There’s a new track at the ESRI User Conference that is focused on climate change. There have been sessions on climate change in the past within the Environment track, but now there’s growing multidisciplinary science that warranted a track of its own to address issues head on.

Leading off the track today was an excellent presentation from Stephen H. Schneider, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University. Schneider is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and shared in the Nobel Prize this year.

The focus of his talk was the connection of the problem to public awareness, stating that with media accounts someone usually points out the horrible problems that we’re going to face, and then we hear other issues such as CO2 as plant food that indicate that we’ll benefit from warming. The overwhelming fact is that we can’t afford to simply stand by and watch the changes occur.

Schneider defines the role of the IPCC to sort out relative credibility of vast amount of claims by applying serious science. Looking at the records, climate change has been clear for the last 50 years, but similar to how tobacco companies debated and disputed the claims of the American Cancer Society about the connections between smoking and health, the opponents of climate change continue to cling to to the two or three studies that don’t corroborate the evidence and continue to assert that since we don’t understand the biological process and connections then we can’t prove that there is a connection.

Schneider spoke a lot about the complexity of system science, and the fact that climate is part of the overall sustainable development debate. Climate is linked closely to overall global development problems, and is also an ethics problem. The work of the IPCC makes the correlation of human and natural causes and concluded that it is very likely humans have caused the recent warming instead of natural causes. While it’s well established that we’re facing manmade warming, the next steps are to have clear understandings of how the warming is occurring and why.

NatureServe and National Geographic have teamed to build the conservation guide to America’s natural places called LandScope America. This ambitious and well-funded project will bring together detailed map views of protected lands and threatened species, with multimedia narratives and collaborative tools to encourage information sharing about best conservation practices. The intent of the site is to increase the pace and effectiveness of conservation action in the United States in the face of development pressures that consume 6,000 acres per day and 2 million acres each year.

The experience begins with an interactive map view with reference maps from Google, ESRI and National Geographic. Physical and topographic maps will be combined with one-meter satellite and aerial imagery, with thematic data managed and published by ArcGIS Server.

The project is the vision of Carl W. Knobloch Jr., an Atlanta-based businessman and philanthropist who founded the West Hill Foundation for Nature, and contributed $5 million seed money to launch LandScope. “America’s natural resources—things like clean water and fresh air, habitat for wildlife, and productive farmland and ranchlands—are just as important to sustaining our economic strength as the things we measure in the GNP,” said Knobloch. “I hope this project can create a sense of urgency for our government, private landowners, and all Americans to work together on a sufficient scale while there is still time to preserve our precious heritage.

The website now contains a good deal of information about the content and capabilities of this new system, with plans to launch the dynamic and interactive features later this year.

A good deal of time was spent on the main stage talking about sustainability issues and the way that GIS technologies can be applied to decrease our impacts on the planet. One technology that had a good profile was ArcLogistics for fleet management. While the technology isn’t new, the application of the technology is even more important these days given the cost of fuel and the interest in reducing emissions.

A case study of building inspection routing was displayed for the City of Fort Collins. The daily workload of five inspectors was scheduled with both a manual process and an automated route planning using ArcLogistics. Their work was divided based on cost, skill sets, their work day and the work requirements. The automated process returned routes that significantly decreased the miles traveled and fuel costs, with a reduction of 20%.

On average the fuel reductions using automated routing returns a 15-30% savings. This cost savings was extrapolated for fleets of different sizes with ROI returns of close to $2 million for fleets of 200 vehicles. It was also demonstrated that time savings of automated routing could greatly reduce the workloads and even the requirement for workers and vehicles due to efficiency gains. The ArcLogistics Navigator capability also lets you push out the routing to in-vehicle GPS devices for turn-by-turn guidance.

At the close of this session sample copies of ArcLogistics 9.3 were distributed to anyone interested. Visit www.esri.com/routefleets for more info.

John Calkins presented his popular yearly top ten time savers for ArcGIS Desktop 9.3

1. A new error reporting system that pops up whenever there is a crash. This ability quickly and anonymously reports errors to the development team in order to optimize performance, eliminate bugs and streamline development priorities.
2. The Identify tool provides the ability to navigate right to layer symbology with no need to hunt through layers. The tool also lets you design and style HTML updates with links and pop-ups to other Web content.
3. Convert graphics to features.
4. Reverse geocoding with an address inspector that allows you to automatically find addresses and click to label the address, allowing you to quickly add addresses quickly to the map.
5. Table sorting, aliases and joins allows you to sort the table in multiple fields, including by last edits, who the editor was, etc. You can also change the table headers between field aliases and how info is stored in the database. Field aliases are then persistent as table headings.
6. Transparencies on the maps will now be incorporated in legends to closely match colors on the map with the legend.
7. You can now clip a raster or image to a graphic shape. The shape can define the study area and extract all data in that area.
8. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to pause different layers, such as time series layers or to turn on and off different layers.
9. Labeling pauses allow you to turn on and off labels.
10. Bookmarks are now more accessible, with the bookmark manager allowing you to rearrange them in the order that you want. You can also double click to navigate to the extent and save and share bookmarks between documents and users.

World Vision International is a faith-based disaster aid organization that began in 1950 and now has more than 33,000 employees, 1 million volunteers, with offices in more than 100 countries, and a yearly budget of more than $2 Billion. We heard from Christopher Shore, director of the organization’s climate change response initiative at yesterday’s ESRI Senior Executive Seminar.

World Vision is beginning to embrace the use of GIS to ad in emergency preparedness planning, and is looking for help to expand this effort. The mission of the organization is to overcome poverty and injustice by reducing the impact of natural disasters with area development programs that concentrate efforts with a long-term commitment to maximize their impact.

There is a direct correlation between poverty and areas of high risk from natural disaster, with more than 60% of their work in areas frequently hit by hurricanes/tsunamis, flooding and other natural disasters. Their climate chance work indicates that there has been a 400% increase in annual weather-related disasters and a 600% rise in annual number of severe floods over the past ten years.

World Vision sees a huge need for increased investment to combat this increasing threat, and they see GIS as a critical tool in detecting hazards and vulnerabilities and mitigating risk. Shore indicated that most loss of life in disasters is due to poor preparation and planning, and that in the United States studies have shown a 400% ROI on disaster mitigation investments with that number easily reaching 1,000% in the developing world.

The group conducted a mobile GIS case study recently in El Salvador along with the University of Mississippi and LumiMap. The project tested field mapping solutions for disaster preparedness and mitigation, with hosting on www.lumimap.org. The handheld GPS units with custom forms put GIS tools in the hands of those without much education, but the product proved to be very intuitive. The teams were able to gather 300 data points on average for 75 days with data collected reliably and accurately.

World Vision International (Monrovia, Calif.) is now beginning to use GIS for everyday activity with plans to roll GIS in this gigantic organization with the goal of saving lives and preventing loss of life. We’ll be sure to report more on this broad effort, and can help you connect you to World Vision if you’re interested in participating.

The U.S. Secretary of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, spoke today at ESRI’s Senior Executive Seminar. Kempthorne expressed an understanding and appreciation of the role of geospatial technology that was extremely encouraging, including details about the role that geospatial technology played in his decision to protect the polar bear.

The secretary referred to the triumph of the geospatial era where geospatial technology is used to manage climate change, biodiversity, population pressures, natural disasters and global challenges. He also spoke to a broader vision of the technology to combine the knowledge of biological, geological and hydrological science in a geospatial framework.

The major announcement from his address was the commitment to make Landsat archives available online by the end of this year, with commitment from Google to host this data on Google Earth. The bulk of the data will be on EROS data center servers, but Google Earth will also have the data along with tools that enable rudimentary analysis. This universal access to view and analyze change over more than 30 years time should greatly influence the impact of geospatial technology on policy decisions.

Today I heard a truly inspiring presentation by Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland, at the ESRI Senior Executive Seminar. O’Malley was previously the mayor of Baltimore prior to taking on the governor position, and his history with that city provided a strong basis for a statistics-driven approach to government action and accountability.

During his time as mayor, he adopted an approach to fighting crime and drug problems that mirrored the ComStat system developed by Jack Maple in New York City. O’Malley commended GIS as a quantum technical advance on communication due to its ability to condense information for the rational application of human effort on human problems. The geographic approach holds individual actions accountable, and enables progress for the common good.

The challenges that O’Malley faced as mayor of Baltimore was nation-leading violent crime rate and drug addiction, the biggest loss of population of any major city and a legacy of government under performance. O’Malley found GIS and an information system architecture to be indispensable for its ability to condense what government is trying to accomplish, where to go with efforts and knowing that they’re getting there.

The CityStat system that he implemented in Baltimore gave access to timely accurate information shared by all, condensed tactical strategies of a collaborative nature, afforded a means to track information, and provided a means for relentless follow up. O’Malley credits the CityStat approach as a primary reason that he was able to reduce crime by 40% and reduce drug incidents by 50%.

O’Malley and his team also used the system to address the 15,000 vacant homes in Baltimore, taking title to more than 5,000 homes and either rehabilitating or demolishing those buildings. The system came in handy to target priority properties, and reduce the time it took to vacate and clean properties to 15 days. The means to set goals and meet them, reversing four decades of population in the city, obviously played a large role in O’Malley’s ascension to the governor role.

While Maryland’s enterprise GIS goes back to1972 (and in fact Maryland was client 003 at ESRI), the new StateStat system is an improvement on prior systems due to its ability to condense and share information across the enterprise. The effort is underway to build one map for Maryland that becomes part of every decision process, including parcel data for the entire state.

Maryland is faced with a problem that most states don’t have. Due to the Base Realignment and Consolidation (BRAC) effort, the state will have unprecedented growth. The state will have to absorb 60,000 new jobs in four years and is using mapping to create, build and maintain a sustainable future.

According to O’Malley the state has 21% developed land and 21% protected, with the need to make choices on how they manage and plan human activity. In the last 30 years the population of the state grew 30% with land consumption growth of 100%, which is unsustainable. There’s a need for smarter strategies that don’t decimate natural systems.

In its effort to absorb one million people in the next several years, the state of Maryland is using GIS to:
1 – Develop a statewide green print (wetlands, farms, open spaces) for ecological health and balance and the prioritization of parcels to preserve for restoration and protection.
2 – Evaluate BRAC Zones to look at where those that are being relocated came from to help determine neighborhoods that are the best fit to match the types of housing arrangements that they left behind.
3 – Creating transit-oriented development that prevents poorly planned growth.
4 – Address development that protects against security and natural threats, including sea level rise, with Maryland as the third most vulnerable state.

The StateStat system has spun off to include a BayStat system for the Chesapeake Bay, as well as a HousingStat and TransportationStat. These systems combine an executive view, an agency view and a public view.

O’Malley repeatedly referenced the fact that with these systems people want to see their own house – stating that it’s all about the relationship. GIS ultimately shows us our relationship to others, our proximity and connection to what’s around us, and the factors that bind us as a community.

It’s clear that Maryland is using geospatial technology to its true potential, with smart growth and the sustainability of ecosystems as a primary driver. I’m greatly impressed with both O’Malley’s grasp of the power of the technology as well as the implementation of the tool as a means to gauge his administration’s performance. I wouldn’t be surprised to see O’Malley ascend to even higher levels of governance, given his ability to achieve results that improve the lives of all citizens.

The industry leadership panel at the close of today’s ESRI Survey and Engineering GIS Summit raised many issues that provided good audience dialog. The panel title focused on machine control, but the discussion quickly evolved to take on certification and licensing, liability issues and the whole future of the surveying profession.

Machine control is biting into surveyor’s revenue stream because engineers in some states can simply turn over digital terrain models direct to the contractor for input into GPS-guided graders and bulldozers without using a surveyor to stake and check the quality of the work. The function of the surveyor before machine control was to convert the plan to the ground and to check and certify the quality of the plan. Without the surveyor as quality arbiter, the question of liability appears to be on the design engineer, which may not be understood by many engineering firms.

In the past, surveyors were the ones to provide topo maps. Increasingly topos or digital elevation models are provided by LIDAR, which eliminates field work. Questions arise about who provides ground control before and after a project, and who checks the quality of the project.

Several panelists suggested there’s an increasing need for certification of GIS professionals to ensure the accuracy of the data that they input, but others dismissed the thought indicating that a professional attitude was all that’s necessary. One audience member suggested that perhaps there’s even a need to certify the software to ensure that it maintains positional accuracy.

An issue of capacity is another pressure on surveyors. There are fewer licensed surveyors in every state, and the lack of surveyors is creating workarounds where expediency is needed. If surveyors are going to insist on certification and more of a role in data accuracy, what is to be done when there’s too much work to perform?

Without the job of interpreting plans, a few panelists suggested that surveyors need to “run for cover in GIS,” where there’s plenty of work and an increasing need for more accuracy. All panelists agreed that the role of surveyors in GIS will expand dramatically, even though a few felt the future of the profession was in jeopardy.

ESRI’s chief scientist, David Maguire, gave a presentation on the current state of geospatial technology at today’s Surveying and GIS Summit, beginning with a slide that showcased the Gartner hype cycle, and using it to place current geospatial technologies at points along the time line. On the inflated expectations side he placed Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and all other geographic exploration systems. Coming off the peak of inflated expectations are both spatial data infrastructure and the GeoWeb. He placed location-based services in the trough of disillusionment, noting that the technology is there, but that large profits from it are likely to be elusive. And he crowded the plateau of productivity with online mapping, GPS, machine control, digital photogrammetry and GIS.

Maguire outlined four technologies that are driving the industry:

Server GIS - Improved hardware and software architecture are allowing GIS to be served as a service to users. The massive investment in bandwidth provides the capability for real-time connection to data and services. Server architecture improves data management, allowing data repositories to become an information library for users. The combination of hardware and network speed mean that much of the data processing can be done on the server side, freeing up our individual machines for other tasks.

Desktop - While capabilities online spread the reach of GIS, the desktop is still a key platform for ad hoc or custom tasks. The desktop becomes the place for data compilation and editing, spatial analysis, modeling and cartography

Web - Maguire summarized the impact of the Web in light of three books that he’s found particularly prescient.
1997 – Death of Distance – geography has changed due to our access to information
2005 The World is Flat – globalization changes the cost of services (digitizing in India and then China has made base mapping very cheap)
2007 Wikinomics – there’s a profound change to the economy based on access to large numbers of users

Data - There’s an increasing explosion of data in volume, resolution and types. The data providers are moving from a focus on collection technology to data services and solutions. A direct connection to sensors is an emerging technology, with web-based applications able to digitally reference imagery on the fly.

Maguire then outlined five technology trends that will have deep impacts on geospatial technology.

Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing - Ubiquitous computing is expanding, with the majority of people now carrying mobile phones that are gaining in computer power and functionality. The devices are proliferating along with wearable sensors and RFID chips to track assets.

GPS - The global positioning system is becoming increasingly as we rely on it more and more for navigation and positioning.

Enterprise Information Systems - Server oriented computing is driving a change from project-oriented work to database-centric workflows. Maguire repeatedly emphasized the importance of the shared database as the foundation for all future survey work.

Shared Tools - Survey, cadastre and mapping are different mind sets, but with the shared toolset we can combine approaches for greater insight.
combining the two approaches is very important

Spatial Analysis and Modeling - As data availability and quality increases, analysis and modeling become more important. ESRI recently added geographically-weighted regression to their analysis toolset. There is an increasing research into dynamic space-time GIS, with some interesting case studies for water resources and weather systems. Data modeling work will need to increase to capture syntactic and semantic relationships.

Maguire concluded by saying that technology change is a driver for our industry, and that we’re likely to see integration of more technologies that will make the toolset richer for surveying, CAD, cadastre, data management, mapping and analysis.

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has released a new report, Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations. The research for the report focused on the performance of climate simulation models, indicating what models can simulate well and where the models need improvements.

The report states that “the science of climate modeling has matured through finer spatial resolution, the inclusion of a greater number of physical processes, and through comparison to a rapidly expanding array of
observations.”

The report outlines advancements, but also shows that there are a number of systematic biases with the current models, particularly at predicting precipitation at regional scales. The report notes that “an average over the set of models clearly provides climate simulation superior to any individual model,” and concludes that “no current model is superior to others in all respects, but rather different models have differing strengths and weaknesses.”