News Roundup – December 2020

December 4, 2020

Dani Pacey

How are retailers using GIS to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic? How is the Terry Fox Foundation using dashboards to bolster fundraising? What did the Region of Peel need to do in order to move their public consultation process online—and how did GIS technology help them do it? Learn more in the December News Roundup.

Feature Stories

Terry Fox Foundation gives a clear picture of fundraising events using GIS
Comprised of over 26,000 events taking place across Canada, the Terry Fox Foundation’s annual non-competitive cancer fundraiser needs significant data infrastructure to run smoothly. Learn how the Terry Fox Foundation uses ArcGIS Dashboards to present relevant fundraising information on a single screen.

Town of Oakville makes sweeping changes to loose-leaf collection with GIS
Every fall, the Town of Oakville collects loose leaves for approximately 450 km of residential roads. Learn how they used GIS applications to gain better visibility into pickup areas and reduce call volumes to the Town’s service line.

Region of Peel uses GIS for virtual public consultations during COVID-19
The Region of Peel’s public consultation process has had to move online in response to the pandemic. Learn more about how the Peel Data Centre team used ArcGIS StoryMaps and ArcGIS Survey123 to communicate with planners and the public and gather feedback from residents.

Why are common data models required for efficient SDI data sharing?
When data is being transferred between systems, both systems need to have a shared interpretation of that data. That’s where common data models come in. In this article, Gordon Plunkett discusses the different data models—and why they’re so important.

Modern Access to Canada Lands Mapping
Canada Lands parcel mapping is now available from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). To make this data more readily accessible to the broader GIS community, Esri Canada has released a new, public Canada Lands parcel mapping feature service. Check it out in our story.

New Training Courses—2020 Year End Recap
Finalizing your 2021 training plans? Read this blog post to find out more about Esri Canada’s online training model as well as the 14 new instructor-led courses we’ve launched in 2020.

Join our podcast and share your story
Esri Canada’s new podcast, Geographical Thinking, features inspiring GIS stories from throughout our user community. What’s your GIS story? Read the blog post to learn more about how you can get involved.

Maps selected for the 2021 Esri Canada Map Calendar
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Map Calendar Contest! Read this blog post to find out which maps made it into our 2021 Map Calendar, explore the winning maps and discover our December calendar giveaway on Instagram.

Esri Canada News

New Brunswick wins award for their innovative use of GIS
November 18, 2020

Remote sensing pioneer Dr. Bob Ryerson wins lifetime achievement award
November 18, 2020

Esri News

GIS Day 2020 Will Be Celebrated Virtually
November 16, 2020

Esri Announces Launch of ArcGIS Field Maps
November 9, 2020

Esri, UN and GEO Blue Planet Release Water Health Tool
November 4, 2020

Resources

ArcUser: Creating the Dashboard for the Pandemic
Learn the story of how Ensheng Dong created the iconic Johns Hopkins University dashboard visualization that tracks COVID-19, and where the project has gone since its creation.

Read the latest issue of ArcUser online.

ArcNews: ArcGIS Field Maps: Three Field Apps in One
A single app now brings together the functionality of ArcGIS Collector, ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Tracker—ArcGIS Field Maps. Now, mobile personnel can get a better experience of the full range of field operations capabilities and benefit even more from map-centric workflows, whether online or offline.

Read the latest issue of ArcNews online.

WhereNext: A Small Business Trend Big Business Can’t Afford to Overlook
According to a new study, roughly one in five businesses that were active in the United States in January 2020 have ceased all transactions. These businesses are all located somewhere, meaning that it’s possible to map them and detect geographic patterns in closures. What insights can these geographic patterns offer to larger businesses?

Esri & The Science of Where Podcast: Why Exploration Could Be the Key to Saving our Planet
Dr. Kathy Sullivan talks about her experiences as a space and maritime explorer and how exploration improves the science of sustainability. Hear Esri chief scientist Dawn Wright lead this discussion with a voyager who puts her expeditions in the context of civilization.

Video: GIS and Retail in the New Normal
Esri's retail industry lead Gary Sankary joins leaders from nationally recognized brands for a discussion about lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and how location intelligence will be a critical capability for intelligently adjusting to the new normal. Speakers include Jason Jackson, Chief Security Officer at Bass Pro Shops; Steve Sapardanis, Sales Analytics Manager at Carhartt; and Ralph Torres, Data and Geography Systems Manager at Ulta Beauty.