204 themselves to the new area and answer visitor questions for information like the location of park signage, boundary markers, or the nearest trailhead. With numerous seasonal staff members and park employees migrating from one park to another, this expedites onboarding and allows rangers to be fully operational right away. Mobile Mapping Gives Rangers More Control The creation of One Smart Park was inspired by park rangers’ dissatisfaction with data accessibility. For example, the data from an in-depth inventory of state park trails from 2016 to 2019 was sent to the Tennessee State Parks central office but was not shared among the parks. A limited number of licenses to view and use the data, lack of developed GIS editing applications, and a static rather than a dynamic approach to inventory made the large effort less valuable. “The rangers thought the assessment was going to help them get the resources to repair trails,” McDonagh said. “It didn’t work out . . . and park staff didn’t have a way to see that data again.” When One Smart Park launched in 2022, 200 rangers were empowered with the ability to review, edit, and utilize historical information for all parks, including results of the trails assessment. Rangers now use data-driven maps and preconfigured mobile forms to locate park assets, add markups and notes about current conditions, and share findings. In addition to enriching park management strategies, shared situational awareness across GIS has improved the relationship between field teams and the Tennessee State Parks central office. Rangers feel empowered, while the state park system benefits from better operational efficiency. “Rangers have been given back the tools for natural resource management, which hasn’t always been one of their primary roles, and leadership is really supporting that,” Fuller said. A Holistic Approach for Better Results Specialists from different divisions within Tennessee State Parks work with the GIS team to design maps and mobile forms for data collection. When park rangers asked for a data layer to support invasivespecies management, McDonagh and Fuller sought guidance from experts at the state’s natural areas division. Biologists provided lists of the species to manage, enabling rangers to coordinate their approaches. One invasive insect, known as the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), has killed large swaths of hemlock trees across Tennessee. Several parks are using predator beetles and chemical treatments to control HWA populations. With the help of GIS, park rangers can take a more strategic approach and collaborate with nearby parks, evaluating treatment method success rates. The invasive-species management layer of One Smart Park has searchable menus with both scientific and common names, as well as a feature to record treatment techniques and the area affected. The app tracks the progress of treatments and monitors changes in species’ growth or decline. Prescribed burns are similarly monitored, but on a larger scale. Planned fires are used to clear fallen trees, manage plant disease, prevent wildfire, and restore ecosystems. State parks staff can document prescribed burns and wildfire in One Smart Park, attaching burn plans and calculations for acreage and fire line perimeter distance. “I use GIS and One Smart Park on a daily basis to map our prescribed fire plans, contributing significantly to our The One Smart Park app is used during a search and rescue mission at South Cumberland State Park.
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