The standards were designed to be compatible with most existing invasive species inventories. Their purpose is not to add another level of work to weed managers, but to lighten their workload by making it possible to share information across boundaries. Of course, for the full benefit of the standards to be realized, everyone involved in weed management needs to adopt the standards.
The reason for NAISMA’s effort to create the minimum standards outlined in the main document is to increase the ability to share information. This effort is not intended to create a single database, but rather to create minimum standards so that all information being collected is compatible. Furthermore, these are intended to be the minimum standards. The standards address the most basic information necessary to compare invasive species problems across tribal, county, state, national, and even international borders.
There are three basic elements of a weed inventory: what is the weed; where is it located; and finally how large is the infestation. The standards contain the data fields that are required to satisfy these basic inventory elements. A sample field form is located in Appendix F. To the right are links to the Mapping Standards Documents.
Please contact the Mapping Standards Committee (Link to the committee page) with any questions or suggestions.