Pacific Southwest Region

Plot Location Confidentiality

The Food Security Act of 1985 contains language that protects the confidentiality of plot locations. For this reason, the actual plot locations are not available at this website. Persons needing detailed information on plot locations should contact Kama Kennedy. To acquire plot location data, a Memorandum of Understanding will need to be signed, stating that the data will not be released to any other party. Penalties for disclosing confidential information are specified in the Food and Security Act of 1985. Detailed information and policy regarding plot location confidentiality and the language specified.

Introduction

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program collects, analyzes and reports information for all forest lands in the United States, both public and private. We operate across all ownerships, both pubic and private. On privately owned lands - which includes 2/3 of the forest lands in the US - FIA data collection takes place only with the permission of landowners.

Although most FIA data are freely available to the public, FIA has always had a policy of nondisclosure of exact sample locations (plot coordinates). There are three main reasons for this policy:

1. To protect landowner privacy.
   
   FIA access to plots is only possible with landowner permission. Landowners are concerned about maintaining their privacy, as well as the nuisance factor of having strangers on their property. Historically, FIA has promised landowners absolute confidentiality of their data - that is, there would be no way to associate individual plot data with specific locations (and owners) on the ground.Violating this trust will result in reduced permission to collect data, and therefore a lessrepresentative sample.
   
   
2. To protect the integrity of the sample locations.
   
   All plot visits involve risk of impacting the elements of the plot (e.g. cutting or damaging trees, compacting soils, trampling vegetation). This could result in biased estimates if our permanent plot system becomes unrepresentative of the sample population of interest (all US lands).
   
   Since we have no control over access to sample locations, the best way to protect the locations from excessive sample-related impact is to keep the locations confidential.
   
   
3. To protect the reputation of the FIA program for providing unbiased information.
   
   If plot locations are commonly known, there may be accusations that land managers are manipulating the results of the inventory by management practices, e.g. by not harvesting forest contained on sample locations. Anonymity assures that the attitudes of landowners are not influenced and that the sample remains unbiased.

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Legislation and Policy

In 1999, Congress modified the Food Security Act of 1985 (7 U.S.C. 2276(d)) to add FIA data collection to a list of items requiring confidential treatment. Among other things, the law prevents FIA from disclosing sample locations in such a way that individual ownership can be determined, and it provides for criminal penalties for violations.

Present FIA policy (Federal Register / Vol. 54, No. 203 / Monday, October 23, 1989) permits public release of FIA sample coordinates rounded to the nearest 100 seconds (approx. 1 mile). Such approximate coordinates generally prevent association of individual sample locations with individual owners, and will often meet the needs of data users looking for approximate geographical location of information.

This policy is currently augmented by an Interim Policy that addresses access to more precise sample locations. The Interim Policy makes distinctions between Internal FIA Staff (including cooperators and contractors) actively engaged in delivering the FIA program, and External Users, who are limited to the 100-second public data.

• Interim Policy

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What if I need precise coordinates for my work?

Some FIA customers express a need for more exact sample locations in order to support their analyses. They often cite the need to relate FIA data to other precise georeferenced data, for example to high resolution satellite imagery, aerial photography, digital elevation models, or other high-precision mapped or modeled data. No such need is considered to be sufficient justification for releasing plot coordinate information outside of the FIA program. However, such needs can be addressed in several manners:

1. Customers can send their data layers to an FIA office and request that the FIA office overlay exact plot coordinates and extract the appropriate attributes from the submitted layers. The list of plots and associated attribute data is then returned to the customer, with no coordinates attached. This allows customers to match their data with FIA data without compromising confidentiality. The amount of time required to address such requests will depend on the size of the request and on the current availability of FIA staff.
   
   
2. For lengthier research involving multiple iterations, external analysts can arrange to spend time working in an FIA office where they can gain access to sample locations while working in the office. They can conduct their analyses and take with them any derived products that do not disclose exact sample locations.
   
   
3. For truly large scale research projects, investigators should consider adding an FIA staff member to their research team to work on-site with FIA data. Such an arrangement normally requires the investigators to cover all costs to FIA associated with the work.

What if I want to collect additional data on FIA sample plots?

In general, collection of data from FIA plots can be done only through the FIA program. FIA is open to discussing the collection of additional data, at partner expense, from FIA plots; but such data collection must be done in cooperation with FIA and requires the presence of FIA representatives, preferably during regularly scheduled plot visits. Potential partners should be aware that funding the collection of additional data still does not result in release of exact plot coordinates to the partner.

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Summary

Access to exact FIA coordinates has always been a sensitive issue involving tradeoffs between landowner's privacy rights (and FIA's continued ability to gain access to private lands), versus the potentially huge value of spatially accurate FIA data in improving analyses. First and foremost, the FIA program is in business to provide long-term information on status and trends in the Nation's forested resources, and we do this by cooperating with private landowners. Any additional use of the FIA data must not be allowed to jeopardize that fundamental mission.

We believe that in most if not all cases there are ways to satisfy customer interests in accurate spatial data while protecting location confidentiality, through the methods described in the previous section. This may require customers to provide the necessary resources to take advantage of these opportunities, but it can be done.

The FIA program is committed to doing whatever we can to help our customers make the best use of FIA data, subject to protecting confidentiality. If you have a specific analytical need for highly accurate sample locational data, please contact the appropriate regional FIA unit to find out what options are available. If your need spans multiple regions of the country, you may also direct your request to the National Program Leader at the address below.

• More Info regarding FIA Program.

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USDA Forest Service - Pacific Southwest Region
Last Modified: Friday, 13 April 2012 at 13:20:49 EDT