Whatever industry you’re in, field time is valuable. It is often hard work and you need to maximise it as much as possible.
In our case, we streamline our ecological surveys by crafting dedicated mobile maps for our team to use in the field. But it’s not all maps and location, these applications support forms and an array of field types, so not only are we mapping points, lines and polygons, but the associated attributes are rich and full of data.
Measuring tree stem diameter (diameter at breast height), but exceeding the maximum of our tape.
Mobile mapping
Boring things like The schema are important
The critical part, is the design of the schema. For it to be effective and improve efficiency, you have to have a good understanding of what data you need to collect in the field. We use domains for drop down lists and categorical data, sub-types for altering the form based on a selection (great for narrowing lists of species down), double fields for measurements, long fields for sample numbers, and so much more. This ensures data quality and also enables fast and accurate map production. Quite often, once a survey is finished, our maps are ready to publish before we’re back in the office because our field forms were so well organised that the symbology and data are already meeting the project requirements.
Field work is further enhanced by using automated editor tracking fields. These fields record the date, time and the username of all new and modified data. While this might just seem like a good versioning tool, it can actually double as a survey date replacement. For example, if we need to record the date and time of a survey or inspection, we can simply rely on the editor tracking fields to work in the background to record that info while we focus on the more important ecological metrics. It is important to understand the limitations of the editor tracking fields to ensure it meets your needs, but in many cases is a great time saver.
Flexibility can be important
Sometimes you’re flying blind and the scope of your project is a little loosey-goosey. In this case, it is difficult to design a robust schema for data collection. But that’s ok! You can still be well organised.
We have a series of mobile mapping tools that allow us to pick up our phone and run out the door to complete an ecological survey at a moments notice. These tools are not as restrictive as the dedicated tools mentioned above, but they still keep our data aligned. What we do is have a field, or fields for each data type so we can collect whatever information might be required. For example, we will have a generic text field for storing descriptions of the data we’re collecting, a label text field which is what labelling is based on, a date field in case the editor tracking information isn’t appropriate, a double field for any highly detailed measurements we need to record, a long field for survey numbers, and a comments text field for supplementary information.
Having this map permanently at the ready means we can take a phone call and be on site in an instant.
High-accuracy
We’re also prepped for high-accuracy data collection. In a similar fashion to how we have ‘general’ forms at the ready for a quick mapping project, we also have maps prepped for high-accuracy data collection using our real-time kinematic (RTK) devices. For example, they are pre-loaded with the States survey markers so we can calibrate and confirm the accuracy of our gear before a survey. GPS metadata is recorded automatically in the background so we know the horizontal and vertical accuracy of every data point.
Pictures tell the story
Our mobile mapping tools also enable us to attach files. The most common of these are pictures, so that our images are stored with the data they represent. But this also works well with audio files when conducting targeted bird and frog surveys. The ability to go through audio by location is a great tool.
Whatever industry you’re in, consider checking out our mobile mapping page, or reaching out.