Cartography, GIS
& Spatial Analysis
Premier maps and innovative analyses.
Live Oak Associates uses state-of-the-art technologies to collect, analyze, and visually interpret natural resource data.
Our field data, map products, and Geographic Information System (GIS)-based analyses provide a spatial context for our projects, allowing us to examine the distribution and abundance of resources of concern, more accurately evaluate project impacts to these resources, and develop spatially explicit mitigation strategies.
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The strength of our cartographic products begins in the field, where we utilize an ESRI data collection app paired with a high-accuracy GPS receiver. Field data is seamlessly uploaded to ArcGIS Online and made available to our GIS team, who packages it for further analysis and ultimately depicts it in high-quality mapping to support our deliverables.
Our in-house GIS team produces state-of-the-art maps, including the mapped configuration of a project site’s land uses, habitat types, and sensitive biological resources; maps of known special status species occurrences; maps that visually depict a project’s mitigation commitments; and aquatic resources maps prepared to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standards. Our cartographic software proficiency includes ESRI ArcGIS products and AutoCAD.
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We rely not only on conventional methodologies but have also used robust and advanced spatial tools that are grounded in landscape ecology. The ecological scale for most species usually exceeds the size of most project sites and land management units by several fold. Most conventional approaches that rely on overly simplistic decision rules and tools (e.g., GIS overlays, least-cost pathways, etc.) are not well equipped to inform conservation strategies at relevant spatial scales. The spatial tools that we use are often better suited to inform conservation strategies for a wide variety of species at the relevant spatial scales and are innovative in our field.
Our Work
