The GIS Certification Institute is hosting a Map Contest. Submissions are open through the end of March 2020. First prize is $250. For more info click here.
2020 Map Contest at GISCI
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Category Archives: News
2020 ESRI UC and Coronavirus
A colleague sent me a picture taken at the ESRI Developer Summit going on right now in Palm Springs, and I can tell you very few people are there. Kind of looks like a ghost town. Further, according to the DevSummit Twitter feed, ESRI decided to make it a virtual event and not a live in-person conference.
ESRI sent out an email today about the 2020 ESRI Conference that will be in San Diego in mid July. This was at the bottom of the email:
Health and Safety at Esri Events: Coronavirus Response
In response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), we will be taking precautions at our events to protect the health and safety of all attendees. Please see the Esri User Conference FAQ for more information about current guidelines, event details, and assistance.
The conference is still on, but might change depending on the circumstances.
NOAA Ending Raster Nautical Charts
Going to do a little boating soon? You better download the raster nautical charts (RNC) that you need since they are going away soon, as well as paper charts. RNC’s will be replaced with ENC’s, or electronic nautical charts, which are just vector files used in navigation systems. Check out the charts and download!
ESRI Small Government ELA Changes
Just received an email from ESRI about changes to their Small Government Program (or what I call the Small Government Enterprise License Agreement). They state they have added value with the addition of the following products: Continue reading
2020 Geothermal Design Challenge for Students
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), in conjunction with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is hosting the 2020 Geothermal Design Challenge: GIS Mapping Student Competition. The design challenge focuses on a non-technical barrier to geothermal development to foster understanding and share the benefits of geothermal energy technologies. Student teams of two or three will use geographic information system (GIS) mapping to create a compelling infographic/poster or interactive map to discover potential opportunities from this renewable energy source.
High school (grades 9-12) and university (both undergraduate and graduate) students (full or part-time) enrolled at an accredited academic institution at the time of submission are eligible to participate. Only U.S. citizens are eligible to participate in the 2020 Geothermal Design Challenge. The deadline to submit draft entries for compliance review is March 30, 2020. For more info and to register, click below!
Any questions? Contact:
Erin Murphy
Outreach Director
Geothermal Design Challenge™
(651) 587-9094
2020 SCAG Student Showcase
As part of the 2020 SCAG Student Showcase, ESRI and SCAG will be leading a free story map webinar training this Friday, March 6th at 10am. This training is available for students interested in competing or learning more about story maps. The competition is open to currently enrolled students at universities/colleges within the SCAG region, as well as those alumni that graduated from college within the last 12 months. For more information about the competition please see the PDF.
To RSVP to the webinar training, please visit the following link: http://scag.wufoo.com/forms/2020-student-showcase-webinar
Other important dates for the Student Showcase include:
- March 16: Abstracts due at 10:00am
o Submission link: http://scag.wufoo.com/forms/2020-student-showcase-submissions
- March 30: Final projects due at 10:00am
o Submission link: http://scag.wufoo.com/forms/2020-student-showcase-submissions
Examples of Storymaps from past participants:
- Earthquake Preparedness
- Evaluating Tax Increment Financing Tools
- The Environmental Injustice that Homeless Face
- Bicycling in Southern California
Once again we are very excited for this opportunity to work with students throughout the SCAG region. Please pass this information along to your students in the best way you see fit. Feel free to reach out to Lyle Janicek at janicek@scag.ca.gov or (213) 236-1966 with any questions you may have.
The MTA vs A DIY Cartographer
Interesting article about a do-it-yourself cartographer that got so frustrated with the official New York subway map that he designed and sold his own. But the MTA was not too happy about that and came after him. Check it out!
Flooding Analysis Help
Full disclosure, my son works for this company! They are developing a new product for hydrologists that might need extra compute power for their computations and analysis. If you work in government, anywhere in the US, and work on contracts with engineering firms that specialize in hydrology projects, they would really like to talk with you. Read on below and thanks! -mike
We are looking to talk with people who work in city or county level government who are involved with issuing the calls/contracts to carry out stormwater risk assessment and analysis. We are working closely with civil engineering firms to carry out flooding simulations due to weather conditions or dam breaches. Some of the issued contracts come under the names of:
- Dam safety studies
- Flood/inundation mapping/remapping
- Whole watershed mapping study
- City master plans
I would love to talk to people who are involved in these studies.
Kind regards,
Ivan Ravlich
CEO, Hypernet Labs, Inc.
ivan@hypernetlabs.io
https://hypernetwork.io
Webinar: CGIA and Promoting GIS in California
The California Geographic Information Association (CGIA) kicks off 2020 with a brown bag speaker series that explores the role GIS plays in various types of organizations, how it is helping to achieve success, and why it should be a part of any strategic plan.
Join CGIA in this first webinar for a general member meeting to learn more about what CGIA is doing to promote GIS in California. We will also hear from Tamar Foster, Deputy Executive Director of the Little Hoover Commission about the findings of their recent report, “Mapping a Strategy for GIS.”
The webinar will be held Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm, PST. Click here for more info and to RSVP.
US Interagency Elevation Inventory
Dear colleagues,
The USGS National Geospatial Program is again updating the US Interagency Elevation Inventory. We invite you to provide us information so that your data is discoverable by others. Your data need not be in the public domain, and the entry will provide a link to inquire about the data, or to a download site if available. This is not a repository for data; it is a way to make data findable. If you have high quality lidar data you wish to donate to USGS data repositories, we can have the conversation at any time.
https://www.coast.noaa.gov/inventory/
If you wish to make your data discoverable through the inventory, we will need the following:
- Shapefile footprint with metadata
- Vendor tasking, if available
- Status (in work, available, etc.)
- Restrictions (if it is public domain)
- QA or acceptance reports (so we can calculate quality level)
- Contact information (for internal purposes only; no PII will be publicly posted)
- url for download or public inquiry (if available)
Due dates are as follows:
- Arizona (to Drew by COB 3/25/2019)
- Nevada (to Carol by COB 3/11/2019)
- Hawaii (to Drew or Carol by COB 3/25/2019)
- Pacific Basin Islands (to Drew by COB 3/25/2019
- California (to Drew or Carol by COB 3/25/2019)
If you have an awareness of data that you did not procure, we are happy to chase down the source if you can provide a pointer to a contact person. We try to duplicate what currently shows in both NOAA’s digital coast and Opentopography.org. If you have updates to an existing entry on the inventory, please let us know by the due dates above.
Any questions, please call either one of us, and feel free to pass this request along to others inside or outside of your organization so that our inventory can be as up-to-date as possible.
Sincerely,
Carol and Drew
Drew Decker
National Map Liaison
U.S. Geological Survey
4165 Spruance Road
San Diego, CA 92101
619-225-6430
619-417-2879 cell
ddecker@usgs.go
Carol Ostergren
US Geological Survey National Geospatial Program
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831.460.7539 (office)
SoCalGIS.org 