ESRI Federal User Conference 2006

ESRI Federal User Conference Proceedings 2006

The 2006 ESRI Federal User Conference Proceedings is a compilation of professional abstracts and presentations delivered January 31–February 2, 2006, in Washington, D.C. ESRI users played a fundamental role in the conference by presenting information on a diverse collection of GIS applications.

Show/Hide all presentation abstracts

Collaboration between Federal, State, and Local Government

Pennsylvania Homeland Security/Public Safety Geospatial Portal Applications: Presenters: Stacey White and Jim Knudson, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Introduction: Pennsylvania received a competitive Information Technology Evaluation Program grant from DHS to develop a secure and interoperable geospatial data access repository and portal to support the homeland security and public safety missions of state agencies and first response communities. Purpose: To create Homeland Security/Public Safety geospatial portal applications for state agencies and data sharing with local governments and first responders. Method: Phase 1: Development of OGC compliant mapping web services to share geospatial data via the Internet. Phase 2: Develops a secure geospatial portal for information sharing, mapping and analysis. Phase 3: Develops lightweight, reusable web services components to standardize and facilitate faster development of future GIS and information sharing application initiatives. Results: HLS Common Operating View that leverages a $15M military investment. Conclusion: Capabilities will provide a single application framework to visualize all threats and emergency incidents, and will therefore play a critical role in the development of the Homeland Security Data Fusion/Intelligence Center.

Command and Control Centers

Joint WebCOP, a SOA Framework for Internet Based GIS: Presenters: James Taylor and Derek Sedlmyer, Concurrent Technologies Corporation
The popularity of Internet-based GIS Technologies has provided a mechanism for sharing and distributing GIS data and processing. Technologies such as ArcIMS, WMS, WFS and SLD provide the basis for distributing GIS processing to multiple locations using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Joint WebCOP is a framework for developing scalable GIS capabilities that distribute the querying, filtering and rendering of data to individual Provider machines. The Joint WebCOP framework can integrate data from other Map Servers, joining a vast network of servers that cascade their data from server to server using an open GIS format. This paper will discuss the concept of Distributed GIS using a Service Oriented Architecture. It will discuss not only the idea of distributing data but also distributing processing such as rendering, parsing and analysis and show how a Service Oriented Architecture can be used to easily integrate legacy GIS systems into these new Internet technologies.

Defense and Intelligence

IRRIS, A Logistics Tool: Presenters: Paul Allred, SDDCTEA, and Jonathan Pollack, GeoDecisions
Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command Transportation Engineering Agency (SDDCTEA) and GeoDecisions have developed IRRIS technology. IRRIS uses advanced information technology, GIS and location-based services to enable military users to be more proactive in coordinating and managing assets through an interactive mapping interface. IRRIS was developed using ArcIMS, ArcSDE and Oracle. The geographic (locational) nature of the logistics information facilitates the use of GIS mapping to visualize assets and to perform analysis (e.g., plume, buffer, route adherence, geofencing, automated alerts and notifications) and spatial queries. IRRIS has allowed SDDC (www.sddc.army.mil) to streamline military logistics, reducing the time and costs for military training and operations. IRRIS provides the military and Department of Defense (DoD) with greatly improved logistics situational awareness worldwide. It provides a dynamic, integrated tool for real-time tracking of DoD assets, especially effective for monitoring sensitive shipments.

Developing an Enterprise GIS

Information Systems Security Requirements for Federal GIS Initiatives: Presenter: Alan Butler, Penobscot Bay Media, LLC
As Geospatial Information Systems take a more prominent position in the Federal Enterprise Architecture, GIS systems must come into compliance with federal regulations and guidance mandates for Information Systems Security. A compliant, well-crafted capability establishes the minimum set of controls to be included in GIS-related information systems security programs, assigns agency responsibilities for security of GIS data and information, provides appropriate SDLC information systems security guidelines for government workers and contractors developing and maintaining GIS products and services, and links agency GIS information security programs and management control systems to the Federal Enterprise Architecture. We will also specify, in a 'methods to approach' manner, specific initiatives directed toward risk and data sensitivity analyses of GIS data and information and how this particular effort is critical to federal agency Systems Security Planning (SSP) efforts—an integral part of the Certification and Accreditation (C&A) process for all federal GIS information systems.

Environmental and Land Management

Forest Fuels Evaluation and Fuel Treatment Planning: Presenters: Dr. Keith Reynolds, Dr. Paul Hessburg, and Dr. Robert Keane, USDA Forest Service
Wildland fuels have been accumulating in many western U.S. forests for the past 70 to 100 years due to 20th century settlement and management activities, and changing climatic conditions. As demonstrated by recent wildland fires, these added fuels are fostering more intense wildfires that are more difficult to contain and control. Consequently, property and natural resources have been destroyed, costs of fire management have escalated, fire-dependent forest ecosystems have deteriorated, and risks to human life and property continue to escalate. We present a decision-support system for evaluating existing wildfire hazard conditions and prioritizing subwatersheds for restoration and remedial action. We evaluate hazard from wildland fire as a function of three primary topics: fire vulnerability, wildfire severity, and risk of ignition. Each primary topic has secondary topics under which data are evaluated. We demonstrate the use of the system with an example from the Rocky Mountain region in the State of Utah (Map Zone 16), which represents a planning area of about 4.8 million ha and encompasses 575 complete subwatersheds. We discuss considerations for extending the application to support strategic planning at national and regional scales, and tactical planning at local scales.
A Better Way to Support Wildland Fire Suppression: Presenter: John Varner, USDA Forest Service
There is a great need to have a workable ArcGIS mapping extension that utilizes a personal GeoDB to store and display the wildfire information within a single file. This is accomplished by using the Fire Incident Mapping Tools (FIMT) extension. FIMT is designed to work under an ArcView license of ArcGIS. However, it is a rich environment that fully supports the Incident Command System of incident attack. Within the toolbar, there are tools to manage all points, lines, polygons, topology, and history. The tools have now been put into production at many levels of government in the country. It has also been adopted by several Canadian provinces and is now being set up for adoption in Australia. The project was originally begun by the USDA Forest Service and was partnered by Alberta Fire Protection. It has been tested and adopted by many state and federal agencies.
Web Soil Survey: Presenters: Jim Fortner, Ken Harward, and Dennis Lytle, USDA-NRCS
Web Soil Survey (WSS) http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/ is an eGovernment application developed by the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service to provide producers, governmental agencies, consultants, and the general public with electronic access to National Cooperative Soil Survey data and related information. The information contained in the survey inventories has been of immense value in reducing the risk of environmental damage and economic loss and increasing the nation's productivity and quality of life. With approximately 2300 digital soil surveys now accessible via the internet, these benefits should increase. WSS allows customers to view or print soil and thematic maps and tabular soil data reports online for their geographic area of interest (AOI). Users are also able to download soil data for use in their local GIS application. An application programming interface (API) for both web map and feature services is under development.
Geoprocessing for Digital Soil Survey: Presenter: Caryl Radatz, USDA-NRCS
Soil scientists are using GIS to improve our national soils database. Models and scripts to streamline soil survey updates have been developed by USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service soil scientists using ArcGIS 9. ModelBuilder was used to build models for geodatabase and topology setup and for finding adjacent polygons with a common attribute referred to as common soil lines in the soil science community. Scripts were created to rename feature classes with a uniform naming convention. The models and scripts have improved efficiency and data quality and are utilized in soil survey offices across the country.
Predicting Post-Wildfire Watershed Runoff Using ArcGIS ModelBuilder: Presenter: Richard Easterbrook, National Park Service
The DOI's National Interagency Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams address post-wildfire effects on a landscape with the goal of stabilizing the fragile condition of the land to protect life, property, water quality and deteriorated ecosystems. Loss of vegetation from a wildfire exposes soil to erosion; runoff may increase and cause flooding, sediments may move downstream and damage houses or fill reservoirs, and put endangered species and community water supplies at risk. BAER Team Hydrologist requested a GIS tool that would automate the process of predicting post-wildfire watershed runoff. ArcGIS ModelBuilder was selected because it makes use of existing tools within ArcToolbox and can be modified with custom models and scripts. A custom set of tools has been created in ModelBuilder that predicts pre and post-wildfire watershed runoff for a selected rain event. These tools are easy to run within a custom dialog, and the results are easily repeatable.
Using GIS in the Virgin Islands National Park: Presenter: Christy Loomis, NPS
The Virgin Islands National Park, established in 1956, contains examples of most tropical Western Atlantic terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems; therefore, it was designated a Biosphere Reserve in 1976. Throughout the park's history, it has been a site for the collection of invaluable data. GIS is now used in most data collection projects, making it possible to return to sites with greater accuracy or to determine where to monitor based on the analysis of existing layers or using the program to provide random locations for statistical analysis. Using Historic maps dating to the 1800, historic plantation sites can be located and recorded. The graphical representation of data improves our ability to visualize, track and present data. With the benefit of years of experience combined with the use of modern technology, the Virgin Islands National Park will continue to be a pioneer in marine and terrestrial research.
Converting an ArcGIS Desktop Application to ArcGIS Server Web Application: Presenters: Huajun Zhang and John Aguinaldo, USGS/HARRIS
American Forests developed CITYgreen, an ArcGIS desktop application, to evaluate ecosystem services in urban areas. Harris Corporation, in cooperation with American Forests and the U.S. Geological Survey's Comprehensive Urban Ecosystems Studies (CUES) project, has web enabled portions of the CITYgreen software using ArcGIS Server. ArcToolbox tools were rewritten to run on the ArcGIS Server in order to accommodate the complex data processing model on the server. The American Forests application utilizes data from USGS's National Land Cover Dataset to estimate the economic benefit of urban tree cover from reduced storm water runoff as well as reduced levels of air and water pollution, the type and amount of air pollution removed by the trees, amount of water runoff and associated cost savings. The web-based application, which can be accessed at http://ergmap.er.usgs.gov/citygreen.html, allows users to generate reports with summary ecosystem service analyses for over 3,000 urban areas in the U.S.
ArcGIS Agriculture Land-Use Maps: The Mississippi Cropland Data Layer: Presenters: Dr. Fred Shore, Thomas Gregory, and Rick Mueller, Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce
Since 1999, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce and Mississippi State University have cooperated with the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the USDA to produce the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) for Mississippi. Ortho-rectified CDL products were released in Geotiff format annually using the NASS public domain software programs Peditor and RSP. Single and multiple year results mapped with ArcGIS display the frequency and extent of cropland use for the period. Examination of Mississippi ArcGIS cropland overlays following crop rotation recommendations revealed useful information. Annual and multi-year maps in ArcGIS have been used to identify land suitability for farming important crops and to determine locations of processing plants. Agricultural Departments in nine other states now use the CDL process to make more effective use of the June Agricultural Survey data and produce visual crop coverage maps.

Health and Human Services

TOXMAP: A GIS Information Portal to Environmental Health Resources: Presenters: Dr. Colette Hochstein and Marti Szczur, National Library of Medicine, and Darren Gemoets, Aquilent, Inc.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has an extensive collection of environmental health information, including bibliographic and factual data on hazardous chemical substances in its TOXNET databases. TOXNET also provides access to the EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data, which covers air, water, and land releases, as reported by industrial facilities around the United States. Built using ArcIMS, NLM has developed a web-based system, TOXMAP, in which users can dynamically create maps that show where TRI chemicals are released and directly link to the appropriate chemical data records in TOXNET. By extracting the associated regional geographic terms from the displayed map (e.g., rivers, towns, county, state), TOXMAP (http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/) also provides customized chemical and/or region-specific searches to NLM's bibliographic biomedical databases resources. This paper will focus on the design concepts, implementation strategy, challenges, and feedback from users. It will also address issues associated with data accuracy, the risk of data misinterpretation, and future directions.

Homeland Security and Emergency Management

Numerical Hurricane Model Outputs for GIS-Based Infrastructure Damage Estimation: Presenter: Brian Bush, Los Alamos National Laboratory/National Center for Atmospheric Research
The wind and precipitation fields forecast by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, combined with the output of storm surge models, can provide estimates of damage to infrastructures such as the electric power grid several days before a hurricane makes landfall. Having the hourly forecasts of grid-based meteorological fields imported into a GIS enables an analyst to compute the cumulative effects over time of wind and rain and, subsequently, to overlay these with storm surge, elevation, and infrastructure data in order to categorize the forecast exposure of facilities to extreme weather. Calibrated heuristic models are then applied within the GIS to compute expected damage from the forecasted exposure. We provide examples for hurricanes from the 2005 season in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico using the output of several publicly available NWP model forecasts; similar methods apply to other types of extreme weather such as ice storms.

International Development and Diplomacy

Global Spatial Data Infrastructure: Presenter: Dr. Alan Stevens, Federal Geographic Data Committee
Common standards and interoperable systems and techniques for digital geospatial data and information collection, archive, integration, and open sharing across international and intercontinental boundaries create business benefits and good governance. The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) took first form in 1995 with the small gathering of government organizations, industry, and academic luminaries in Bonn, Germany, to exchange ideas on how to evolve and promote the ideas of SDI on a regional and a global basis. The Eighth GSDI meeting was held in Cairo, Egypt, with over 600 attendees and over 60 nations represented. The association has over 25 organizational members and roughly as many individual members. The goal of the organization is to encourage and promote SDI awareness and capacity building globally. This is done primarily by working with partners to seek and distribute resources to assist fledgling SDI development primarily (but not exclusively) in emerging nations.