GISCorps Volunteer Assisted Kyaninga Forest Foundation with their GIS Needs

Background

Kyaninga Forest Foundation (KFF) is a Ugandan non-profit organization established in 2010 and formally registered in 2017, dedicated to biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, and community agroforestry across western Uganda. Its mission is to restore degraded landscapes, conserve threatened species and promote indigenous tree planting while improving local livelihoods through climate-smart agriculture and environmental education. KFF works closely with local communities to balance human development with ecological preservation, empowering farmers to adopt sustainable practices that protect soils, forests, and water resources. Through partnerships with organizations such as BOS+, IUCN, Join for Water, and the U.S. Forest Service, KFF integrates research, restoration, and advocacy to strengthen ecosystem resilience and biodiversity across forest reserves, wetlands, and farmlands.

KFF requested GIS support from GISCorps to strengthen its ability to manage and interpret the growing amount of spatial and field data generated through its agroforestry and restoration programs. Building on earlier collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, which helped develop a GIS system to track indigenous tree phenology and seed collection, KFF wanted to extend this approach to community-based restoration. With thousands of farmers now taking part across several districts, accurate documentation through farmer registration forms, site analysis surveys and tree distribution and monitoring forms became essential. GIS tools make it possible to link this information to mapped farm locations, record species composition and survival rates, and assess changes across the wider landscape. Support from GISCorps focused on creating a streamlined digital system for mobile data collection and analysis, improving both the efficiency of fieldwork and the accuracy of reporting to partners and donors, while giving KFF a stronger basis for planning and evaluating its conservation work.

Between June and October of 2025, GISCorps volunteer, Izzy McLees, partnered with KFF to support and enhance their use of the ArcGIS Online (AGOL) platform, which included a thorough audit, dashboard development, data visualization, and internal upskilling. This collaboration involved remote weekly meetings, which covered spatial data collection with ArcGIS Field Maps and visualization using ArcGIS Web Maps and ArcGIS Experience Builder.

Objectives

1. Review and document the existing ArcGIS Online structure and content to establish a clear understanding of current data organization and usage.
2. Conduct a comprehensive audit of Field Maps workflows, layers, and data collection processes to identify configuration issues and inefficiencies.
3. Design and implement recommendations to enhance data management, sharing, and long-term sustainability of GIS resources.
4. Build capacity among KFF staff by providing training and guidance on the maintenance and administration of their GIS systems.

Development

The focus of the development phase was to redevelop the existing GIS data collection system called ‘Farmer Surveys’. The original Field Maps application was built around a single feature service, “Farmer Locations”, with one related table containing records for four separate forms: Farmer Registration, Site Analysis, Tree Distribution, and Tree Monitoring. This configuration created several issues; data was being overwritten due to shared fields across forms, large portions of the dataset contained null values, and the structure led to inefficient use of data storage.

To resolve these issues, a new data schema was designed and implemented. Instead of a single related table, each form now has its own dedicated related feature table. This structure provides a clearer data relationships, prevents record overwriting, and enables more efficient querying and analysis. All four forms were redesigned within Field Maps to align with the new schema, ensuring that each form captures only the relevant information. Additional data validation rules, calculations, and restrictions were introduced to improve data quality and ensure that only appropriate data types are collected during fieldwork.

With a more consistent and higher-quality dataset, KFF are now better positioned to undertake meaningful data analysis and visualization. The improved schema enables the development of interactive dashboards that can display near-real-time insights, such as farmer participation rates, site conditions, and tree survival trends. These visualizations make it easier to communicate progress, identify patterns, and support evidence-based decision-making across projects. The result is a more robust, efficient, and scalable data collection system that not only supports accurate monitoring but also enhances the organization’s ability to derive actionable insights from its field data.

Challenges

During redevelopment, the choice between continuing with Field Maps or moving to Survey123 was considered. While Survey123 offers strong form-based functionality and advanced validation tools, the existing system was already built in Field Maps, and migrating to a new platform would have required significant reconfiguration and loss of existing data. Field Maps also better supports the project’s map-based workflows. For these reasons, Field Maps was retained as the core application, with improvements made to its forms to enhance data accuracy and usability. Another significant challenge was ensuring that historical data collected under the old configuration was retained. To address this, existing records were extracted, cleaned, and transformed to fit the new schema. This required careful data manipulation to preserve relationships between farmer locations and their associated records while aligning the data with the new structure.

Conclusions & Recommendations

The collaboration has advanced the KFF’s ability to collect, manage, and visualize spatial data. By developing new digital field maps tools and building internal technical skills, KFF is now collecting meaningful data to better report its conservation activities, provide a better service and demonstrate impacts to partners and stakeholders.

Looking into the future, KFF plans to:

• Tracking how well trees are doing on different farms, including survival and growth of each species over time.
• Seeing which tree species work best under certain soil types, slopes or farming systems.
• Mapping how tree planting is changing the farming landscape and helping connect areas of vegetation.
• Understanding how farm layout, crop mix and land size affect where and how trees can be planted successfully.
• Using farmer information to tailor support, training and tree choices to their needs, goals and income levels.
• Learning how different livelihood activities, such as coffee, cocoa or food crops, influence tree care and long-term management.
• Identifying areas where new farmers could be supported or where replanting may be needed.
• Producing clear maps and summaries for partners and donors that show progress and impact.
• Linking tree survival and soil information to understand how agroforestry improves soil fertility, reduces erosion and supports farm productivity.
• Building a strong information base that helps plan future planting, share lessons and guide better decision making for communities and partners.

The redevelopment of the KFF’s GIS has created a more reliable and efficient platform for data collection and analysis. The organization is now better equipped to manage its GIS and use its data to inform decision-making and monitor project impact.

Project completed.