From the President’s Cup to Interactive Recreation Map with ArcGIS Online

In a technical session entitled “ArcGIS Online and Social Media,” two interesting speakers spoke about the use of ArcGIS Online and the use of social media to facilitate operations during an international golf tournament in a community and create an interactive map of a popular recreational region. Brandon Brown, GIS administrator, from City of Dublin, Ohio, spoke at the Esri User Conference 2014 on the topic, “Presidential GIS – ArcGIS Online’s Role in the 2013 President’s Cup.”

Holding an international golf event in Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin, Ohio was a big event for the City of Dublin. “We had been working with various groups and we provided mapping, emergency stuff, and this event involved many more agencies, 12 different agencies to get a common operational picture,” said Brown.

They began to develop a pattern using ArcGIS Online, complete with a construction update page. Many staff members are project inspectors who have iPhones in the field, so they could alert the public to updates.  There was a lot of mobile field collection, and all signs were mapped with locations for them to be set up.

Using ArcGIS Desktop, the GIS team could set up templates and help the customer set up layers.

With ArcGIS Server, they could have a map service, create a visual display of the data, and provide labels and colors. ArcGIS Server is also a Feature Service that provides security, editable templates as well as miscellaneous data and editable data.

With ArcGIS Online they could create a Web Map and put it all together in a final display with pop-ups and edits. The schema allowed the team to add new fields and editor tracking. They could also add large attachments of 250 MB to 2.5 GB for example.

Services could be differentiated between in ArcGIS Online, such as: “view” and “edit” layers and services – which help with aesthetics and security.

Users could build a damage assessment app in 3 hours.

Click to access 444_413.pdf

Another example of the use of ArcGIS Online, was in the creation of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Interactive Recreation Map. Leo Chan, USDA Forest Service GIS specialist with USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region, spoke about how they created the map to protect the gorge, which is 85 miles long. It has over 50 waterfalls and receives over 2 million visits per year.

The Forest Service GIS Team created the Columbia Gorge Interagency Recreation Strategy Team which was tasked with managing recreation and development. They relied on paper maps to check existing status, and there were multiple agencies and governments involved.

“The need for new tools led to our pilot project,” said Chan, “so we created a web map in ArcGIS Online, also using Web Services and ArcGIS Server so we could zoom in on data that is easy for multiple agencies to access. This tells you about occupancy.”

Their approach was designed to set up collaboration between partners and come up with a tool for long term planning for recreation development. It also was to address the need for “one-stop” shopping for all things about the River Gorge National Scenic Area. Their Excel spreadsheet was sent out to multiple agencies.

Future plans were to show trails people can use. “This information tells you basic stuff about the trail, it has no water, no bathroom,” said Chan. “the app is not designed to replace paper maps. When your phone dies or you lose coverage, you definitely need a paper map.”

Chan said in future it would be great to have self-service editing capabilities, crowdsourcing and map services for alerts and services. http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc14/papers/1179_489.pdf

Tags: crowdsourcing, data, ESRI, geospatial, GIS, Google Maps, location, mapping, maps, mobile, social media

Categories: climate change, cloud, crowd source, Esri, Esri UC 2014, field GIS, geocoding, iPhone, mobile

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