What is the basis for NREX?
Governor Matt Mead launched his Energy Strategy (energy.wyo.gov) in 2013 and identified it as one of his highest priorities. One of its products is the Natural Resource and Energy Explorer (NREX). This is an online map-based decision support tool that is intended to assist with the planning process for surface-disturbing activities. By accessing authoritative data from a variety of state and federal sources, users can define their areas of interest and discover which natural, cultural, socioeconomic and infrastructural resources are coincident at those locations.
How is NREX Supported?
NREX development has been funded through the Wyoming Business Council. It has been developed by the Wyoming Geographic and Information Science Center in partnership with the Governor’s Policy Office, and a steering committee consisting of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office and Wyoming Enterprise Technology Services.
What is NREX?
NREX is an easily accessible web-based delivery system for providing geospatial data layers. This non-regulatory, landscape-level information allows a user to visually explore the distribution of important resource data in Wyoming that could assist with project planning.
Who is the primary audience for an application like NREX?
NREX is intended to provide useful, landscape-level information during the early stages of project planning. It does not replace or supersede site specific analysis with appropriate agencies. NREX should be used in concert with all available data and expertise to ensure project plans address permitting requirements at all levels (federal, state, and/or local). Primary users include environmental consultants, resource specialists, planners and managers.
What about sensitive data?
NREX preserves the confidentiality of sensitive data sets. Sensitive data are generalized preventing a user from determining specific point locations. For example, point locations are not shown for significant cultural sites, sage grouse leks, raptor nests, or other sensitive species; instead that information is available as just presence or absence within a buffer distance from a project location (e.g. a sage grouse lek is within 4 miles of the project boundary), or in the case of Wyoming Natural Diversity Database data, it is only recognized as present within a given township. Most data contained in the NREX application are publicly available data, and are simply served in one location to support the planning process.