COVER STORIES 1 Esri • Summer 2010 Esri International User Conference Issue Vol. 32 No. 2 Geospatial Responses to Disasters: The Role of Cyberspace By Melinda Laituri, Warner College of Natural Resources The geospatial community can meet the challenge of disaster management. The Haitian earthquake, the Indonesian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the World Trade Center, Chernobyl, California wildfires, Danube flooding, Three Mile Island—multiple, large-scale disastrous events continually occur, and the magnitude and frequency of disasters appear to be increasing. Disasters represent the intersection of human communities with natural events where the built environment may actually exacerbate the outcomes of these events as in the case of Hurricane Katrina. Other disasters are the result of human activities and conflict that impact local communities with long-term and far-reaching outcomes as in the case of Chernobyl and the World Trade Center tragedy. Extreme events impact both the industrialized and developing worlds. However, the results of disasters are felt disproportionately in continued on page 5 Online Content, Applications, and Sharing Are a Seamless Part of the User Experience ArcGIS Is Now Online Quick and easy access to geographic content, including maps, apps, and developer tools, is critical to any GIS project and can save valuable time and money. ArcGIS online capabilities provide a framework for delivering cloud-based GIS that supports collaboration between different groups or communities, regardless of the client application that is being used. continued on page 11 GIS in a Changing World By Jack Dangermond The cloud. Crowdsourcing. Neogeography. Collaboration. The geospatial industry, the IT environment, and the world around us are all changing rapidly. We often talk about how GIS is changing the world. But today I want to spend some time talking about how the world is changing GIS. GIS has a long history of successfully adapting to new technologies, applications, customer types, and business models. From mainframes to minicomputers, UNIX workstations to PCs, desktops to the enterprise, each round of technical innovation has led to improvements for GIS. Today, GIS continues to evolve in response to infrastructure changes. The distributed computing environment enabled by the Web introduces a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. Merging with and adapting to the latest advances are making GIS easier to use, more continued on page 4 Users can add their own data on top of detailed, ready-to-use global basemaps. Ensuring Future Access to Digital Geospatial Data Library of Congress Takes Leadership GIS gives us the dramatic ability to create maps that resonate in our imaginations and enable us to tell compelling stories of change over time. The increase in use of GIS has brought digital geospatial data into the lives of millions of people while exponentially increasing the quantity of data under management. While digital geospatial data is increasingly accessible, it is also fragile and at risk of loss unless efforts are made to preserve it and keep it accessible over the long term. How will we ensure that the digital records of our contemporary landscape will remain accessible in the future? The United States Library of Congress is addressing this issue. continued on page 8 Nike Learns Who Its Customers Are Thinking Strategically with GIS Located in the city of Beaverton, near Portland, Oregon, Nike is the world’s most recognized brand for athletic footwear and apparel. The company has long used GIS to visualize its operations from various perspectives. Using maps makes sharing information about important business decisions more efficient and effective. Because location plays such an important role in business decisions, such as manufacturing, planning, distribution, and site selection, GIS is an ideal system for visualizing and analyzing this location-based information for Nike. (Read the article on page 21.) Nike uses GIS for the entire retail process, from planning and building to buying and shipping products (courtesy: NIKE). Improving User Feedback, Leveraging Community Knowledge Esri Launches “Ideas Portal” Esri launched the ArcGIS Ideas Web site as a forum for users to suggest new products and improvements, vote for their favorites, and discuss ideas submitted by others. Users can submit ideas by product, service, or specific industry, including everything from small tweaks to existing ArcGIS features to groundbreaking new ideas. continued on page 12 European Union Satellite Centre Moves to Enterprise GIS The European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC) recently signed a multiyear enterprise license agreement (ELA) with Esri España, Esri’s distributor in Spain—headquartered in Madrid—giving the agency greater access to the latest GIS technology, training, and consulting services. EUSC operates under the auspices of the European Union (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The center provides imagery analysis and geospatial intelligence products and services to the EU. continued on page 2 At the ArcGIS Ideas Web site, users can post, comment, and vote on product improvements recommended by other users.