According to Jay Famiglietti, the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, California has about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs. Are you ready to ration? What is your government agency you work for going to do? Imagine what this will do to California’s economy … and the way we will live here, or leave for greener pastures. Check out the LA Times Op-Ed piece.
See also USGS California Drought.
Check out this story about how a previously unknown map collection of a hospital dietician ended up doubling the size of the Los Angeles Public Library’s map archives in one single day!
ESRI has updated ArcGIS Online for March. One of the big ones is what they call Smart Mapping which include new ways to symbolize data, “smart” defaults, and data-driven workflows. Check it out.
After Google’s announcement that they were ending support of Google Maps Engine and their implied retirement of Google Earth Enterprise, as well as Google Earth Pro which is now free, ESRI has teamed up with Google to offer GME and GEE customers no-cost ESRI replacement software for a year (after that they pay maintenance). Also included is no-cost training and attending the annual User Conference at no cost.
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New to GIS? New to QGIS open source software? Check out this free self paced course from Del Mar College introducing you to GIS and QGIS software. The course opens today.
Topics covered in this course include GIS, cartography, remote sensing, and spatial analysis through a series of lectures and hands-on computer-based exercises. This course is designed to be used as a stand-alone course to complement other disciplines or as an entry level course into a geospatial program. Course content is based upon the United States Department of Labor’s Geospatial Technology Competency Model for entry level geospatial occupations, including Geospatial or GIS Technicians and Technologists.
If you consider yourself knowledgeable in GIS, but want to know more about QGIS open source software, visit the QGIS website and follow the training manual.
New to ArcGIS Pro? Take advantage of ESRI’s free online training to learn the key capabilities of the software:
ArcGIS Pro interface
Editing
Analysis
Sharing projects
ArcGIS Pro licenses come with your ArcGIS Desktop licenses. You will also need an ArcGIS Online Organizational account.
If you are looking for a school with the best overall Graduate Geography Program for a spatial career, check out this posting on Geographical Perspectives.
If you use ArcGIS Online to publish maps and apps, ESRI’s December update brought some new options for customizing and embedding maps.
Future cities will be much smarter. Everything will be measured in real time and in fine detail through the deployment of sophisticated arrays of sensors. GIS will play a major part in integrating mountains of real-time data so it can be understood and acted on. It will improve applications that range from managing environmental quality and the built environment to land-use and transportation planning. The result will be better decisions, more efficiency, and improved communication.
One of Jack Dangermond’s thoughts about the Future of the City.
SoCalGIS.org 