NEURISA Day 2019

Welcome to NEURISA Day 2019!  This is the 10th Anniversary of our awesome one day conference!

Session 1

Accurate geographic data is the foundation of conducting a complete and accurate Decennial Census. Census Bureau Geography Partnership Programs are an opportunity to collaborate with state and local governments to improve our geographic data. The LUCA program and the New Construction Program give participants an opportunity to improve the accuracy of our master address file. The PSAP (Participant Statistical Areas Program) allows participants to review and update statistical geographies, such as census tracts and block groups. The BAS (Boundary and Annexation Survey) provides governments the opportunity to review and update legal boundaries, names and governmental status. The SAID (Spatial, Address and Imagery Data) Program allows partners to provide address point files, street centerline files and imagery data to our database. These programs are at different stages and we will be discussing each program in greater detail.

Author: Spiro Korizis

Session 1:

Utilizing a week long facilitator training, I presented three workshops to encourage the use of ARCGIS Online in an K12 educational setting. Educators in a variety of disciplines, from across RI, learned how to use of GIS to answer questions, create storymaps, and online surveys to enhance their educational practice using Geospatial Technology.

Author: Peter Stetson

Session 2

The opioid crisis is impacting each and every global community. GIS has provided the tools necessary to analyze and fight back against this epidemic. Through my work at the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), I have been able to utilize real-time EMS data to map the issues associated with opioid overdose. I would love to share this work with the NEURISA membership and attendants at the NEURISA Day Conference. Thank you for your consideration.

Author: Sarah Karim

Session 2

Free Open Source Software (FOSS) GIS tools are very useful but often overlooked. While one of the main purposes of GIS is to share information, this can be difficult and proprietary software can be costly. This presentation discusses two case studies where FOSS tools proved to be very useful as well as why they were chosen over proprietary software. In the first, the Trails Advisory Committee at F. Gilbert Hills State Forest, as well as town and DCR staff collaborated to create a map of the state forest and adjacent conservation lands, with the goal of being able to pull it up on a smartphone and find your location. Here the presenter discusses how the QGIS software and its QTiles plugin were used to accomplish these tasks. In the second, the Foxborough DPW was looking for a temporary solution for sharing GIS information throughout the department until the new town website went online and allow for a web-based solution. An additional goal was being able to access this information in the field either on a smartphone or tablet. Here the presenter discusses how QGIS, its QGIS2Web plugin, and Leaflet were used to create an intranet GIS for the DPW and visually share information throughout it.

Author: Ryan Norton

Session 3

Modern GIS has changed the way we understand GIS workflows integrating many facets of what use to be a pain the the butt and expensive. Now we have access to it it all but many still leave features unused. This talk will dive into the tools we have available, why they are important, and why a system first approach is more pivotal than ever.

Author: Bradford Folta

Session 3

Each summer the North Attleborough Electric Department (NAED) conducts electronic tabular inspections on approximately 11,500 residential meter locations. The purpose of the inspection is to verify meter operation and gather information about the condition of the meter, meter socket, customer secondary, and service drop. This past summer, NAED integrated a field mapping component utilizing ArcGIS Online (AGOL) and GPS technology to collect an accurate location of each meter, in addition to, a new inspection workflow using Survey123. This presentation will discuss how each technology was implemented, the project workflow, results and lessons learned.

Author: Danielle Verrier

Session 4

Address point, parcels and street centerline data are fundamental to NG9-1-1 and local governments have been mandated to maintain and provide this data to regional PSAPs and up to the state level. Developing and maintaining a comprehensive address database can be challenging for small towns with few resources. In addition, this data is also used by some local governments for a variety of use cases including permitting, document management, assessing, planning, etc. AppGeo has worked with several communities to develop workflows and processes to comply with state and national standards while accommodating local use cases. This presentation will share some of the challenges faced and the lessons learned in this context.

Author: Priya Sankalia

Session 4

The PE, PLS, MD, DDM- all of these certified credentials lend credibility and authority to those who have achieved and attained them. According to the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI), there are over 5500 active GISPs around the world. GISP is probably the most recognized certification in the field of GIS. The GISCI Board recently made long-anticipated changes to the GISP certification process that were decided during the first meeting of 2015. These changes affect both current and future GISP certification holders and were made in order to increase the value, recognition and long term viability of the GISP certification and the GISCI organization. This presentation will provide information on the certification including requirements and the process to attain the certification. Come learn about the credential that is lending credibility and authority within the geospatial information professional field.

Author: Thad Dymkowski / GISCI

Neil MacGaffey joined MassGIS in 2000 and has been the Director since 2015. Before joining MassGIS, Neil held a variety of positions in government and the private sector. Neil is also active with the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) where he is on the Board of Directors and is a member of the Working Group for NSGIC’s Geo-Enabled Elections Project.

Session 5

Methods and Applications of Overdose Analysis within the North-East Region
Massachusetts, like the rest of the country, is suffering through an opioid epidemic with overdoses touching every community. GIS remains a key reactionary edge against the epidemic and the overdoses accompanying them. The methods, applications, and data for the overall analysis of overdoses have changed over time. While the baseline density/hotspots methods may complete the task of the most basic analysis; the overall problem cannot be properly understood. Utilizing different modalities of analysis and dissimilar data sets can lead to a wide variety of spatial-temporal questions being answered. These questions include but are not limited to, what the average time of day for an overdose is, when is the average date of overdose, along with the corresponding spatial correlation, etc. Bringing in dissimilar data sets may lead to unseen relations like the relation between prison releases and overdoses. Finally, dissimilar datasets have other applied applications, including cross/inter-department data standardization and review. The methods and applications were applied to multiple ongoing projects within the Worcester Division of Public Health. One of the projects includes the mobile Harm Reduction van with funding from the Massachusetts Opiate Abuse Prevention Collaborative. The goals of these projects are not only to understand the overdoses but to reduce opioid abuse, while providing residents with the treatment and care they need in the most effective manner.
---Please note no sensitive (PHI) data will be directly presented.

Author: Noah Berkowitz

Session 5

GIS software makes it easy to perform complex spatial analysis. Thanks to the wide adoption of Open Geospatial Consortium data specifications, this power can also be harnessed directly within most relational database systems, including SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite and PostgreSQL. In this presentation, we’ll explore several ways to unleash the power of spatial queries in a relational database via views and stored procedures.

Author: Michael Olkin

Session 6

The rapid emergence and proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones promises to have a profound impact on our lives. If current speculation is to be believed, within a few short years, the skies overhead will be swarming with delivery drones, traffic monitoring drones, and even people-moving drones. For those of us in the mapping industry, this eye-in-the-sky technology is also heralding a seminal shift in how we conduct our business. No longer constrained by the limited availability or expense of up-to-date geospatial datasets, our GIS projects stand to benefit from the on-demand data collection capabilities of this versatile new technology. In this presentation, we will explore several GIS-based workflows that take advantage of UAV-collected data for visualization and analysis. Beginning with the simple process of rendering geotagged drone-collected images in a map view and recreating the flight path of the aircraft as a 3D fly-through visualization, we will subsequently follow the steps for generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the target area using the principles of photogrammetric analysis. The resulting 3D point cloud is the raw material upon which countless geospatial procedures are based and as an illustration of the inherit potential of this data format, we will follow a series of workflows that utilize this data. After classifying and filtering the points to isolate those representing ground, we will create Digital Terrain Model (DTM) from which we will generate vector contour lines. We will calculate the volume of material in surface anomalies, such as those representing piles of extracted material, and we will compare the surface model to data collected during a previous timeframe for the purpose of detecting and measuring change. UAV hardware is rapidly improving even as the costs continue to drop. For those of us in the geospatial industry, this technology is quickly becoming a valuable and accessible addition to our geospatial toolbox.

Author: Patrick Cunningham

Session 6

The U.S. Census Bureau is the largest statistical agency in the United States and conducts more than 130 surveys and programs. While the 2020 Decennial Census is just one of the operations undertaken by the Census Bureau it is by far its largest. With the mission of counting every person living in the United States, GIS and spatial data are used extensively during Decennial Census operations. Geographers at the Census Bureau (1) oversee various partnership programs to update spatial data ahead of the Decennial count, (2) perform quality assessments of point address data, (3) utilize GIS to delineate collection geographies, and (4) make maps to support operational decision making in the field. Now more than ever the Bureau is leveraging geospatial technology to make Decennial operations more efficient and accurate. Whether it is the Geographic Update Partnership Software (GUPS), the Listing and Mapping Application (LiMA), or the Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM), GIS technology is being leveraged across the Bureau to “Count everyone, once and only once, in the right place”. In this session we will go over in greater detail how GIS is being used in the 2020 Decennial Census.

Author: Cynthia Gillham

Session 7

EcoDat 2.0 is a custom application built using AGOL and Survey 123 to collect critical natural resource data in Vermont to be used for project design and environmental permitting purposes. The application uses a hybrid ArcGIS Collector and Survey 123 process to facilitate data collection. The application runs on the Collector Classic app on smart devices, typically iPad or Samsung android tablets paired with Trimble R1 GPS for sub-meter accuracy. The application is used on a daily basis by VHB ecologists during the field season to delineate natural resource features including wetlands, streams, vernal pools, protected plants, invasive plants and many other features. This presentation will detail how the application was built, how if functions in the field and the advantages that this data collection method offers.

Author: Joshua Sky

Session 7

Major highway construction projects produce fundamental changes to response coverage from emergency responders, both during construction and after completion. Emergency management professionals need tools that can plan for future changes and prepare for new realities as major infrastructure projects unfold. Using Esri tools like Custom Street Map Premium, this project shows new applications for building and interpreting data for emergency planners, EMS personnel, and the public they serve.

Author: Tim Woodfield

This panel consists of  experienced GIS professionals willing to share their knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned with their peers.  The panel is intended to be a structured conversation with the NEURISA Day attendees, with prepared questions from a moderator and questions from the audience.  The idea is for the panelists, who have been "in the game" for a while, to share their experiences and lessons learned and give back to the GIS community by offering insights to those with less or different experience, including some "do as I say, not as I've done" advice.  This is an opportunity to share valuable bits of information that we would have appreciated getting, rather than have to struggle through whatever challenges we had to get where we are today.  We hope to get lots of audience participation!