News Roundup – July 2021

July 9, 2021

Dani Pacey

How are organizations using GIS technology to manage wildfires and other natural disasters in Canada and beyond? How are growing Canadian cities benefiting from the Community Maps program? How is drone technology helping large cities with trash management? Learn more in the June News Roundup.

Feature Stories

App of the Month: Solutions Reporter
Learn how simple geospatial apps are helping one municipality manage and communicate the status of issues raised by their residents. Using surveys and mapping tools, the Town of Truro, Nova Scotia is increasing its transparency and better allocating staff time.

Want your map in the 2022 Map Calendar? Learn from these past winners
Esri Canada’s 2022 Map Calendar Contest is now open! Entries are due on July 16. Are you wondering what criteria we look for when going through our submissions? Start with this blog post.

July’s Map of the Month: KDCFS Bjerkness/Kaslo/Shutty Landscape Level Wildfire Plan 2019
In 2020, the Kaslo and District Community Forest Society in southeastern British Columbia completed a Landscape-Level Wildfire Plan within its tenure area. The planning was undertaken in the wake of some of the largest and fiercest wildfires in recent BC history and was guided by the Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis initiative. They added field-captured data to a slope/aspect matrix map to be used as a reference tool for an ongoing fuel reduction project as well as for fire suppression. This month’s Hub gathers other apps and resources related to wildfire management and situational awareness in disasters, both in BC and beyond.

Geographical Thinking Podcast: Season 1 | Episode 14: Making Geography Fun at Home for Children
Spatial literacy doesn’t need to be hard and complex as it sounds. Two parents made it into a fun family activity with their two boys, mapping out their Disney World trip before COVID-19. Guan talked to Colleen Raymond and Mike Gregotski, both longtime GIS professionals, about how they’re engaging their small children in geography projects and impressing their sons’ friends! Looking for ideas to engage your little ones at home? This episode is for you.

Mapping the local geospatial data collaboration landscape
How do jurisdictions that border on one another coordinate work and communicate during emergencies? The Geospatial Data Collaboration Initiative, a research partnership between Esri Canada and Open North, will explore the ways that municipalities are handling this question.

A family doctor’s GIS story
Ajantha Jayabarathan, a Nova Scotian family physician who’s also known as Dr. AJ, discovered GIS in 2011 at a medical conference in Philadelphia. Since then, she’s been an advocate for the use of GIS in helping rural patients get the medical care they need in light of the upcoming wave of retirements among doctors in Atlantic Canada.

4 reasons to use the revamped Esri Canada Store
The new Esri Canada Store has a refreshed look and feel. Now, you’ll be able to navigate the Store more easily and get what you need faster. Check out these four reasons to use the new Esri Canada Store the next time you need Esri technology.

How to master the administration of ArcGIS Enterprise
Are you moving from an ArcGIS Server environment to ArcGIS Enterprise? There are some key features of Enterprise that you should know about that will help make your life easier. In this blog post, Carole Arseneau takes you through those items and offers some resources that will help you master their use.

Submit your app for our App of the Month
We’re looking for outstanding, publicly accessible ArcGIS-based apps to be featured in the Esri Canada Blog as our App of the Month. Could your app be it?

Esri Canada News

Esri Canada Offers Data Solution for Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
June 16, 2021

Esri News

Esri Enters Memorandum of Understanding with Ibn Zohr University
Jun 28, 2021

Esri Releases New 2020 Global Land Cover Map
June 24, 2021

Esri’s ArcGIS Platform Chosen for Red Bull X-Alps Competition Live Tracking App by zooom Productions
June 17, 2021

Esri’s Dr. Este Geraghty Receives HIMSS21 Most Influential Women in Health IT Award from HIMSS
June 14, 2021

Esri Extends Partnership with MCH Strategic Data
June 3, 2021

Resources

ArcUser: Using Where to Answer Why and How
Roxana Ayala was introduced to GIS technology while working on a high school research project in 2013. GIS helped Ayala and her fellow students see their lived experience in a new light. This powerful technology helped her better understand the historically underserved neighborhood of Watts in the City of Los Angeles where she grew up, and Boyle Heights, another area of the city, where she went to school. Her connection to GIS has been guiding Ayala’s career ever since.

Read the latest issue of ArcUser online.

ArcNews: Improving Trash Monitoring with Drone Imagery, Artificial Intelligence, Mapping
One of California’s premier aquatic and ecosystem science institutes, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), worked with partners in the state to develop an automated workflow for validating current trash monitoring methods used by California cities and municipalities. The team chose Site Scan for ArcGIS to help streamline drone flights, giving them greater reach, the ability to go out more frequently and allowing team members to do important calculations on the fly.

Read the latest issue of ArcNews online.

WhereNext: Tracking, Mapping and Staying on Top of Public Policy Issues
Corporations are being pulled into conversations about public issues, and the companies best positioned to navigate the discussion are those that keep an eye on emerging policy shifts.

Esri & The Science of Where Podcast: Emerging Technologies: A Conversation with Fast Company Editor Christopher Zara
Christopher Zara, senior staff news editor for Fast Company, discusses the lasting impact of accelerated digital transformation on business and society in the post-pandemic recovery. Esri CMO Marianna Kantor investigates emerging technologies and top trends for 2021.

Video: Community Maps Member Spotlight – Steinbach, MB
Meet Mitchell Eastley, GIS Developer/Technician at Steinbach, Manitoba and a Community Maps contributor. Mitchell shares how this growing city is benefiting from the accurate, up-to-date basemaps that power GIS apps such as the City of Steinbach Road Restriction Portal, Public Portal, and the Capital Projects Storymap.