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| Wildfire Maps Support FEMA Relief Mission
| At least 1,500 homes were destroyed in the 2007 California wildfires, and more than 500,000 acres of land burned from Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border. Maps of damaged structures, flood plains, and soil burn severity are among those USACE prepared to help FEMA aid those displaced by the catastrophe. | | | Katrina Spurs GIS-Based Preparedness for LSU
| | As students begin a new semester at Louisiana State Univerity, the school plots a new course to keep the college community safe during hurricanes, with the assistance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. | | | GIS Works to Avoid Another Katrina
| | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uses Bentley Systems ProjectWise to evaluate hurricane protection and flood damage reduction systems in New Orleans. | | | Automated Systems for Disaster Response: Three Case Studies
| | Utilities must be constantly prepared to respond quickly when a storm or other disastrous event causes widespread power outages. | | | Using Mobile Mapping to Manage Wildfires
| | The application of geospatial technologies to wildfire management is not a new phenomenon. As a 30-year veteran of public service land management, I've taken an active role in using the latest mobile GIS technology during and after firestorms. Most recently, I've put to use an important technological development that's one the best tools for fire management since the shovel: the handheld computer. | | | Hurricane Debris Modeling
| | On August 25, 2005, with barely two days' notice, Hurricane Katrina made its first assault on the United States, hitting South Florida as a Category One hurricane. Less than four days later, with 140 mile-per-hour (230 kilometer-per-hour) sustained winds, torrential rains, and a storm surge of 15 to 30 feet (5 to 9 meters), Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast as a strong Category Four hurricane. | | | Responding to the Perfect Storm
| | When it comes to perfect storms, Hurricane Katrina was an impeccable worst-case scenario. The strength, size, and track of the storm and the location of the affected areas made this natural disaster one of the most challenging with which to contend from an emergency management and response perspective. | | | Helping the Gulf Coast
| | As always, the geospatial community has stepped up to support a region in need. Specifically, my hat goes off to the folks in URISA's GISCorps. | |  MORE ARTICLES
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| NOAA Names First Woman to Direct National Geodetic Survey
| | The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has picked Juliana P. Blackwell as director of the Office of National Geodetic Survey, making her the first woman to oversee the nation's spatial reference system. | | | Colorado County Picks Sidwell's ArcGIS-Based Parcel Builder
| | Pueblo County, Colo. has chosen Sidwell Co.'s Parcel Builder software to enhance and streamline the county's workflow process. | | | VUEWorks, InfraMetrix Form Partnership
| | VUEWorks, a developer of GIS-integrated work order and asset management solutions, and InfraMetrix, a provider of infrastructure diagnostic services, have formed a technology partnership intended to help local governments prioritize infrastructure maintenance and capital investments. | | | The City of Unalaska Selects GTG to Develop GIS Strategic Implementation Plan
| | After a competitive bid process, the City of Unalaska, Alaska, selected Geographic Technologies Group, Inc. (GTG), to develop a GIS needs assessment and strategic implementation plan. | | | GeoDecisions Wins $20 Million IRRIS Contract
| | GeoDecisions was recently awarded a contract from the United States Transportation Command for IRRIS sustainment, enhancements, and new capabilities. | | | City of Ashville, NC, Wins IEDC Award with Avencia's DecisionTree Software
| | The City of Asheville, North Carolina, won the Excellence in Economic Development award in the New Media Initiative category from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) for its mapAsheville Priority Places, an interactive economic development mapping tool created to strengthen investment within the region. The City of Asheville's Office of Economic Development selected Avencia Incorporated to design Priority Places to help business owners, citizens, or government agencies weigh multiple geographic factors and generate Web-based heat maps that highlight optimal locations for their activities. | | | Cadcorp to Provide GIS to Consortium of Irish Local Authorities
| | Digital mapping and GIS software developer Cadcorp has been awarded a contract to develop and provide a Web-based GIS for use by the local authorities that constitute the East Border Region in Ireland. | | | UK Fire and Rescue Services Select Cadcorp SIS
| | Digital mapping and GIS software developer Cadcorp has announced that with the recent signing of contracts with three more of the UK's fire and rescue services, 37 of the 54 services in England and Wales have now selected Cadcorp SIS — Spatial Information System, either on a corporate basis or as part of their GIS strategy. | | | Minnesota City Implements Azteca's Cityworks
| | The City of Coon Rapids, Minnesota has implemented Azteca Systems Inc.'s GIS-centric management products, realizing benefits throughout the city's government, according to the company. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Cognitive Radio Design for a Military Platform
| | Current radio frequency assignments — which are static, inflexible, and inefficient — have a detrimental effect on military communications. A potential solution, the cognitive radio, uses an onboard digital map system to select transmission frequencies and potentially shape the RF beam. | | | Sharing Spatial Data Across Borders
| | Open standards for sharing geospatial data are bringing the United States and Canada closer together in the task of securing each country's borders. | | | Get Ready, Get Set, Race!
| | Preplanning information about terrain is as important as real-time navigation for achieving peak performance in autonomous driving. Both preplanning and navigation — and key technologies to support them — helped the Carnegie Mellon Red Team successfully guide the robot vehicles Sandstorm and H1ghlander through the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge course. | | | Simplifying Situational Awareness
| | In facing the daunting charters of their organizations, it's safe to say that homeland security authorities, maritime officers, intelligence analysts, and military commanders can never have enough information. | | | Highway Patrol Implements Vehicle-Tagging Technology
| | The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) has signed an agreement with StarChase LLC to become the second-beta test site for StarChase's patented vehicle-tagging and tracking-pursuit management system. | | | Simplifying Situational Awareness
| | In facing the daunting charters of their organizations, it's safe to say that homeland security authorities, maritime officers, intelligence analysts, and military commanders can never have enough information. | | | GEOINT Speakers Announced
| | The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) today announced two high-ranking intelligence community professionals and two prominent military leaders have committed to speak at the GEOINT 2006 Symposium, to be held at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, from November 13-16. | |
| USGIF Promotes Geospatial Intelligence Certificate Program
| | The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has recently released a proposed set of curriculum guidelines and accreditation standards for the development of a nationwide geospatial intelligence tradecraft. | | | Secure Tracking for Critical Applications
| | From the safety of workers to the protection of assets and the transportation of hazardous materials, GPS tracking has become an increasingly important safeguard against security threats. But users must be aware of the technology's vulnerabilities and of the tools needed to ensure protection. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Prioritizing Geologic Mapping with MCDA
| | When the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources sought a more methodical and transparent decision-making process to prioritize geologic mapping activities, it turned to multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The approach provides methodology and techniques for weighting and scoring multiple criteria to reach a conclusion in complex decision problems. | | | Financing SDIs: Lessons Learned from the PAMAP Experience
| | The Pennsylvania Map, a designated pilot of the United States' National Map, provides an example to others exploring funding for spatial data infrastructures. | | | Enhancing the Value of India's Demographic Data
| | The question posed by a commercial provider of integrated geospatial solutions for business applications was this: Will the calculated combination of georeferenced census datasets with satellite-gathered raster data increase the decision-making value of the census data? The answer was a resounding "yes," facilitating the generation of micro-level information from macro-level population data. | | | Determining Orthographic Accuracy
| | In 2002, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) partnered with Minnesota state agencies to develop an updated set of statewide digital orthophoto quadrangles (DOQs). Private companies and government agencies throughout the state had been using U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) DOQs from the early 1990s to create land-cover inventories, and demand for a more current dataset was high. | | | Private Sector Makes Census Bureau's TIGER Roar
| | An effort to update and improve the spatial accuracy of the U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER files with help from the private sector is making this resource an even more powerful force with which to be reckoned. | | | TLC's LIDAR Landbase
| | To resolve issues related to landbase inconsistencies, a consortium of stakeholders in the Tallahassee/Leon County GIS turned to LIDAR to update their topographic database, validating results and accuracies via GPS and conventional surveying. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Food Access and Community Health
| | When compared with other population groups in the United States, African-Americans are at the greatest risk for cancer. This study used GIS to map the accessibility of various food types in two small towns — the first step in investigating whether there is a causative relationship to the risk of cancer. Results from this study will be used to identify predominantly African-American communities in Alabama at increased risk linked to a lack of healthy food options. | | | GIS on the Front Lines in Fighting Disease
| | Epidemiology — tracking the spread of disease, in order to better control and prevent it — benefits greatly from the use of mapping tools. Public health departments worldwide are employing GIS, demographic information, and remote sensing data in their battles with bird flu, malaria, and cancer. | | | Keeping Watch Over the Cascades
| | The Cascade Range, which traverses Washington, Oregon, and California, comprises several links in the long chain of volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean — the "Ring of Fire." These volatile peaks formed where the boundaries of the Pacific plate grind against other tectonic plates, causing earthquakes and releasing magma from far below the surface | | | Tracking Cattle in the Heartland
| | To limit the risk of introducing such highly communicable diseases as mad cow and tuberculosis into the U.S. food supply, the state of Kansas has built a spatio-temporal tracking system that traces the movements of cattle as they pass through that state's highly traveled beef-industry crossroads. | | | Monitoring Mount St. Helens
| | Since September 2004, a new lava dome inside North America's most active volcano has grown as high as a 35-story building and as broad as 29 football fields; and scientists are using a cadre of geospatial technologies to monitor the volcano's deformation. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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| Curbing Water Pollution with Mobile GIS
| | In 1972, the United States declared war on water pollution with the passage of the Clean Water Act. As the primary water/wastewater utility for a city flanked by water on three sides, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) played an aggressive role in the battle to eradicate industrial contaminants that were fouling both San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. And in 2005, SFPUC deployed mobile GIS to take the water pollution fight directly to the public. | | | MORE ARTICLES
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