§ UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
\ +HHr* OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
\. n^f- NATIONAL EXPOSURE RESEARCH LABORATORY
PB P.O. BOX 93478 • LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89193-3478
Environmental Sciences Division
December 13, 2013
SUBJECT: Reconciliation of Review Comments for the San Pedro River Basin Data Browser
FROM: William G. Kepner, ESD/LEB
TO: Files
The San Pedro River Basin Data Browser was reviewed by two peer experts internal and external
to EPA. The reviewers included:
I. Shea Burns Caroline Erickson
USD A/Agricultural Research Service USEPA, ORD/NERL/ESD
Southwest Watershed Research Center Landscape Ecology Branch
Tucson, AZ Las Vegas, NV
The San Pedro River Basin Data Browser (http://fws-case-12.nmsu.edu/SanPedro/) was jointly
developed by New Mexico State University, New Mexico Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research
Unit (Las Cruces, NM) and the Landscape Ecology Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (Las Vegas, NV) for the EPA Region 9 Watersheds Office (San Francisco, CA).
Acquisition of primary spatial data and database development are initial features of any type of
landscape assessment project. They provide contemporary land cover and the ancillary datasets
necessary to establish reference condition and develop alternative future scenarios that serve as
input variables for various hydrological, habitat, economic, and natural resource models. The
purpose of this database is to provide a long-term record keeping (archiving) system with easy
public access to an array of spatial data for the entire San Pedro River basin (U.S./Mexico). Spatial
and tabular data that were freely available on the Internet were collected and processed to create a
seamless database. Additionally land cover datasets were created at the Ecological System
thematic level and National Land Cover Dataset thematic level using Classification and
Regression Tree (CART) analysis.
Additionally, we downloaded the EPA Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenario (ICLUS v 1.3)
datasets (EPA 2009, 2010). The ICLUS datasets are in ESRI Grid format (100 m resolution) and
project housing densities from the year 2010 to the year 2100 in ten-year increments based on five
climate change scenarios: Al, Bl, A2, B2 and BC. The five scenarios represent different
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2001) emission storylines related to
population growth and economic strategy for the U.S.
The datasets created within this effort also support and extend the datasets previously collected as
part of The San Pedro River Geo-data Browser and Assessment Tools (Kepner et al. 2003,
http://www.epa.gov/nerlesdl/land-sci/san_pedro/).
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The online database report was evaluated via the EPA clearance process and the reviewers rated
the report "acceptable after minor revision." The attached online database has been revised to
include all reviewer comments which improved the organization and presentation of the product.
The EPA technical manuscript reviews (EPA-363) and database link (http://fws-case-
12.nmsu.edu/SanPedro/) are attached as records to the file. Additionally, the online product is also
supported by San Pedro River Basin Data Browser Report (Kenneth G. Boykin, T. Scott
Schrader, Rachel K. Guy, Andrea E. Ernst, Ashraf Nour el Sadek, William G. Kepner, and Wilson
W.S. Yee. July 2012. EPA/600/R-12/550); see http://fws-case-
12.nmsu.edu/SanPedro/EPA%20SanPedro%20Final%20Report.pdf. The following comments are
provided as part of the product reconciliation package. Once cleared, this product will be migrated
from New Mexico State University to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental
Sciences Division project server in Las Vegas (http://www.epa.gov/esd/land-sci/san-pedro.htm).
Attachments
Peer Review Reconciliation
Many "very minor edits" were identified within the draft database. All typographical and
formatting errors in the report have been corrected. All track-change edits suggested by the
reviewer were accepted and the document was revised.
Page
Home
GIS Data
Review Comment
Broken link
Semi-colons in 1st
paragraph
Record keeping
(archive) redundant
Comma
Square km
Order of series
Data-NLCD
classification
Other punctuation and
comments
Habitat models link
Image comment
Metadata duplication
NLCD classification
Broken link
Coordinate systems
differences
Reconciliation
Fixed link on all pages
Reject, not necessary
Reject, is necessary
Accepted
Accepted
Accepted
Rejected, correct classification
provided
Accepted
Rejected as both sets are necessary
Images are illustrations not
reproduction quality
Metadata is the same because the
dataset is the same with different
columns representing different
representations
Classification follows NLCD 2006
Fixed
Text in overview reflects this
difference
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ICLUS
Contacts
Links and References
Report
Image link goes to
same link
Web link has changed
Missing "to"
Citation error
Grammar and
punctuation
Al housing repetition
A2 resolution
Link and misspelling
Links
Links should open
new window
Punctuation
Citations
none
All three datasets are reflected in one
map
Link fixed
Accepted
Corrected
Corrected
Corrected
corrected
corrected
Fixed
Rejected. Personal preference
accepted
corrected
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