Planning questions: spatial scale and excluding goals

[jules32]

Here are a few great planning questions from the Cornwall team that many people ask, so I thought we'd answer them here as a Question&Answer and answered a bit more generalized:

Spatial scale and thinking ahead

Q: We are currently doing an assessment in the Southwest United Kingdom (UK). But in the future, we may do a full-UK study. How should we set up the assessment repository to be best set up now and in the future?

A: Create a Southwest repository now, and create a second UK repository when the time comes. This will be easier to communicate and will allow the two spatial scales to be separate, since there are different stakeholder and audiences for these spatial scales.

I thought this through a bit more, and wrote out good ("pros") and bad ("cons") attributes of two options:

Option 1: Create one repository for the Southwest now, and one for the entire UK later

• Pros:
  • Simpler to set up now
  • UK-scale data preparation can be scripted and re-used later
• Cons:
  • Requires a second repository later, and the shuffling that involves

Option 2: Create only one repository at the UK scale, but now only assess the Southwest

• Pros:
  • Just one repo
• Cons:
  • More complicated to set up now (more decisions to be made now)
  • More difficult to communicate scale of the region now
  • Means you have to know full UK regions now, which may change in the future

Region size differences

Q: Is it OK to have high variation in size between possible regions?

A: Yes, it's OK to have regions of different sizes. Each region is calculated separately and then combined by a weighted average. The default is area-weighted average, but if there was a compelling reason to do something different, it is possible.

Excluding goals

Q: Excluding goals – what has been the justification/level deemed suitable for excluding a goal?

A: Goals should be excluded because they are deemed not relevant to a region – not because there aren't good data available. But there is no perfect formula to determine relevance. Talk with experts/stakeholders and consult reports/studies to see if a goal is relevant, and discuss if there are ways to modify definitions to better suit a location. It is possible to add/remove/re-add/re-remove goals throughout the OHI process, with all progress saved even if you ultimately do not want the goal included. And remember to document why or why not a goal was excluded (especially if it changed) because it will be important for communication and reporting, as well as for future efforts.

Website

Q: How do we develop our repos's website on Github in preparation for SH engagement?

A: Soon, the place to look will be in the Toolbox-Training chapter Updating your website. Until then, this resource is more general but will give you some familiarity with how websites work: Making free websites with RStudio’s R Markdown

[jamiecmontgomery]

Options 1 & 2 are the same as written right now.

[jules32]

Whoops! Thanks for letting me know. Fixed!

…

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 9:51 AM, Jamie Afflerbach ***@***.***> wrote: Options 1 & 2 are the same as written right now. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#30 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFnnReUMF4OHm3ky94AD8TctXfFgQs95ks5uJ1CVgaJpZM4Vb2sz> .

-- Julia Stewart Lowndes, PhD Ocean Health Index National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) website <http://jules32.github.io/> • ohi-science <http://ohi-science.org/> • github <https://github.com/jules32> • twitter <https://twitter.com/juliesquid>