FWS - Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS)
Investment ID: 010-000000406
Overview
Program Title
FWS - Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS)
Description
Launched in 2003 and containing a great deal of spatial data, ECOS is a pool of web applications that provides access to USFWS data in regards to threatened and endangered species, conservation of habitat and species, refuges, and migratory birds. Managed by Ecological Services, ECOS is the central point to gather and store information from internal offices along with information from varying Federal, State, and local partners for the conservation, management, and where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats.
Type of Program
Major IT Investments
Multi-Agency Category
Not Applicable
Associated Websites
https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/
Investment Detail
The Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS) provides users access to USFWS data for threatened and endangered species, conservation of habitat and species, refuges, migratory birds, and other data sources. ECOS is the central place to gather and store information from USFWS offices and partners, providing integrated data sets for the list of T&E species and plants, and environmental contaminants data. There are 56,000 unique users to ECOS, and this number grows by 18 percent each month. Public users have accessed ECOS in over 100,000 unique sessions for each month in year 2018 and 2019, and this number grows by almost 20 percent each year.
The investment in ECOS has aided in developing data and associated applications to support in the Interior FY 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, various Executive Orders, and Department of Interior Secretarial Orders and priorities, such as Executive Order 13807, Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects, Secretarial Order 3355, Streamlining National Environmental Policy Act Reviews and Implementation of Executive Order 13807, Secretarial Priority #2, Sustainably develop our energy and natural resources and Secretarial Priority #7, Striking a regulatory balance . Many of the applications in ECOS relate to performance tracking, and by providing the data from ECOS in performance measures, automating the processes has dramatically reduced the reporting timeline, confusion, and more accuracy in our submissions. Without the improvements made each year in ECOS, we calculate the savings as compared to the spreadsheets that staff were doing, i.e., getting a spreadsheet, manually updating it for each field office, sending it to the regional office, the regional office compiles all field office information for their region and sends the consolidated table to Headquarters where we would compile regional entries into one national performance calculation. The availability of these measures in ECOS saves FWS the equivalency of $11,522,325.00 each year, greatly reducing staff time in over 80 Ecological Services offices, 70 fish hatcheries, 51 fisheries offices, and other Service programs and offices.
The investment in ECOS has aided in developing data and associated applications to support in the Interior FY 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, various Executive Orders, and Department of Interior Secretarial Orders and priorities, such as Executive Order 13807, Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects, Secretarial Order 3355, Streamlining National Environmental Policy Act Reviews and Implementation of Executive Order 13807, Secretarial Priority #2, Sustainably develop our energy and natural resources and Secretarial Priority #7, Striking a regulatory balance . Many of the applications in ECOS relate to performance tracking, and by providing the data from ECOS in performance measures, automating the processes has dramatically reduced the reporting timeline, confusion, and more accuracy in our submissions. Without the improvements made each year in ECOS, we calculate the savings as compared to the spreadsheets that staff were doing, i.e., getting a spreadsheet, manually updating it for each field office, sending it to the regional office, the regional office compiles all field office information for their region and sends the consolidated table to Headquarters where we would compile regional entries into one national performance calculation. The availability of these measures in ECOS saves FWS the equivalency of $11,522,325.00 each year, greatly reducing staff time in over 80 Ecological Services offices, 70 fish hatcheries, 51 fisheries offices, and other Service programs and offices.