there’s that messiness of how we might have a conversation
about how change over time with climate might be related or not related to
change over time with wildfires which may or may not be related to change
over time in terms of forested landscapes you know areas, you know forested
landscape.” (Participant nine)
“I couldn’t help but think about that idea of resolution. You know really
drill down on a particular thing, and looking at the attributes of a particular
stream for example to use Participant ten’s idea. Then I just scroll out and I
see that this stream connects to another stream, you know what there’s
actually data over here that’s connecting the two. I can scale out all the way
to the watershed level, and say oh now there’s actually dozens of
observations just related to the stream and how might that relate back to
some of Particiant four’s really savvy climate model or climate observations
back over time. So that idea of the resolution with which we are viewing
things becomes a really powerful way to communicate how everything is
connected.” (Participant three)

Complexity

“So for me there is a total exercise here of focusing in on the singular
Complexity
element and recognizing they are part of a bigger much more complicated or
complex whole. And in theory that’s kind of the territory that the Portal’s
moving us towards. It’s not just issues of scale, its issues of values, its issues
of time if we wanna do the temporal dimension.” (Participant three)
“[s]patial really works… I think. To mix that with the non-spatial I think
how the Portal is laid out right now can really work in that sense. Cuz I like
how the portal, Portal 3 is map centric. We can get the spatial stuff in but
then it links us to more stuff like documents, having not, if you are
interested. It creates a picture like that, I think that’s just how it works.
Going from spatial first and then to non-spatial if you’re interested. I think
that’s a good way to put it.” (Participant eight)

Integrative

The sub-theme of tools beneficial for dealing with complexity reflects participants’
descriptions of the Portal’s ability to allow users to examine data at various geographical

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scales. This may be helpful to make connections in systems that otherwise may have been
difficult to visualize. Participants two, three, and five all discussed how the ability to
visualize and explore data at different scales enhances understanding of issues and systems
that are difficult to explain. Participant five discussed how different types of maps and
spatial data can “get people thinking about the multidimensional way things are connected.”
Participant five also described ways to spatialize data that are normally non-spatial using
mind maps to aid in connecting ideas and larger concepts, and by allowing people to provide
feedback. Participant three described the ability to adjust the spatial scale we look at data in
the Portal to better understand a watershed starting with a single stream as an example of
trying to find ways to ground information in people’s everyday lived experience. Participant
three also described how they imagine an individual may use the data within the Portal to
better understand a watershed by manipulating the spatial scale in which they consume data.
This also touches on the concept of approaching complex problems in a bottom up approach
that may lead to an improved or more holistic understanding of the issue at hand. Participant
three also noted, “[s]o for me there is a total exercise here of focusing on the singular element
and recognizing they are part of a bigger, much more complicated or complex whole, and in
theory that’s kind of the territory the Portal’s moving us towards. It’s not just issues of scale,
it’s issues of values, it’s issues of time.”
Focus group participants also identified the change over time examples as being
beneficial for showing long term changes within the Portal. In the workshop, there were two
such examples provided. One showed the decadal change in mean annual air temperatures
from the 1950’s until 2015, and the second displayed wildfires that have occurred in the
Nechako Watershed between 1920 and 2017, organized by decade. Many of the participants
described these changes over time datasets as being effective. Participant nine mentioned,
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“change over time is always very powerful and interesting.” They also discuss how change
over time can lead to complex conversations about how different change over time examples,
such as climate and wildfires, may or may not be related, which is a framing limitation that
will be discussed in the following section on perceived limitations.
The participants also discussed how the Portal had many different integrative aspects
that were potentially beneficial. They identified that the Portal was able to integrate different
types or formats of data together in one place where they could be viewed. Participant eight
mentioned that they liked how the Portal is map centric, but allows spatial data to link to
other data types, such as documents. In addition to hosting various data types within the
database of the Portal, it also has the ability to integrate with other databases. For example,
participant five described how the Portal can be connected to government databases that
serve up wildfire data daily, allowing the Portal to provide users with the ability to see daily
updates on wildfires throughout the province. There was also discussion about how a single
instance of the Portal, such as the IWRG Portal, could be used across multiple different
organizations to share data in a controlled manner.
4.2.5 Perceived Limitations of the Portal
The theme of perceived limitations of the Portal was developed to organize the
limitations that participants perceived during the workshop and discussed during the focus
group. These limitations are summarized as the following sub-themes: data within the Portal
likely require the intentional and careful framing of data, the Portal has a recognized steep
learning curve, and also requires an active internet connection to access them, which can be
an issue for many parts of the Nechako Watershed (Table 6).

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Table 6: Focus Group Quotations relating to “Perceived limitations of the Portal” theme

Quotes coded in relation to “Perceived limitations of the Portal” (with
participant)
“So bringing our own portal back to the community and making sure
that everything is ok, is kind of tough. My own challenges I’m faced
with you know, there is no wifi in the community, what do I have to
there. I have to make screenshots, different presentations, visuals are
important. I can’t just be just ranting on and on about something, when
the jargon that I know they aren’t ever going to know right away right?
So it has to be a really learning curve and just starting very grassroots,
slow, and those are the challenges I’ve faced so far, but yeah.”
(Participant eight)
“And I think one of the things that is going to always be really tricky
with the portal is like any kind of research, you’re not necessarily
saying just because they have the same pattern there is actually a cause
and effect relationship between these things” (Participant nine)

Sub-theme
Requires active
internet
connection

Intentional and
careful framing

“If I put this tool in front of my grade 8 students, they’d be incredibly
Steep learning
lost at this point and time. And that’s one perspective where a guide or curve
a walkthrough specially with the 80s perspective, that would defiantly
resonate with them. But we’re dealing with a generation coming up
that is very virtual with a very short attention span.” (Participant
seven)
“I think it is still clunky and it will difficult for our younger students to
access. But I think you’ve got the footings in there to build in the
interactivity that they’re going to need.” (Participant seven)

Steep learning
curve

Stemming from the focus group discussion about the effectiveness of datasets that
show change over time, was a related discussion about how it is important to frame data to
avoid situations where different datasets may be mistaken as showing cause and effect
relationships. These datasets showed the change in mean annual temperatures, and the
number, location and size of forest fires. As described in the perceived benefits sub-theme in
Table 5, Participant nine described change over time as being a powerful tool. However,
they also point out that there can be a “messiness of how we might have a conversation about
how change over time with climate might be related or not related to change over time with
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wildfires, which may or may not be related to change over time in terms of forested
landscapes… [a]nd I think one of the things that is going to always be really tricky in the
Portal is like any kind of research, you’re not necessarily saying just because they have the
same pattern there is actually a cause and effect relationship between these things.”
Participant nine also describes this situation as being dangerous if there is not any framing to
guide users in understanding what the data are intended to describe. Participants one and
three both add to the conversation about framing information, acknowledging that having an
effective framing system or adding prompts to the data in the Portal could help facilitate
people in making connections and even potentially starting new conversations.
Some participants noted that learning to use the Portal was difficult, and that this
could make it less accessible to certain people. For example, it was mentioned that younger
students would likely have a difficult time. It was suggested that in an attempt to make the
learning process easier, that there should be training or tutorial documentation available.
Training documents were created to address this concern.
An obvious limitation of the Portal is that it required an active internet connection to
access. Participant eight mentioned that “there is no wi-fi in the community” that they work
for, and it is necessary to use screenshots and other presentation formats to bring information
from the Portal to that community.
This chapter has presented the findings from the study design described in Chapter
Three. Phase I findings share my understanding of what the IWRG Portal is as a tool, a high
level overview of the major components that power the Portal, and the data that were
uploaded and used in Phase II. Phase II findings present the direction and thoughts of
participants from the scoping discussions, and then delve into the findings from the workshop
and focus group. The findings from the focus group underscore the need to tailor content for
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the audience, as well as the perceived benefits and limitations of the Portal. Chapter Five
discusses these findings in relation to the literature.

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Chapter Five: Discussion and Conclusion
The chapter begins with a discussion of the findings in relation to each research
question, and also explores other insights in relation to the literature. Later sections discuss
implications for future research, recommendations for geospatial development and proposed
for practices moving forward, prior to providing concluding remarks.
5.1 Discussion of findings
This section of the chapter consists of four subsections. The first three subsections
discuss the findings as they relate to each of the three research questions, and also how these
findings resonate with the literature introduced Chapter Two. The final subsection discusses
other insights from the literature that are not directly addressed in relation to the research
question findings.
5.1.1. Discussion Findings in relation to Research Question 1
This subsection discusses how the findings from this research address the first research
question:
RQ1: “How can complex systems such as climate change, ecosystem and well-being be
better understood through the use of a map centric web-portal that connects and aligns
different sources of information (based on geospatial attributes)?”
A particular theme emerging from the findings that resonates with RQ1 is the perceived
benefits of the Portal. Two sub-themes that emerged from the research and which are
especially relevant to addressing RQ1, relate to the ways the portal dealt with complexity and
was able to incorporate integrative features relevant to climate change, ecosystems, and wellbeing.

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The Portal features that may deal with complexity were emphasised in focus group
discussions in ways that directly relate to RQ1. For example, focus group participants
emphasized the ways the portal created opportunities to view spatial data and change the
scale at which the data were seen. It was noted that this was potentially helpful for
individuals to achieve a better understanding of how complex systems such as watersheds are
connected from the smallest stream to the whole area it encompasses. This potential to
increase understanding of complex systems via geographic representations at various scales
may be a result of being able to see connections between the data and the larger environment
that the data represent. The focus group participants discussed the importance of creating
effective visuals to explain difficult concepts to audiences and also highlighted the
importance of being able to support text and verbal dialogue with both spatial and non-spatial
visualizations.
The decadal mean air temperature and decadal forest fire datasets that were presented
during the workshop (depicted as Figures 3 and 4) were of particular interest to focus group
participants, and were noted to be especially effective at representing trends over time.
Comparing and contrasting spatial data from different decades, and overlaying these data,
allowing participants to better understand how air temperature and wildfires have changed
throughout the Nechako Watershed. This finding offers an interesting contrast with Ring’s
suggestion that it is important to focus on the present state of things to avoid a dilution effect
that happens as time passes (Ring, 2015). Picketts et al. (2017) note a similar tendency,
stating that they found individuals within the Nechako Watershed were less comfortable
discussing implications of climate change as they pertain to the future than they were about
the implications currently being faced in the present. Although neither Ring (2015) nor
Picketts et al. (2017) specifically examine how information from the past is perceived, this
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study shows that focus group participants reacted positively to the way the portal presented
historic data via spatial visualizations. This could indicate that using past and present data
could be an effective way to represent the changes in climate data. It would be interesting to
explore if there is a specific timeline people are less likely to relate to, e.g. their lifetime, their
parents’ lifetime, their grandparents’ lifetime, etc.
The decadal change spatial datasets also brought forth a challenge. Having both the
decadal mean air temperature and decadal forest fire datasets could potentially give the
impression that there is a cause and effect relationship between the trends in air temperature
and the amount of forest fires occurring in each decade. However, this was not the intent of
having both these datasets in the Portal. Recognising that there may or may not be a
relationship between the trends in the datasets, the combination of air temperature and
decadal forest fires provided a good discussion point during the focus group about the
necessity of providing thoughtful framing to data when they exist in databases such as the
Portal. This finding underscores the need to further understand how to frame and present
data in geospatial tools such as the Portal. The challenge of users interpreting cause and
effect relationships and the discussion about framing data is further explored in Section 5.1.2
which discusses the perceptions of the utility of the Portal.
Other integrative features of the Portal were also found to be potentially helpful in
dealing with complex topics such as climate, ecosystems and well-being. Being able to
include spatial data, text-based information, hyperlinks to outside content, and virtually any
digital content in a single form submission provided users with a system that can integrate
almost any type of data. This integration of multiple data types (see section 4.2.4) provides
the opportunity to give more supplementary data than a traditional paper, presentation, or
map could. Another integrative Portal feature with potential benefits for those seeking to
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understand complex topics is the ability to link into other webpages, databases, and systems.
For example, in the workshop there was forest fire data provided; however, they were all
historic data. It is simple to link into the British Columbia government website or any other
website that provides the proper services to feed daily data about wildfires (BC Wildfire
Service, 2022) or anything else they update frequently, and have these data input directly into
the Portal for consumption. This flexibility in terms of data, data sources, and map centric
design could make complex topics more accessible for individuals when they are trained on
the use of the Portal.
Having a map centric tool such as the Portal provided the focus group participants with
another way to explore the data, and this was seen as a positive way to enhance awareness of
complex interrelated processes occurring within watersheds. The ability to highlight
connections between spatial data and non spatial data was identified as another helpful aspect
of the IWRG Portal. Discussion of participant insights about the use of visualization in the
Portal, will also be addressed in Section 5.1.3 in relation to Research Question 3.
5.1.2. Findings in relation to Research Question 2
The second research question that this research was designed to address was introduced
in Chapter One as follows:
RQ2: “What are the perceptions of knowledge users about the utility of the web-portal
as a tool to communicate the links between climate, ecosystems and well-being?”
Knowledge user perceptions on perceived benefits of the Portal noted in relation to RQ1,
also have some relevance to RQ2. Since perceived benefits were discussed in Section 5.1.1,
this section focuses mainly on perceived limitations of the Portal. Perceptions of focus group
‘knowledge users’ in relation to portal limitations are discussed here in relation to: 1) the

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need to carefully frame data, 2) the steep learning curve, and 3) the challenge of needing
active internet connection to access the portal; and where possible potential solutions are
suggested.
Directly after the workshop designed to showcase the data prepared and uploaded to the
IWRG Portal, the Focus Group discussion identified a need to carefully frame data to avoid
implying cause and effect linkages between datasets, especially in relation to the two
temporal datasets focused on annual air temperature by decade and the Nechako Wildfire
data (Figures 3 and 4), both of which were intended to visualize change over time in the
watershed. This limitation was also identified as a benefit of this tool (Section 5.1.1).
The discussion about the necessity to carefully frame data being entered into the IWRG
Portal started quite early in this research. An early step in preparing data for submission is
the requirement of a text-based form to associate with the submission. These forms could be
created to be generic and used for a plethora of situations and data types, or they could be
very specific and intended for a particular purpose or type of data. Discussions about forms
were ongoing among Portal development staff, myself, and Dr. Margot Parkes. These
conversations continued between myself and members of the PURG throughout the research.
In the end, we decided to move towards more generalized forms that would provide more
flexibility than highly specialized forms would allow. Within these generalized forms there
is an opportunity to provide all the citation information, as well as room for abstracts and
other information that could be used to frame the data. Although it is possible to provide
framing information for all data being submitted into the IWRG Portal, there is no
mechanism to force users to consult the forms for framing information, and if a person is
viewing the spatial data in isolation from their context (form), there clearly can be some
confusion.
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Focus group participants identified a clear concern with the necessity of framing data to
avoid misleading users into thinking the existence of any datasets within the IWRG Portal
were connected, and to not misrepresent the data. Although not exclusively identified in
relation to the datasets of mean annual air temperature per decade and Nechako Watershed
Wildfire, these two datasets exemplified this challenge most clearly. This is because it is
easy to relate the changing trends in temperature over the decades to be potentially causing
the increasing number and size of wildfires occurring within the Nechako Watershed. While
it is possible, even likely, that the changing temperature trend over the decades has had an
impact on wildfire occurrence, there are a plethora of other factors that could be contributing
to this, and extensive research would be required to make any assertions about the
relationship between the two trends. This challenge is recognized in the literature, and there
have been suggestions for governments that provide open data to also provide training and
educational documents for the public that guide people on how to access, use, and interpret
data from open sources (Johnson et al., 2017). While I developed training documents on how
to use the IWRG Portal (Appendix Five), a next potential step could be to provide training
resources for people to better understand the process of finding data, transforming them into
a product that is visualized, and understanding this new version of the data (Johnson et al.,
2017).
This challenge of framing data is particularly interesting because while this particular
example was framed as being a challenge or issue, it was also established that participants
considered the ability to explore data spatially, to be able to see patterns, and to identify
connections that would otherwise not have been as easy to discover as a benefit of the Portal.
The making of a potential link, or cause and effect connection between temperature changes
and wildfires could be considered to be another example of this ‘benefit,’ though this is not
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how participants generally saw it. Framing data is important, but it needs to be noted again
there was no framing made to influence people into thinking there was a connection between
these datasets, at least beyond the themes of this research and the area of interest being the
Nechako Watershed.
The second important limitation identified by the thematic analysis is the steep learning
curve required to learning how the Portal works. Tools that communicate complex
information should be as simple as possible while still being effective. It is worth noting that
even a relatively simple visualization tool such as Google Earth is even too complicated for
some individuals (Johnson et al., 2017). Songer (2010) notes that Geographic Information
Systems, generally have a significant learning curve due to their complexities (Songer, 2010).
While web-GIS services have historically been easier to learn, this is partly because these
online services offered less functionality and tools that reduced the barrier to entry (Songer,
2010). With the evolution of web-GIS services, there has been a consistent trend to increase
the functions available, making some web-GIS services more like the desktop GIS programs,
which also increases their complexity and the learning curve necessary to use them. As
Johnson et al. (2017) note, geospatial visualization and analysis tools will not be beneficial to
all people, but it remains an important goal to make these tools as user friendly and
accessible as possible.
Compared to many other web-GIS services (LEO Network, 2021; Pickard et al., 2015;
Reed et al., 2010) the IWRG Portal offers more functionality, tools, and features including
the features outlined in Box a, many of which are also associated with the strengths and
limitations being discussed here. While the Portal provides users with additional
functionality (see Section 2.2.2 and Figure 2), it also creates the need to have a greater
understanding of how more traditional GIS operate, which means there is a steeper learning
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curve and a larger barrier to entry with the service. When it comes to web-GIS services,
there appears to be a fine line between additional tools and functionality. This challenge
relates back to the theme of tailoring content for the audience, knowing who the intended
audience is, and developing tools that are the best suited for that audience. The Portal User
Guide (Appendix Five) is one attempt to address the challenge of a steep learning curve, and
to teach new users how the navigate and use the IWRG Portal. This guide provides an
explanation of what tools and features are available, where to find them, and how to use
them. While it does not eradicate the steep learning curve, it does provide a degree of
improved accessibility to the IWRG Portal. This guide has also provided a foundation for
further training materials and approaches, including a series of YouTube videos and tutorials
that have been created by researchers with the ECHO Network to introduce and orient Portal
Users (ECHO, 2021).
A further important limitation of the IWRG Portal is the fact that users require the
internet to access it. Internet connectivity is a problem in 60% of rural BC communities, and
62% of BC Indigenous communities do not have access to high speed internet. High speed
internet is classified as being at least a download speed of 50 Mbps (Ministry of Citizens’
Services, 2019). This issue of internet equity has been and continues to be addressed by the
BC Government since the focus group was held. As well, Portal development has made
progress on being more easily accessible on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets,
and has even established methods to collect data in the field when there is no internet access.
Examples of mobile devices and tools creating ways to import data into the Portal (using
tools such as Geopaparazzi), are also profiled on the training videos and tutorials on the
ECHO Network YouTube channel (ECHO, 2021).

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5.1.3. Findings in relation to Research Question 3
The third and final research question that this research sought to address is:
RQ3: “How can existing data about climate change, ecosystems, and well-being be
leveraged in a way that fuels conversation, new perspectives and awareness of
connections?”
This research question was most notably addressed by the findings relating to the
theme of “tailoring content for the audience” in Section 4.2.3. The theme of tailoring content
for the audience focuses on the importance of customizing materials with the intention of
making the information more accessible for that particular audience. The three sub-themes
presented in Section 4.2.3 offered suggestions on the types of considerations that should be
made when considering the intended audience and in this section these themes are going to
be discussed in relation to the relevant literature.
As outlined in Section 4.2.3, the focus group participants emphasised a close
connection between tailoring content for the intended audience and the need to make content
in the portal relatable, also underscoring the connection between the presented information
and the audience’s own experiences. Ring (2015) notes that targeting and identifying the
audience is a critical element in this process. While this approach is not infallible, if one has
a good idea of what kind of audience will be attending you can more easily aim to provide
audience specific material. One way to make content more relatable for the intended
audience is to provide examples that are localised within the region the audience lives in.
This can make the data more meaningful and also easier to understand than national or global
examples. This supports the suggestion by Tabara et al. (2017) who state that data presented
at global and regional scales make it difficult for people to relate those data to their everyday
experiences. Applying a watershed scale approach when thinking about ecosystems has the
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potential benefit of making connections across health benefits, networking across
communities, and a heightened sense of place (Morrison et al., 2017; Parkes & Horwitz,
2009), but this may depend on the size of the watershed in question. This underscores the
potential value of reducing the scale to one that people can relate to, in keeping with the
findings presented in Sections 4.2.3 and 4.2.4. While there is support for using watershed
scale approaches in the literature, is this an effective approach for the Nechako Watershed?
The Nechako Watershed covers an expansive area of approximately 47,200 km2,
which makes it larger than Switzerland (Albers et al., 2016), and 1.5 times the size of
Vancouver Island (Figure 1). This is certainly not an area that should be classified as being
‘local,’ and highlights the challenge people may experience when considering a location that
is a substantial distance from their everyday travels. A range of proposals have been made to
‘localise’ watershed approaches by reducing the area being considered, such as dividing the
watershed into sub-watersheds (Ison et al., 2007; Jenkins et al., 2018; Morrison et al., 2017;
Parkes, 2016; Parkes & Horwitz, 2009). There is also no reason one cannot reduce size again
to an individual stream and brook level. This is common in research and conservation work
including in the Nechako. For example, the Murray Creek which flows through the town of
Vanderhoof is the site of many restoration and conservation matters. In fact, the IWRG is
working with the school district to collect water quality data from the Murray Creek. Using
geospatial tools, such as the IWRG Portal, this can quite easily be accomplished by allowing
users to zoom in and out at any point through the map interface, while also providing the
spatial data for the entire watershed and the sub-watersheds for further guidance.
In the focus group, a participant described their efforts used to convey some of the
history of the Nechako Watershed, in an effort to make the content relatable to newcomers to
the watershed. Having personally experienced a version of this onboarding presentation, I
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appreciated the use of historic and current photographs, Google Earth, and cross-references
to a map on the wall of their office. Using narrative and metaphors to convey information is
recognized in the literature as an effective method (Gislason et al., 2021; Ring, 2015). Using
multiple mediums along with telling a story about the history of the Nechako Watershed not
only makes content relatable, but also resonates with all the sub-themes of tailoring content
for the audience, and underscores the idea that having different approaches to presenting data
can lead to new conversations and perspectives on existing data.
Making effective use of language is a critical component of any type of
communication, whether it be a conversation, a presentation, or writing a paper or article.
Findings about accessible language were presented in Section 4.2.3 with participants noting
the need to avoid the use of jargon and to be as concise as possible. Numerous authors
emphasize the importance of identifying the audience to adapt both the material and language
for a specific audience (Chryst et al., 2018; Gislason et al., 2021; Ring, 2015). While
technical jargon has uses, it can also be a significant barrier for individuals that are not a part
of the discipline that creates the specific jargon to explain phenomena being studied.
Technical language or jargon can also differ between disciplines, further creating a language
divide even amongst academics and scientists.
The second finding regarding making effective use of language is the need to present
information in a concise manner, and resonates with themes raised by Kreslake (2016) who
notes that presenting information regarding climate change is no easy task, but can be
enhanced by providing the important information in a concise manner (Kreslake et al., 2016).
Depending on the audience, some may be more receptive to a very concise summary, which
again further emphasizes the importance of figuring out who the audience is, and adapting
the materials to their specific needs (Chryst et al., 2018; Gislason et al., 2021). Importantly,
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making use of accessible language is not about dumbing down content; instead it is about
finding a common language with audiences who are not experts on a particular topic but are
still intelligent human beings (Fazey et al., 2014; Reed et al., 2014).
Analysis of the focus group also underscored the importance of effective
visualizations as part of tailoring content for the audience, which can be supported by
providing additional media formats to convey the ideas being presented. Visualizations offer
powerful tools that provide additional perspective to topics (Gislason et al., 2021; Lieske,
2015; Picketts et al., 2017). As presented in Section 4.2.3, it can be helpful in some
circumstances to be as concise as possible when presenting complicated material. Effective
visualizations can be thought of as being the critical information that has been distilled down
to its most crucial elements. Providing a tool that includes spatial and non-spatial
visualizations in one place may provide the opportunity for an increased understanding of
data.
Although the Portal was initially developed for use by First Nations, the initial
‘intended audience’ of the IWRG Portal was mostly focused on academic users from UNBC,
that spanned a range of disciplines. From this base the network of users has expanded to
include individuals from communities throughout the Nechako Watershed who are actively
engaged in topics of climate change, ecosystems, well-being and conservation in general. By
2021 the IWRG Portal has also expanded to include students and teachers from School
District 91. It is fair to say that it is not going to be possible to present one version of
academic literature or datasets that will be accessible and relevant to such a diverse user
group. This challenge has expanded further since I stopped having an active role in the
IWRG Portal, as indicated by the development of an additional version of the Portal for the

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ECHO Network. Even while portal users expand, it will remain important to try to identify
the intended audience and provide appropriate and useful content for that audience.
5.1.4 Other insights in relation to the literature
This research was designed in part around the concept of knowledge exchange.
Knowledge exchange can be defined in many ways. However, this research focused on the
definition given by Fazey et al. (2013), which is a “process of generating, sharing, and/or
using knowledge exchange through various methods appropriate to the context, purpose, and
participants involved” (p. 20). Reed et al. (2014) provide five principles for effective
knowledge exchange: 1) design, 2) represent, 3) engage, 4) impact, and 5) reflect and sustain.
For a more thorough explanation of these five principles, refer back to the literature review
chapter, Section 2.2.1. The research was designed to allow for an exploration of how
knowledge exchange may be facilitated in the Nechako Watershed through use of the IWRG
Portal. While this research was specifically interested in knowledge exchange around the
topics of climate change, ecosystems and well-being, the insights gained could be applicable
to guiding knowledge exchange activities in the watershed on a wide range of topics, for
example riparian management.
This research sought to achieve a level of knowledge exchange, which the literature
describes as establishing multi-directional exchanges (Cvitanovic et al., 2016; Fazey et al.,
2013). These type of exchanges occurred between myself and the development team of the
Portal, as I was a set of fresh eyes coming into the project. The development team taught me
about the technical aspects of the Portal, while I gave them new perspectives to be
considered. A degree of knowledge exchange occurred during the scoping discussions,
workshop, and focus group. Many participants in these events were either experiencing the

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Portal for the first time, or had only previously seen small aspects of it. There is a
considerable challenge in trying to bring together a complex geospatial tool such as this
Portal and a group of people who all have different levels of both geospatial and technical
literacy. While this work did not evaluate the degree of learning that participants
experienced regarding the IWRG Portal, there was interest in continuing to explore how this
tool could benefit various groups throughout the Nechako Watershed and beyond. Currently,
the IWRG Portal and the work being done with it has expanded beyond this research, and is
actively being used by other researchers as well as School District 91, and the ECHO
Network as exemplified by the YouTube channel mentioned above (ECHO, 2021).
Participatory GIS (PGIS) is another area of literature that could be seen as relevant to
the framing and approaches used in this research alongside the emphasis of knowledge
exchange. PGIS has been used by academics who are interested in broadening access to GIS
(Sieber, 2006). Many aspects of PGIS fit well within this research, such as drawing on the
knowledge and expertise of various stakeholders and members of the public, viewing all data
as being important, the importance of people and place, making the technology and data
more accessible, and trying to determine processes and evaluate outcomes (Dunn, 2007;
Mukherjee, 2015; Sieber, 2006). PGIS also explores ideas that have relevance to some
knowledge exchange principles. Dunn (2007) notes that PGIS works to integrate local and
indigenous knowledge with data from ‘experts.’ The theme of tailoring content for the
audience is also seen in PGIS literature, and it has even been suggested that different PGIS
interfaces should be developed for different public groups to limit the barrier of entry to these
tools and approaches (Sieber, 2006). While not the emphasis in this research PGIS and
Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) could provide some useful avenues to consider when
undertaking future research in relation to the Portal.
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5.2 Implications and Recommendations
In addition to discussing findings in relation to the literature, it is also important to
consider implications, potential recommendations and next steps from this research including
ways to build on key insights and strengths, as well as to address limitations and constraints
arising in the course of this Master’s thesis research. Section 5.2.1 provides an overview of
these implications regarding the IWRG Portal and some of the work being progressed in the
Nechako Watershed and beyond. Section 5.2.2 discusses the trends in geospatial tools that
have been developing since this research started.
5.2.1 Implications for future research
This research has contributed to early steps in establishing an IWRG Portal, while
recognizing that there is considerable work to be completed for full potential of this tool. A
key limitation with the IWRG Portal during this research was the need for a more active user
base. As such, this research was only able to provide a starting point for understanding
which types of data visualizations, form design, and general perceptions of how a small
group of knowledge users from various backgrounds experience the benefits and limitations
of the IWRG Portal. There is a need to further understand the optimal method to present data
within the IWRG Portal. To get a better understanding of how to improve the data
presentation, additional research needs to be conducted. Building on ideas proposed by
Chryst et al. (2018), on audience segmentation could be interesting to consider applying
within the Nechako Watershed (Chryst et al., 2018). Expanding the active user base and
checking in with new and existing users over time could further refine the approaches used
within the IWRG Portal. In addition, there are always improvements that can be made
directly to the Portal, as part of ongoing iterative development. Further consultation on both

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the IWRG Portal as a tool and how content is uploaded is needed. This task of iteratively
developing the Portal has continued, with new tools being introduced that provide additional
spatial and reporting functionality, with training materials to introduce and orient users to
some of these new approaches becoming available on the ECHO Portal YouTube channel
(ECHO, 2021). There is also development work underway that addresses bringing new
visualizations to supplement spatial data being shown on the map. For example, the ability to
better incorporate legends, raster data, and even showcase live data from weather stations.
The work of expanding a larger user base is already underway, through the various
research projects and networks that are linked in with and informed by the work undertaken
with the IWRG Portal. With this introduction of new projects and users to the IWRG Portal,
consideration should be given to study how knowledge exchange could be better facilitated
throughout the Nechako with tools such as the IWRG Portal. Beyond the research goals of
this research, additional outcomes have resulted from the work in this project. The IWRG
Portal has expanded in its use; UNBC graduate student Ella Parker has been working with
BC School District 91 to store stream monitoring data that is being collected by School
District 91 students also linked to the wider ‘Koh-learning in our watersheds’ Project (KohLearning in Our Watersheds, 2021). In addition, another instance of the Portal has been
established for the Environment Community Health Observatory (ECHO) Network. While
both these developments are not part of this research and I have not been an active part in
either, they are examples of the potential future uses of the Portal and underscores the
importance of ongoing research into the strengths and weaknesses of the Portal going
forward. With this introduction of new projects and users, consideration should be given to
study how knowledge exchange could be better facilitated throughout the Nechako and
beyond, to optimize the benefits of tools such as the IWRG Portal.
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Considerations for future research should also be informed by insights from and
limitations of the research design used for this study. In particular the limitations of using the
two-phased iterative approach warrant reflection. This type of research is time intensive,
which limits the scope of work that can be completed, especially within the scope of a
Master’s degree. Originally, I had hoped there would be a third phase where I would work
with individuals from School District 91 and other groups to bring the IWRG Portal to a
more diverse audience, and to test and explore the benefits and weaknesses of the Portal in
ways that create wider participation – not unrelated to some of the aspirations of PGIS
(Dunn, 2007; Mukherjee, 2015; Sieber, 2006). Working with my co-supervisors and
committee, we determined this further iteration of my research was not feasible within the
time and scope of the intended Master’s research, noting also that the initial two phases had
already generated a range of new insights. Fortunately, as mentioned, a lot of the ideas
developed for this third phase of work have been factored into the future development of the
Portal and applied by other researchers, through the use of the Portal with other user groups.
As noted above, wider participation in future research could be informed by the
literatures on PGIS and PPGIS (Dunn, 2007; Mukherjee, 2015; Sieber, 2006). These future
research opportunities underscore the ways that my current research stands as a first step in
establishing the IWRG Portal, determining if this tool could be effective in the Nechako
Watershed context, and identifying some of the benefits and limitations of the Portal. As
well as identifying opportunities for future research, this study has also informed
recommendations for how to further develop and refine geospatial tools such as the Portal,
which I touch on in the next section.

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5.2.2 Recommendations for geospatial development and practice
This section explores recommendations for the developing and refining the
Portal as a specific geospatial tool, as well as for wider implications for geospatial
development and practice. Being able to track and evaluate is important to the process of
knowledge exchange (Fazey et al., 2014). Incorporating the ability to track how Portal users
influence the development and changes within the Portal is one recommendation that could
be seen as a way to benefit from greater knowledge exchange between users and
administrators. This is how the Portal has been developed from the start. It has iteratively
evolved through the suggestions and needs of various users. A precedent for this kind of
feedback and refinement is already in place within the Portal design, with the purpose of
identifying, reporting, and solving bugs, e.g. coding errors and unintended impacts from code
changes. This system currently provides developers with the information from the individual
who has found an issue or bug, a description of the problem, and maintains this information
in one location so it is easy to find and organize priorities. At the same time, users can also
use this tool to track when specific issues have been addressed. I would recommend a similar
system be put in place long term, to track user suggestions from all iterations of the Portal.
This will result in new features or changes to the Portal. This could also show some detail
regarding the degree of knowledge exchange going on between developers and users. This
kind of iteration and refinement is characteristic of many areas of technical research and
development (Lieske, 2015), and is an extension of what has already made the Portal
successful to date.
It may also be beneficial to consider a process for Portal users to provide feedback or
comment on what they have learned through their use of the Portal. This could be
accomplished in many different ways. Possibilities to document and benefit from this kind of
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feedback could include: implementing a system similar to bug tracking (as above); creating
forms within the Portal for the purpose of users to document their learning and feedback;
and/or creating a Portal forum within or across Portal user groups. A Portal forum would be
particularly interesting if it was developed to include all users from all versions of the Portal,
creating a larger Portal user community. This would allow for the exchange of ideas between
users, developers, and administrators, and potentially provide greater opportunity for learning
and innovation (Lieske, 2015).
Now turning to some wider implications, there has been a general trend in geospatial
development since this research was initiated, which has moved towards creating more web
accessible geospatial tools (Johnson et al., 2017). These new tools often focus on providing
non-GIS specialists with easy to use templates, often with a large catalog of pre-configured
data, such as ESRI’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World available through their online
services (ESRI, 2021b). Often the intention of these tools is to reduce the barrier of entry to
GIS tools, while still providing products that can look good and perform well. There are
examples of geospatially enabled dashboards and story maps that have recently become hot
topic tools. Dashboards link maps and spatial data to widgets that are setup to display
information and statistics drawn directly from the spatial data (ESRI, 2021a). These
dashboards can be setup to change the displayed numbers and statistics as the user changes
the perspective of the map. Zooming in and out, or panning around the map will cause the
dashboard to update the numbers being displayed for the user. Story maps take another
approach by mixing text based information, or stories, and maps together (ESRI, 2021c).
Think of a PowerPoint presentation with a map and text on a single slide. In a story map this
can be done, but the map can be interactive and there are a slew of features to merge the text
and map elements together in a cohesive way.
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The development of the Portal has also highlighted there needs to be a continued
effort to decrease the barrier of entry for GIS tools (Kong et al., 2015; Songer, 2010).
Research should continue to look into methods that can make GIS tools more accessible. In
keeping with the discussion above about the intended audience, my suggestion is to
determine who the intended audience of the tool is and to cater the software to suit the needs
of this audience. This probably means providing only the tools that are necessary for their
intended purpose, to minimize the complexity and learning curve.
Applications for the Portal and other GIS providers have also made strides in
providing mobile data collection options such as Geopaparazzi (OSGeo, 2021), making the
production of spatial data more accessible than previously possible (ECHO, 2021). It is now
possible to collect and view spatial data with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets,
which can be seen in YouTube videos created to provide additional training resources
(ECHO, 2021). These improvements make it easier for people to collect and share spatial
data, as they can do so with the devices they carry with them on a regular basis.
In Section 2.2.2, Figure 2 was introduced as a heuristic tool to provide guidance on
how web-GIS tools can have varying degrees of GIS functionality. This figure showed how
the Portal was expanding the range of services being provided in these web tools. This
research has underscored a challenge with the progression depicted in Figure 2, since with
each new feature or service these tools provide there is added complexity to learning how to
operate these tools.
There has been a trend of making GIS tools more accessible to an audience much
more diverse than just GIS experts (Zhu et al., 2021). There has also been improvements in
integrating more qualitative data such as text based stories into spatial tools and data (Lowery
& Morse, 2013). This trend needs to continue, and it would be very interesting to have
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research conducted to evaluate how effective these more accessible tools are when conveying
their message to audiences.

5.3 Conclusion
This research was designed to assist in establishing the IWRG Portal in multiple ways
and respond to my three Research Questions. The research gained new insights about the
Portal as a tool for knowledge exchange in the Nechako Watershed, as well as expanding
opportunities for Portal users to share perspectives about the benefits and limitations of the
Portal. Using thematic analysis on the transcription of the workshop, it was determined that
the Portal was beneficial by providing additional ways to deal with complex topics and
provided interesting ways to integrate and showcase data. The analysis also drew out the
perceived limitations of the Portal. These limitations were: the need for intentional framing
of data, a steep learning curve, and the necessity of having an active internet connection.
Amongst participants, a degree of knowledge exchange also occurred. Research participants
learned about the IWRG Portal and the datasets showcased. The input from participants also
provided direction and insight into how this tool could be further developed, and these
insights have already contributed to ongoing refinement of the Portal tool. The research has
shown that tools such as the IWRG Portal can create new pathways to understanding
information, and an ongoing need to evaluate the effectiveness of these tools in ways that
match the contexts they are used in.

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Appendices
Appendix One: Python Code to Clip ANUSPLIN Data
import fnmatch
import os
inFolder = '/home/gothreau/Data/ANUSPLIN_1950_2015/Min Temp 2010s/'
outFolder = '/home/gothreau/Data/ANUSPLIN_1950_2015/Clipped/MinTemp10s/'
aoi = '/home/gothreau/Data/ANUSPLIN_1950_2015/Test/Nechako_4326.shp'
os.chdir(inFolder)
def findRasters(path, filter):
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path, filter):
for file in fnmatch.filter(files, filter):
yield os.path.join(root, file)
for raster in findRasters(inFolder, '*.asc'):
(infilepath, infilename)= os.path.split(raster)
print infilename
outRaster = outFolder+ 'Nechako_'+ infilename[:-4]+ '.tif'
print outRaster

#processing.runalg("gdalogr:cliprasterbymasklayer",raster,"/home/gothreau/Data/ANUSPLI
N_1950_2015/Test/Nechako_4326.shp","",False,False,False,5,4,75,6,1,False,0,False,"",outR
aster)
cmd = "gdalwarp -q -cutline \'%s\' \'%s\' \'%s\'" % (aoi, raster, outRaster)
os.system(cmd)
# A special thanks to Matthew McLean for his assistance with this code

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Appendix Two: Python Code to find Mean Temperature
import gdal
import ogr
from osgeo import osr
import os
import argparse
import subprocess
from itertools import cycle
import sys
import numpy as np
#Used for parsing boolean arguments
def str2bool(v):
if v.lower() in ('yes', 'true', 't', 'y', '1'):
return True
elif v.lower() in ('no', 'false', 'f', 'n', '0'):
return False
else:
raise argparse.ArgumentTypeError('Boolean value expected.')
#List of hex colours used for syling vector data
colours = cycle(["#FF0000", "#00FFFF", "#00FF00", "#0000FF", "#FF00FF"]);
num_images = 0
out_image = ""
sum_array = np.zeros((510, 1068))
tiffs = ""
#Inputs to program
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("-i", "--directory", help="Directory to traverse")
parser.add_argument("-o", "--output", help="Where mapfile will be saved")
parser.add_argument("-u", "--url", help="What is the URL of your mapserver")
parser.add_argument('-s', "--srs", nargs='?', default=3857, type=int, help="Coordinatae
system of mapfile")
parser.add_argument('-v', "--vectors", nargs='?', default=True, type=str2bool, help="Process
Vector files (True or False)")
parser.add_argument('-r', "--rasters", nargs='?', default=True, type=str2bool, help="Process
Vector files (True or False)")
parser.add_argument('-c', "--colour", nargs="?", default='random', type=str, help="Color for
imported vector layers, defaults to random")
#List of supported raster formats
rasters = ['.tif', '.TIF', '.TIFF', '.tiff']

#list of directorys to exclude from search
exclude = set(['.snapshot', 'files_external', 'files_trashbin', 'files_fersions', 'gpxedit'])

123

args = parser.parse_args()
print "Searching: " + args.directory
out_srs = osr.SpatialReference()
in_srs = osr.SpatialReference()
out_srs.ImportFromEPSG(4326)
#Walk the file system, and search for files to add
print 1
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(args.directory, topdown=True):
print 2
dirs[:] = [d for d in dirs if d not in exclude]
if args.rasters is True:
print 3
for extension in rasters:
for file in files:
if file.endswith(extension):
current_image = gdal.Open(os.path.join(root, file))
if num_images is 0:
#sum_array = np.ma.asarray(sum_array)
driver = current_image.GetDriver()
out_image = driver.Create(args.output, 1068, 510, 1, gdal.GDT_Float32)
out_image.SetGeoTransform(current_image.GetGeoTransform())
out_image.SetProjection(out_srs.ExportToWkt())
if out_image is None:
print 'Could not create results.tif'
sys.exit(1)
current_array = np.array(current_image.GetRasterBand(1).ReadAsArray())
#nodata = current_image.GetRasterBand(1).GetNoDataValue()
nodata = -999.0
#masked_array = np.ma.masked_equal(current_array, nodata)
sum_array = np.add(sum_array, current_array)
num_images+=1
print num_images
sum_array /= num_images
print sum_array.min()
out_image.GetRasterBand(1).WriteArray(sum_array.astype(float))
out_image.GetRasterBand(1).FlushCache()
out_image.GetRasterBand(1).SetNoDataValue(-999.0)
out_image.FlushCache()
current_array = np.array(out_image.GetRasterBand(1).ReadAsArray())
#print current_array.max()
np.set_printoptions(threshold=np.nan)
#print sum_array
# A special thanks to Matthew McLean for his assistance with this code
124

Appendix Three: Portal User Research Group Consent

The Nechako Watershed Portal: A web-based, geospatial tool to foster information
exchange and guide land and water decision-making in the Nechako River Basin
Consent to become a member of a Portal User Research Group
Dear [Name to be hand-written],
You are invited to participate in a research project being conducted by researchers from the
University of Northern British Columbia, focused on developing and piloting a communityoriented watershed portal to inform land and water decision-making in the Nechako
Watershed. The lead researcher for this project is: Dr. Margot Parkes (University of Northern
British Columbia) whose contact details are provided below. Details about Dr. Parkes’
research can be found at http://www.unbc.ca/parkes/home.html. Initial funding for this
project has been provided by the BC Real Estate Foundation. Additional funding support has
been provided in 2017 from the ECHO Network (Environment, Community, Health
Observatory) which is funded through the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).
This research will continue to be supported by Dr. Margot Parkes’s research funds until the
project is completed.
The purpose of the proposed portal is to develop and refine a web-accessible interface that
builds upon existing web-based data management interfaces being used by other land use
planning groups in British Columbia. The goal is to create a next generation of “community
watershed library” that is available to community, research and other watershed partners who
may access, profile and share information in new ways to guide decision-making related to
the land and water resources in ways that will foster resilient, healthy communities and
natural environments. The project will be an action research project in which different
participants will contribute to design and development of the watershed portal and related
research, as part of a Portal User Research Group.
You have been selected to be a member of this Portal User Research Group due to your
expertise in land and water resources, and/or the development of web-based geospatial
tools. Your input into this project would be highly valued as a member of the Portal
User Research Group along with other knowledge users, specific portal user groups and
research collaborators.
Study Procedures
Your consent to participate in this study provides us with the ability to collect and analyze
meeting minutes and/or discussions that take place in the development and progression
of the research associated with the Portal User Research Group. Further to your
contributions to this study, we may invite you to participate in additional research collection
through mediums such as interviews, focus group, and/or survey questionnaire. There will be

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a separate consent form for you to sign if you are interested in participating in an interview,
focus group, and/or survey questionnaire. Further, if you consent to become a member of the
Portal User Research Group for this project, you may decline to participate in the additional
research mediums of the interviews, focus groups and/or survey questionnaires without
any consequence. In addition, you may also withdraw as a member of Portal User Research
Group at any time without any consequence. Should you withdraw completely from the
research community, your contributions will be withdrawn automatically and destroyed unless
you indicate otherwise.
All research data arising from the Portal User Research Group meeting minutes, discussions
among portal user groups interviews, focus group, as well as survey questionnaire will be
aggregated and anonymized. No preparation is needed for the interviews, focus groups, only a
motivation to be engaged in discussions is required.
Time and Data Requirements
Your involvement in Portal User Research Group meetings will include an average of one 60
minute meeting or discussion every 2-3 months. Should you choose to participate in additional
research (e.g. interviews or surveys) we would need to seek your permission again, and
additional consent forms will be required. We anticipate that any interviews would last
approximately 60 minutes, focus groups would last approximately 90 minutes and survey
questionnaires would take approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Potential Risks of Participating in the Study:
There are no known risks associated with participating in the study. All data collection will
take place only after you are made fully aware of the study, and after informed consent is
obtained.
Potential Benefits of Participating in the Study:
As a participant in the Nechako Watershed Portal project you will receive regular updates about
the development of the project and will also be provided summaries of research findings. The
results of this study will lead to a platform that enables the sharing, exchange, and synthesis of
research among knowledge users, communities and research with an interest in land and water
decision-making in the Nechako Watershed, and will contribute to an overall increase in
understanding and awareness of community health and wellbeing related to land and water
stewardship projects.
Confidentiality
If you consent to be a member of this Portal User Research Group, anonymity within the
research group cannot be guaranteed since you will be interacting with individuals from other
portal user groups. The organizations who are involved as portal user groups may be listed in
relevant communications (portal website, funding reports) but unless you ask to be named,
individual participation within the Portal User Research Group will be kept confidential from
the outside community as a whole. In regards to the research community, the completed
consent form will be kept separate from data collected to protect your identity. All data from
the meeting minutes, interviews, focus group sessions, and survey questionnaires will be kept
in a locked filing cabinet. Only members of the study team will have access. Your name or
any other identifying information will not appear in any reports on the completed study.
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Please note that only limited confidentiality can be offered for individuals who choose to
participate in the focus group sessions and discussions. At the outset of the focus group sessions
and launch of meetings we will encourage all participants to refrain from disclosing the content
of the discussions outside of the study; however, we cannot control what other participants do
with the information afterward.
Due to the long-term nature of portal development, any data collected with Portal User
Research Groups, including notes and consent forms, will be continue to be kept secure (using
password protected computers, and locked filing cabinet in the research office of Dr. Parkes),
until which point the research project is deemed complete by the project lead (Dr. Parkes). If
you withdraw from the study, the information you have provided will be withdrawn
automatically and destroyed unless you indicate otherwise. If you consent, the information
gathered in this study may be kept and may be used in this and other related studies.
Remuneration/Compensation
Study participants will not be paid for the time spent in meetings, survey questionnaires,
interviews, or focus groups. Expenses such as travel, accommodation, and meals may be
covered; however, this will subject to available grant funding. Please note that this means you
may be required to cover your own expenses related to your participation in this study.
Contact Information about the Study
If you have any questions or desire further information about this study, or would like to request
an update about the project you may contact Dr. Margot Parkes (250-960-6813).
Contact for Concerns about the Rights of Research Participants
Please be aware that you are not waiving any legal rights in signing this consent form. If you
have any concerns about your treatment or rights as a research participant or would like to
register a complaint, you may contact the UNBC Office of Research (Research Ethics Board)
at 250-960-6735 (reb@unbc.ca).
Consent
Your consent is required before you may become a member of the Portal User Research Group
and participate in this study; however, your participation in this study is entirely voluntary.
You may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time without any
consequences. Your consent to participate is not required immediately. Your signature below
indicates you have received a copy of this consent form for your own records. By signing below
you are consenting to participate in this study.
If you choose to participate in this study, we ask that you keep a copy of this consent form
for your records and FAX the other signed copy to Margot Parkes, at 250-960-5744, or
email a scanned, signed copy to margot.parkes@unbc.ca.

________________________
Participant Name

________________________
Participant Signature

________________________
Date

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Sincerely,

Margot Parkes, MBChB, MAS, PhD

Canada Research Chair in Health, Ecosystems and Society,
Associate Professor, Health Sciences Programs,
University of Northern British Columbia,
margot.parkes@unbc.ca, (250)-960-6813

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Appendix Four: Workshop and Focus Group Invitation Letter
Workshop Invitation
Climate implications for ecosystems and well-being:
developing effective geospatial knowledge exchange tools in the Nechako Watershed
Hello
As a member of a Portal User Research Group associated with the Nechako Watershed Portal,
we are pleased to invite you to a portal workshop focused on climate change, ecosystems and
well-being. More information about this workshop is provided in the Information Letter and
Consent form attached to this invitation.
Who is involved?
The workshop is being conducted by Joseph Gothreau as part of his graduate studies in Masters
of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies at UNBC. Joseph’s research is as part of a
wider project conducted by Dr. Margot Parkes, that seeks to refine and develop the portal for
use by other groups, titled: “Nechako Watershed Portal: A web-based, geospatial tool to foster
information exchange and guide land and water decision-making in the Nechako River Basin”.
Workshop participants will include other Portal Research User Group members, including
researchers UNBC, Nechako Watershed partners and others interested in integrative geospatial
tools.
What is the workshop about?
The workshop is part of a research project is designed to trial and refine interdisciplinary
knowledge exchange approaches, with a particular focus on data, information and knowledge
relating to climate change, ecosystems, and well-being. The study uses a web-based
geospatially enabled tool (the Nechako Watershed Portal) to store, manage and share both
spatial and non-spatial data.
What will happen at the workshop:
This interactive workshop and focus group session has three Stages.
1. Overview of project, orientation to session and consent forms.
2. An interactive workshop exercise that seeks to guide participants through examples
of the data in Integrated Watershed Research Group’s Portal and orient them to the
basics of navigating the portal.
3. A focus group discussion, where participants will discuss how climate, ecosystems,
and well-being data has been shared and presented within the Portal. Discussion will
also cover the perceptions of the Portal as a tool to assist in making connections
between climate, ecosystems, and well-being data through spatial visualizations. The
focus group session will conclude with a discussion revolving about the experiences of
participants in communicating their own research with diverse audiences.
Consent
Since this workshop is being conducted as part of a research project, your consent is required
in order to participate. However, your participation is entirely voluntary. You may refuse to
participate or withdraw from the study at any time without any consequences. Information
required to provide your consent is attached to this invitation, and you will be asked to provide
your consent to participate prior to the start of the workshop.
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Timing and Location
When: May 22 nd, 2018 from 4:00 pm until 6:30 pm (an optional dinner will be hosted by
Margot Parkes and the Integrated Watershed Research Group after the workshop).
Where: University of Northern British Columbia Campus, GIS Lab (8-125)
Faculty Researcher:
Dr. Margot Parkes, School of
Health Sciences
Phone: 250-960-6813
Email: margot.parkes@unbc.ca

Student Researcher:
Joseph Gothreau, Masters of Natural Resources and
Environmental Studies Candidate
Supervisors: Dr. Margot Parkes and Dr. Stephen Déry
UNBC
Phone: 250-960-5193, Email: stephen.dery@unbc.ca.

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Appendix Five: Portal User Guide
Portal User Guide

Developed by Joseph Gothreau, MNRES
Integrated Watershed Research Group, University of Northern British Columbia
December 2018

Table of Contents
1. Portal Definition ................................................................................................................ 133
2. Finding your way around the portal................................................................................... 134
3. Filling out a form and making a completed submission .................................................... 145
4. Setting Users Up: ............................................................................................................... 159
5. Bulk-Loading ..................................................................................................................... 163
6. Spatial Visualization and Mapping Tools.......................................................................... 165

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132

1. Portal Definition
Our Portal is a map-centric web based tool that was originally designed by Scott Emmons
(and team) in conjunction with First Nations communities in British Columbia. This tool is
designed to be a next generation web geographic information system (GIS) that is able to
store, display, manage, and share spatial and non-spatial data within its database. As a mapcentric tool, it has basic GIS features, such as but not limited to: identifying features, creating
new spatial layers on the fly, editing, buffering, clipping, querying attribute tables, and
creating simple maps that can be downloaded. In addition to these GIS features it also
provides the ability to search submissions and data, store and share any digital file format,
and develop customized forms to display information.
As a total records system this tool also documents and permanently stores all information
that is submitted into the database, protecting the integrity of the data. Unlike many other
systems, such as Google Earth, this Portal allows users to be in complete control of their data.
This is done by allowing users to determine who will have permission to access the data they
are uploading, through a system of user and group permissions.
This Portal has been developed as a user driven tool, as such users determine the
development path and provide all relevant data that is being uploaded. It should be
mentioned that while this tool developed out of collaboration with First Nation groups, it has
evolved to include a diversified user group portfolio which still includes various First
Nations, the Integrated Watershed Research Group at the University of Northern British
Columbia, British Columbia’s School District 91, and many others across British Columbia,
Canada, and even internationally.
Importantly this tool is open source in nature, the code and all API’s and tools are freely
available, however hardware and more importantly having the capacity to manage have
inherent costs for groups wanting to start their own instance of this tool. While there are
multiple distinct and separate instances of this tool being used, they all share a single
development path. This means that as one user group invests in new feature and
functionality all the other groups benefit from this investment by gaining access to the new
code.

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2. Finding your way around the portal
What to showcase in the demonstration session:
- Intro? Showing all the buttons and what they do.
- Query data with search
- Spatial visualization
- Map tools
- Forms
- Permissions
Home Screen of the Portal:
The landing screen of the Portal is map-centric, there isn’t much you are able to do before
logging in. To login use the login button, which is highlighted in red in this screen shot.

Doing so will open the login window where you use your Portal account details to gain
access.

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Now you have some new buttons available.
In the top right hand corner (highlighted in red here) you have a countdown showing. When
this countdown ends you will have to enter your credentials again. You don’t lose anything
you were working on when it logs you out, as long as you log back in when prompted (if you
close the window and come back later you will have lost your progress though).

There is also a Map bar on the right of the screen (highlighted in orange), you can click on
this bar and expand the spatial data content list as shown below.

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This opened Map bar will list all spatial data that is displayed on the map. You are able to
change the order, check attributes, change symbology, among other features using the right
click functions which we will explore in detail later.
In order from left to right we will quickly look at each button across the top of the screen.
Fill a Form: This is used to start making a submission, continue a draft submission, and start
the bulk-load process.

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If you’re starting a submission you will click Start New Submission and a list of forms that
you have permission to access are listed, which you can fill out.

If you saved a draft submission, or have been asked to resume someone else’s draft, you will
use the Resume a Draft Submission button.

Double click on the Draft you want to continue and continue working on it.
The Open Bulk-Loader will allow you to start a bulk-loading session, for those times you
have a large number of submissions to create. There is a fine line of when you are going to
want to make use of this feature, as there is a lot of work that is required to prepare the data

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for bulk-loading. For example we have a literature review with over four hundred articles to
be submitted, we are going to use the bulk-loader to complete this task. However, if this
literature review had twenty articles it would probably be more efficient to load them in
individually.

Next is the Search button, this is used to use words to search through data submitted to the
Portal. For example you can search for submissions containing the word climate.

Clicking on the down arrow beside the search field allows you to select which fields you
want to search through.

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Submission Content: searches by content within the submission itself.
Submission ID: searches by the unique identifying number given to each submission.
Submission Name: The name given to a submission.
Submission Status: Is the submission submitted or in a draft?
Submission Submitter: The user who created the submission.
Submission Time: The date and time that the submission was created (submitted or started?)
Submission Title: These are automatically created by the Portal and are in the following
format. ID: XX – Form Name – User who created the submission

You can also search for everything by using the % character.

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Next there is a Reports button, which we are going to ignore for now. This is under
development, but currently you could also bulk-download data from the Portal using this
tool.
Map Tools is next, and is used to load spatial data to the map and the various tools provided
for working with spatial data. For the purposes of this demonstration the Add Layer and
Identify tools are the most important for us.

Add a Layer brings us to a window that allows us to find spatial data which has been
organized by:

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WMS Service: These are Web Maps
Portal Schema: You can find all spatial data that is associated with a specific schema.
Portal Submission: Find the spatial data associated with individual submissions
Shared Layers: These are spatial layers that are available to all Portal users.
Drawable Layer: Allows you to create a new spatial layer that you can draw on the map.
Upload File: This allows you to upload spatial data you have on your hard drive onto the
map.

Unlike the search feature, you have to use a drop down menu to sort through spatial data after
you have selected the Source category.

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These windows have a search field, however, this only sorts through data that has already
been selected using the drop down menu.
Here is an example of me selecting Submission (ID) 12 from the Portal Submission Drop
down menu.

Note the search field is empty and we are shown all the spatial data contained within this
submission. Now if we type 90 in the search field we are left with only the features that
contain 90.

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To actually add the spatial data to the map you need to click the checkbox and hit the Add to
Map Button.

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144

3. Filling out a form and making a completed submission
To add content to the Portal, we are required to fill out forms and submit these forms to the
database. Forms are used to provide information about the data we are uploading into the
Portal. For example we have developed a literature review form that when blank looks like:

All forms have a Title and a Name section, the title is automatically filled out upon
submission by the Portal, and the name can be created by the person filling out the form. It is
recommended that the name field is filled out and is informative, otherwise the Portal will

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duplicate the title and it is not very human readable. In the case of a literature review the
actual name of the article is the perfect information to be placed in the name field.
The various fields and features that fall within the Dynamic Content box are the majority of
the content within the form. This is also where forms can be customized by the Portal
Administrator for users. We will explore this literature form to learn about some of the
features that can be customized.
The Content Type, Title, Author(s), Year, Publication or Publisher, Type of Publication, and
Drivers of change fields are all text fields. These text fields are useful for short lines of text
or numbers.
The Description of Content is our first example of a HTML editor box, which is essentially a
text box with a few additional features. A text box is similar to the text field, but as the name
indicates it gives you a box, which allows for larger amounts of text to be easily displayed.
The HTML editor box used here gives us that larger area for more text, but it also provides
additional features such as:
- Choosing different fonts
- Adding a bold effect to text
- Adding italics to text
- Underlining text
- Changing the font size
- Changing font colour
- Highlighting
- Aligning to the left, right, or center
- Creating hyperlinks to outside websites
- Creating lists
- It is also possible to paste excel sheets into the HTML editor box, which can be
helpful with tables of information
It needs to be noted that depending on the resolution of your screen, you will likely have to
stretch the form window to be able to see all these features. For example on my screen this is
what the form window looks like before being stretched:

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If I stretch this window and resize it, we are able to see all the features available.

This literature form also makes use of Check boxes to indicate some of the themes that were
of interest to us.

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Most of filling out a form is straightforward, simply type or paste the necessary information
into the appropriate section. However, creating a hyperlink has proven to be less obvious so
we will cover how to do this.
Within a HTML editor box you can copy and paste the URL of the site you would like to link
to.

Note that this is just the text, which could be copied and pasted into a browser. However, we
want to be able to click on it and have it take us to the website. So with the url highlighted

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we will click on the hyperlink button (two chain links) which is highlighted in red below.
You then paste the url into the window that is asking for the url and hit the OK button.

Now you have a hyperlink that when clicked will bring you directly to the website.

If we want to get really fancy we can actually make the hyperlink a word or series of words
that when clicked will bring us to the desired website. To do this we simply type out some
text, in this example we’ll use the line “Please visit the IWRG’s website for more
information by clicking here. Here is the word we’ll make into the hyperlink. Highlight
here and paste the url into the box that appears.

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To start making a submission you will have to login and click the Fill a Form bottom. You
are then prompted with three options:
1. Start New Submission
2. Resume a Draft Submission
3. Open Bulk-Loader
Click on Start New Submission and you will be prompted with all of the forms that are
available to you.

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Double clicking on the form you want will open a blank version of that form. Note that the
Title is automatically created for you, don’t forget to give the submission a more readable
name!
Fill out the sections of the Dynamic Content that are appropriate, while ideally every section
would be completed the Portal will allow you to submit forms that have blank sections.
We’ve made use of this particular feature with the Custom Notes sections of the Literature
form. We can make use of additional sections if need be, while not limiting our ability to
submit the form.
After finishing with the Dynamic Content section there are a few more sections that we can
make use of. Of particular interest to us currently are the following sections:
- Attachments
- Spatial Layers
- Parent Submission
- Permissions
- Notifications
- Linked Layers
Attachments:
The attachments section is used to attach non-spatial data to the submission. This can be any
type of digital file, e.g. documents, PDFs, pictures, video, and audio files to name a few
possibilities. To attach a document simply click on the Choose Files button and browse to
the location of the desired file and click the open button when you have the file. Beside the
Choose Files button there should be the condensed name of the file you just selected. You
can also add meta data directly below, where you may want to indicate where this file came
from, or any other pertinent information that hasn’t already been described in the form. You
can upload multiple documents, simply repeat this process. If the files are large you may get
an error, in which case you will want to contact the Portal Administrator and inquire about

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having the file size limit increased. When you have the attachments you want, hit the upload
button. Below is an example of a single Word document being uploaded.

Spatial Layers:
This is very similar to the attachment section, except it is designed exclusively for non-raster
spatial data (points, lines, and polygons). The only significant difference with spatial layers
is when you are dealing with shapefiles. To upload a shapefile you need to select four
different files that make up the shapefiles, which are:
- .dbf
- .prj
- .shp
- .shx

When you’ve selected all four files and hit open you’ll see that there are 4 files ready to be
uploaded.

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In this case we don’t have any reason to make use of the Parent Submission option, but we
will walk through it for the sake of being comprehensive. Parent Submissions are meant to
make a connection between two or more submissions. We may want to make use of a Parent
and Child submission relationship if we are trying to update a submission that is already in
the database. Since this is a total records system, we are unable to edit a submission after it
has been completed, so the only way to update information would be to make a child
submission which has the updates. This isn’t the only situation where we might want to
make use of the Parent/Child relationship.

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To create this relationship use the text field within the Parent Submission box by starting to
type in a submissions name or submission ID.

When the submission you want to select appears simply click on it in the drop down menu.

We have now successfully made this new submission a child of submission ID 13.
Permissions:
Next we need to determine which permissions are appropriate for the submission. If we were
to leave the permissions all unchecked, only the administrator account will be able to see the
submission. Since we want to be able to share our submissions we will start determining

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who should have access to the submission. The Permissions box will show the various
groups that currently exist within the Portal.

We can click the empty box beside a group to give everyone who is part of that group access,
or we can click the triangle beside a group name to show a complete list of everyone who is a
member of that group. This allows us to pick and choose who within a group can have
permission. While it is unlikely we will have many reasons to not share across the network
within the Portal, we do have the option to be more specific if required.

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If we are making use of the Parent Submission relationship we are also able to simply copy
the Parent’s permissions.
Notifications:
The notifications box allows us to send an email out to users when we submit new content.
The default is set to send the Portal Administrator an email.

If the submission was of particular importance to someone we would type in their email in
the Add Recipient box and hit the add button.

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Linked Layers:
The last section of making a submission is the Linked Layers section. This may be a little
confusing since elsewhere in the Portal it is referred to as Shared Layers. These are the
spatial layers that have been shared by other Portal users with the intent of saving others the
hassle of going out and finding/creating these layers. To link one or more of these layers
simply click on them to highlight the name (in the case of multiple selection you’ll have to
complete this step multiple times), and when you have the selection you are looking for scroll
down and click the Link Selected button.

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Finishing Steps:
Now all we really have left to do is review the content to make sure everything is how we
want it before submitting the form.

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4. Setting Users Up:
Two ways:
1. Administrator setup
2. Self-Registration
Administrator Setup:
Using the User Manager button on the Admin Panel go in and hit Add User, it will prompt
you to fill in the necessary information.

Self-Registration:
Simply go to the Portal (142.207.145.93) and use the Sign-Up button, it will prompt the
person to put their information in.

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Either of these registration processes brings us to the same spot, where an administrator
needs to finish setting up the account.
Now the administrator can use the User Manager to finish this process. Locate the new user
and use the Edit User button to bring the profile up. The user needs at a bare minimum to
have their “Is Active” button checked on. Depending on what each user is required to do you
can setup notifications, the ability to assign or be assigned submissions, and a few other less
important details.
Using the Permissions tab we will need to provide access to the forms the user will be able to
fill out. We can also use the Permission Type to change from forms to submission, which
may be helpful if only one new user is being setup. Please note that this list includes draft
submissions as well. It is also possible to setup a single user or a batch of users using Group
functionality.

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After the account has been setup we need to place the user into a group. The Group Manager
button is under the User Manager button, and this is where groups can be created or edited.
To add people into a group use the edit group button and you can drag and drop people into
the group.
It needs to be noted that when you put new users into the Group, they will not automatically
be given access to submissions that pre-date the user, this needs to be completed manually.
Using the admin account use the search menu and search for everything (%), go into the
submissions the new users should have access to and click their group back on in the
Permissions node.

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This should allow them to gain access to the same content everyone else in their group has. I
always verify that this has worked (if I’ve setup the account I log in and check).

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5. Bulk-Loading
Bulk-loading can be helpful for uploading a large number of submissions into the Portal, as it
can save a lot of time. There is however, some work that needs to be completed in order for
this tool to work properly.
In order to complete a bulk-load you will need:
- A suitable form to match up with your data
- A spread sheet with your data
- Notepad ++ (free software) or some other software that will allow you to edit the
spread sheet.
You will want to setup the spreadsheet so that each column corresponds to a section of the
form you are using in the Portal.
Please note that attachments (spatial and non-spatial) currently have to be added after the
bulk-loader tool has been used.
The first real step is down in excel, and involves cleaning characters that will prove
problematic during the bulk-loading process.
- Remove and/or replace all commas that are within the spread sheet. This is necessary
because we are going to be converting the spread sheet to a .csv (comma separated
value) format. If there are commas within any cells it will split that cell at each
comma messing everything up. If you are replacing the commas use a character that
doesn’t appear in any of the data, as we will be converting this character with
commas before the bulk-upload.
- Save the spread sheet (as it is possible you may have to come back to this multiple
times to remove odd characters)
- Now use the save as feature to save the file as a .csv
- Open the .csv version of the file using Notepad++
- In Notepad++ complete a find and replace on the commas. We will be replacing
these with the ‘pipe’ ( | ).
- It is critically important that ‘odd’ characters are removed from the excel sheet, which
can be completed in Notepad ++. Under Encoding use the ‘Convert to UTF-8’
option.
- Now we should be good to go into the Portal and begin the bulk-loading process.

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On the next screen select the appropriate form for the data. Click the Has Header checkbox
on, and you will be able to see the column names from the csv file. Now we must match the
csv columns to fields from the form.

After matching the fields you are given a preview screen to verify the bulk-load and
matching process has worked properly. Next you are asked if you want to start a draft
submission for each row. You will have to go through the draft submissions finalize
everything

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6. Spatial Visualization and Mapping Tools
This document focuses on spatial data within the Portal, and details all of the features found
within the Map Tools button. We will follow the features in the order they are listed:
- Add Layer: WMS Service
o Portal Schema Portal Submission o Shared Layer Drawable Layer UploadFile
- Identify
- Draw Vectors
- Buffer
- Clip
- Download (currently broken)
- Export (currently broken)

Add a Layer:There are six ways to add spatial data to our map view which we will explore
now.

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WMS Service:
WMS stands for Web Map Service, which can be used to share spatial data or complete maps
through the internet. A fairly easy example of this is the base map we see within the Portal,
this is an Open Street Map WMS layer.
WMS layers can provide a consistent symbology and provide features such as a legend that
currently aren’t dealt with effectively within the Portal. This requires a little explanation.
Currently if you use any of the other options to add spatial data to the map the symbology is
randomly generated. However, the symbology of a WMS layer is defined within the layer
itself, so it will appear the same way every time it is called.
A disadvantage of WMS layers is that they are only images being provided. This means they
have no attributes, they look good but we are unable to view any specific information
contained within the layer. Whereas, the other spatial data options available can all contain
attributes which can be queried. We can think about a spatial layers attributes as an excel
sheet, containing specific information about the layer.
The WMS Service layer is brought up by default when accessing the Add a Layer option,
however, if we’ve clicked something else we simply need to click under Source where it says
WMS Service. There is a drop down menu labeled “Select a Web Map Service to load layers
from...”, we simply click this and select the WMS desired.

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In this example we’ve selected Mean Decadal Temperatures, which brings us the following
options to pick from.

If we pick the first available layer named Decadal_Mean_Temperatures and click add to map
we get the following:

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This first option is actually all of the layers that are listed below it, this is an artifact of how
we are using QGIS to serve up these WMS. This will be the case for all of our own WMS
layers that we are hosting. To get around this we simply ignore the first layer and select the
layer that is of interest to us.
We will pick the layer 1950-1960 and add it to our map. We’ve added this layer right on top
of the previous stack, so we will open our map tab, right click on Decadal_Mean_Temps and
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remove it from the map.

We will explore a way to combine WMS layers and shapefiles uploaded into the Portal by
making use of stacking layers and using the Identify tool later.
Portal Schema:

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Adding layers by Portal Schema is probably the most difficult option available to us to
understand. This stems from the fact that many people who aren’t regular GIS and web-GIS
users won’t have had much
(or any) interaction with a spatial schema. Essentially a schema is a set of rules that the Portal
uses to determine which attributes from a spatial file get shown within the Portal. All forms
require at least a single schema to be linked to it for spatial files to be attached to a
submission. This is a process the average user will never need to understand, and in situations
where a schema needs developed the Portal Administrator will be crucial in assisting.
For our purposes today we simply need to understand that this option in our Add a Layer tool
will allow us to grab all spatial layers that share a common schema and load them into the
map. This could be helpful if we know there are multiple submissions that have a similar
format of spatial data, and we want to add those all to the map without having to individually
add them from their separate submissions.
When we select the Portal Schema option we are provided with a list of all the current
schemas.

If we select wildfires and add this to our map we get

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Please note that all of the separate spatial layers that use this schema are combined into this
one layer, which can make it a bit more difficult to sort through data or symbolize.
Right Click Options:
Now that we have a couple of spatial layers on our map we are going to look at the right click
options within the Map tab.
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Rename: this allows us to temporarily rename a spatial feature
Move up and move down: this allows us to change the order in which layers appear in the
map list. This also impacts the order which they are drawn, or stacked. The top most layer
will appear on top of the layers below (if there is a spatial overlap). Note that the green from
wildfires is above the climate layer, as wildfires is on the top of the map list.

If we move wildfires down we get the following product:

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Note that we can no longer see the wildfire polygons that were overlapping with the climate
layer. They are below 1950 – 1960 (climate layer) which has no transparency applied, which
blocks the view of the wildfires below.
Stylize: For this example we’ve turned off the 1950 – 1960 layer by clicking the check mark
off beside it. Now we can right click the wildfires layer and pick Stylize.

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Here we are required to verify the Symbol Type matches our spatial data. In this case we are
dealing with polygons so we are good. There are three options available: polygon, line, and
point.

Next we must determine if we want to use a Single Style or Categorized style. Single Style
will make all the features a uniform style, whereas Categorized can be used to style
according to attributes to give an array of colours.
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We are going to start with the Single Style.
We’ll pick a bright red for the Fill colour (the inside of the polygon) and black for the Stroke
(the outline). Hitting apply and moving the Stylize window to the side will produce the
following:
Now maybe we don’t think the outlines stand out enough here, so we can adjust the Width
number. We can use the drop down bar or simply type in a number, we’ll try 4.

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Now a 4 width was probably too much, but as we have now seen this is adjustable until we
are satisfied.
There is also an Opacity scale so that we can adjust the transparency of the fill of a spatial
layer. This scale seems to be backwards though, the default here is 100 which allows for the
least transparency. If we turn it down to 50 we get the following.

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With an Opacity of 0 we get no fill colour.

Now if we want to create a symbology according to categories, we can select the Categorized
option.

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Here we need to determine which attribute we want to use to differentiate colours by. We’ll
do this by using the Add Unique Classes button.

We’ll use year here.

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This leaves us with a huge array of unique classes, probably too many to make use of in this
case.

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Instead we’ll develop our own class to sort and symbolize this data. We’ll close our Stylize
window and re-open a new one. Back in the Categorized option we’ll press the + button.

Now we will type in the year as the Attribute we want to sort by. Our condition will be less
than, and the value will be 1955. So we are setting up a category to give us the first half of
the decade and the second half.

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Now by using the Edit Gradient button we get a new color ramp option.

We hit confirm and we have create a style (or symbology) that has any fires that occurred
from 1950 – 1954 in green and all the fires that occurred during or after 1955 in blue.

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Attribute Tables:
Another right click function available on spatial layers within the Map tab is being able to
read the attribute table. We’ll open the attribute table on the 1950 – 1960 layer.

This result is due to us trying to read the attribute table of a WMS layer, which of course
doesn’t actually have an attribute table. Now we will try on our wildfires layer, and after
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resizing the window we get:
We are able to sort by descending or ascending order as well, which we will do by year by
clicking the down arrow on the header when we are hovering on it, and choosing ascending.
Now the 1920s are on the top and we can scroll down through the years in chronological
order.

We can also click on the submission_id hyperlink and be sent directly to the submission for
this data.

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Query:
Next we are going to explore another right click function, Query. Let’s perform a query on
the wildfires layer. In this example we’ve asked for all wildfires that occurred in 1975 (year =
1975).

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Hit the Query button and a new layer appears named wildfires_query. Close the query
window and turn off wildfires. We are left with:
It needs to be noted that I’ve actually increased the stroke size on this example so it is more
visible, if you picked this year the fires will be much smaller and difficult to see.
We can verify in the attribute table that we are left with only fires from 1975.

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Share Layer:
Another right click option is Share Layer. Share Layer allows us to request that the
administrator makes this layer sharable across the Portal, and will appear in the Linked
Layers section when filling out a form.

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We simply type in a reason why this layer should be shared and hit the Send For
Consideration button, the Portal Administrator takes care of the rest of the process.
Zoom to Extent:
Being able to zoome to a layer can be very helpful, and we can do so using the Zoom to
Extent feature. I’ve added a layer from New Brunswick named Cocagne_Watershed.

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After zooming to the extent of Cocagne_Watershed our map is in New Brunswick.

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Add a Layer by Portal Submission:
Going back to adding spatial layers to our map, we have already looked at adding WMS
Service and Portal Schema, next we discuss adding by Portal Submission.

Using the drop down menu we have to select the submission that has the spatial data we wish
to display on the map. This selection option only provides the title of the submission, which
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includes the submission ID, form name, and submitter but not the human readable name. This
requires either an intimate knowledge of the submission ID’s or a little bit of trial and error to
find the right submission. As an alternative you could also perform a key word search and
find the submission, note the ID number and then use this method to display it on the map.
After finding the submission of interest the spatial layers attached will appear in a list.
Now we just need to select the desired layers and add them to the map.

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Shared Layer:
We are also able to make use of Shared Layers, which are spatial layers that have been
shared by other Portal users. These are available for anyone to use, and if some of these are
basic geographical features they can make it easier for individuals who don’t have a spatial
database or GIS experience to draw on.

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Drawable Layer:
Drawable Layers are used to create/draw new layers directly on the map within the Portal.
This functionality will be covered later in this document, but for now we will cover how to
create the blank layer required to draw on the map.
To create the layer give it a name, select the feature type (point, line, or polygon), and select
an attribute template. Attribute templates are another term for schema, so if we intended on
giving this attributes later it will be important to select an appropriate schema (attribute
template). For this example we’ll use an empty polygon schema.

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Now we add this to our map. Since this is a blank layer that we will later draw on the map, it
currently won’t show anywhere but in the Map Contents tab.

Upload File: Finally our last option for adding layers to our map, uploading a file from a
hard drive. *note at the time of writing this the spatial data formats were glitched and only
reading undefined*

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*note: also cannot download layers from the map due to the same circumstances, there is no
format you can pick*
We will discuss how to upload shapefiles from a computer into the map. Shapefiles have
been chosen because they are the most complicated spatial file to upload, while other formats
such as KML, KMZ, etc. require only one file.
To upload a shape file we click on the Choose Files button in the Upload File window.

Navigate to the spatial file of interest, and select the necessary files. Since we are uploading a
shapefile here we need to select the .dbf, .prj, .shp, and .shx files.

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Now that all four files have been selected and ‘opened’ we are ready to add them to the map.

Identify:
Using the identify tool we are able to investigate the attributes of spatial layers. We looked at
how to view the complete record of attributes using the attribute table earlier, this tool allows
us to view the attributes of a single point, line, or polygon within a spatial layer.
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After opening the Identify window, we will move it out of the way.
Now by clicking on the Identify button, and clicking on a part of the spatial file we will
obtain the attributes for that individual polygon.
Please note that you cannot successfully identify a WMS layer, as they do not provide any
attribute data.

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Draw Vectors:
Earlier we looked at how to create a drawable layer, now we will use that empty layer to
draw on the map. After selecting the empty layer from the drop down menu we hit the Start
Edits button, which allows us to pick from four options: draw new features (pencil icon),
erase (eraser icon), reposition misplaced points (four points in a rectangle), and erase all
features (white x in red circle).

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We will select the draw new features tool, which allows us to start creating our polygon. By
clicking the blue dot we create lines, and eventually we connect them to make a polygon
feature.

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By clicking the done button we have a temporary polygon feature on the map. It is possible
to create complicated features using this tool, but it can also be used to create simple features.
Buffer:
We can use the buffer tool to create buffers around points, lines, and polygons all within the
Portal. All we do is pick the layer we want to buffer (it has to be one that has been submitted
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with a form into the Portal), put in the distance of the buffer we want, and click the create
buffer button.

Now we can see the result of our buffer.

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The buffer tool can be used on points, as we have done in this example, but also on lines and
polygons.
Clip: The clip tool takes two spatial layers and uses one layer to cut an area out of the other
layer. We’ll use an example to flush this concept out.
In this image we have the School District 91 boundary in the red colour, and the Nechako
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watershed in green. The areas that overlap are all that we would be left with if we clipped the
Nechako watershed using the School District boundary.

In the clip tool we have a Layer and a Mask, in this example we are going to use the Nechako
watershed as the layer, and the School District boundary will be the mask. The layer is the
feature that we want to retain, after being cut down by the other layer. The mask is the layer
being used to cut the layers extent.

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After performing the clipping action, we are left only with the area of the Nechako watershed
that fell within the School Districts boundary.

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