The Florida Natural Areas Inventory provides scientific support to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for Florida Forever, the nation's largest environmental land acquisition program. The Inventory contributes in two key ways: scientific review of newly proposed land acquisition projects, and comprehensive natural resource analysis and scoring of all Florida Forever projects using the Conservation Needs Assessment and F-TRAC.

Staff Scientist Reviews

For every six-month Florida Forever review cycle, FNAI scientists contribute to a multi-phase evaluation process.

First, new applications are reviewed and the Inventory prepares a Preliminary Evaluation Report in advance of the first vote of the Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC).

Preliminary Evaluation Report - July 2010 (2.6 MB pdf)

Second, for those proposals voted upon for further evaluation, the Inventory prepares a Resource Planning Boundary, recommending modifications to help ensure protection of the resources associated with the proposed project.

Resource Planning Boundaries - January 2010 (4 MB pdf)

Third, staff scientists conduct field assessments for each proposal. Information from this assessment is incorporated into a multi-agency evaluation report compiled by DEP, Office of Environmental Services. DEP's evaluation report is presented to the ARC prior to the final vote and project ranking for each cycle.

Florida Forever Project Evaluation and Progress Reports for Spring 2010 Cycle:

Project Comparative Analysis Table - May 2010 (370 KB pdf) Excel Version (134 KB) "Bubble Sheet" Version (380 KB)
This table, formerly known as the "bubble sheet", provides concise summary resource scores for all current and proposed Florida Forever projects. Newly available are sortable Excel worksheets for the supporting data underlying the Comparative Analysis. Resource Evaluation Scoring Worksheets - May 2010 (246 KB)

Natural Resource Acquisition Progress Report - May 2010 (149 KB pdf)
This report tracks acres acquired of each natural resource layer included in the Conservation Needs Assessment, tied directly to measures outlined in the Florida Forever legislation.

Florida Forever Benchmarks Report - Fall 2008 (4 MB pdf)
This report provides an overall assessment of the Florida Forever program's progress toward meeting benchmarks of natural resource protection, in a less-technical format.

GIS Data
The latest Conservation Needs Assessment GIS data layers are available for download here. These data are updated approximately once a year.

Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment Overview Maps, Version 3.3 - May 2010 (2.8 MB pdf)

Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment Data Layers, Version 3.3

Documentation
FNAI Florida Forever data and analysis fall into three categories:

First, Conservation Needs Assessment data are the original data layers tied directly to measures outlined in the Florida Forever legislation.

Conservation Needs Assessment Technical Report, Version 3.3 - May 2010 (6.8 MB pdf)
This report provides detailed technical documentation of all Needs Assessment data, and is revised frequently as the data are updated.

Conservation Needs Assessment Summary Report - December 2000 (5 MB pdf)
This report summarizes the original Conservation Needs Assessment. NOTE: most figures and maps in this report are obsolete.

Second, the Conservation Needs Assessment data layers have been regrouped into more meaningful categories for analysis. These groupings are known as the Decision Support Data. These data are also used to score projects based on Single Resource Evaluations.

Data Layer Synopsis Page - Revised May 2010 (54 KB pdf)
This document provides a brief overview of the Decision Support Data layers.

Decision Support Data Documentation - Revised May 2010 (403 KB pdf)
Detailed documentation for the Decision Support Data, including how the original Conservation Needs Assessment layers are grouped into Decision Support Data.

Single Resource Evaluation Documentation - Revised May 2010 (3 MB pdf)
This report documents the methods used to score Florida Forever projects for each (single) resource data layer. These scores are summarized in the Project Evaluation Summary Table (see above).

Third, the Decision Support Data are used in the F-TRAC analysis.

F-TRAC Model Documentation - Revised May 2010 (948 KB pdf)
Documentation for the F-TRAC analysis.

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