{"id":78462,"date":"2019-02-01T14:01:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&p=78462"},"modified":"2023-10-04T09:26:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T16:26:33","slug":"restoring-a-watershed-one-bag-of-litter-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/restoring-a-watershed-one-bag-of-litter-at-a-time","title":{"rendered":"Restoring a Watershed, One Bag of Litter at a Time"},"author":1312,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10402,10652,14832],"tags":[1451,18442,157952,1441,1461],"arcnews_issues":[47032],"class_list":["post-78462","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arcgis-desktop","category-survey123-for-arcgis","category-water-resources","tag-citizen-engagement","tag-data-collection","tag-environment","tag-resilience","tag-sustainability","arcnews_issues-fall-2017","arcnews_sections-your-work"],"acf":{"short_description":"Throughout the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, \u201cSave the Bay\u201d bumper stickers and signs adorn cars and store windows.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Prince George\u2019s County Uses Survey123 for ArcGIS to Meet Waste Reduction Targets<\/h2>\r\nThroughout the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, \u201cSave the Bay\u201d bumper stickers and signs adorn cars and store windows. They refer to the Chesapeake Bay\u2014the largest estuary in the country\u2014which stretches 200 miles and receives runoff from a vast watershed that contains about 18 million people. Unsurprisingly, the Chesapeake Bay faces considerable pollution issues."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":78662,"image_position":"right","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Prince George\u2019s County, located just outside Washington, DC, sits in the bay\u2019s smaller Anacostia River watershed\u2014one of the most densely populated watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin. With 900,000 people occupying almost 500 square miles of cities, suburbs, and farms, the county is especially concerned about storm water runoff polluting its waterways.\r\n\r\nLitter\u2014which often gets washed up in storm drains and transported to local lakes and streams\u2014is one of the most persistent pollutants in the county. Not only an unsightly blemish on the landscape, this garbage carries additional toxins into the bay that affect biota, the chemical makeup of the water, and drainage outlets.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe were constantly asked the question, Where is this litter coming from?\u201d said Tiaa Rutherford, Prince George\u2019s County\u2019s litter reduction program manager. \u201cAs a county, we could not answer that question.\u201d\r\n\r\nTo keep the local bay tributaries and communities clean and beautiful\u2014and to help protect the 43 fish species and 200 bird species that live in the Anacostia River watershed\u2014the Prince George\u2019s County Department of the Environment (DoE) launched a mobile app to track litter. Built with Survey123 for ArcGIS, the app, called PGCLitterTRAK, allows county residents, community organizations, and businesses participating in cleanup activities to use their smartphones to quickly record information about the trash and debris they collect.\r\n\r\n\u201cUsing Survey123, we developed a simple tool that empowers people doing cleanup work to report back to us on the quantity and location of litter,\u201d said Rutherford.\r\n

Measuring Litter Pickup Properly<\/h2>\r\nIn 2010, several state and federal environmental agencies, as well as local and county government departments, drafted an interjurisdictional trash cleanup blueprint for the Anacostia River. To satisfy federal water quality standards, it mandated that Prince George\u2019s County reduce the amount of garbage in the watershed by 170,628 pounds per year.\r\n\r\nPrince George\u2019s County was already using ArcGIS to show how it was meeting its trash reduction targets. But data collection and documentation were off. Only certain types of refuse picked up in specific watersheds receive trash removal credits from the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet the county could not validate the litter picked up by local organizations and the public, nor could it categorize the array of trash collected by its own garbage trucks.\r\n\r\nTo more effectively demonstrate how hard the county was working to reduce the amount of litter going into the river, Catherine R. Escarpeta, a senior GIS analyst with DoE, decided to use a resource the county already had: an ArcGIS Online subscription. Employing Survey123, Escarpeta built PGCLitterTRAK, which lets trash collectors record the number of bags of litter gathered, the types of items picked up, and the locations of the garbage\u2014all on-site.\r\n\r\nAt no extra cost, Survey123 was ideal for this project. Its formcentric design, ability to collect location information in the background, and capacity to upload photos made it easy to use. In addition, Survey123 allowed the county to publish its litter tracking app to Android, iOS, and Windows devices seamlessly, so large numbers of volunteers and employees could use it.\r\n

Recording Accurate Data<\/h2>\r\nAbove all, Escarpeta wanted to make the app easy to use. She included setup hints\u2014snippets of text, like a sample email address or phone number\u2014that help users answer questions correctly. She also ensured that the county could validate the data by requiring some questions\u2014such as What is your organization?\u2014and giving others drop-down menus so users only have certain, uniform answers to choose from. Additionally, Escarpeta customized the survey so that some fields, especially those required to accurately report litter cleanup to the county, get completed automatically upon submission."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":78672,"image_position":"left","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Escarpeta also wanted to ensure that Prince George\u2019s County received the correct data. She focused the app\u2019s questions on the quantity and location of litter collected. For example, when filling in the type of garbage being picked up, if a user selects Bags of Litter, the next question will be, How many bags? If the user selects Tires instead, the app will ask, How many tires? Users can upload photographs to further document their cleanup efforts. And hidden fields within the app\u2014such as fiscal year, council and maintenance districts, and watershed data\u2014ensure that the information can be automatically exported to the proper departments within Prince George\u2019s County without bogging down users with extraneous details.\r\n\r\n\u201cPGCLitterTRAK and Survey123 enhance the user\u2019s experience by only asking about what that person is doing at that specific location,\u201d said Escarpeta.\r\n\r\nThe app also functions offline, which is crucial to tracking and reporting litter, since parts of the county have limited wireless connectivity. Additionally, various functions built into users\u2019 devices, such as the voice-to-text capability, work within the app.\r\n

Guiding Legislation and Allocating Resources<\/h2>\r\nOnce users collect data out in the field, PGCLitterTRAK connects directly to LitterTRAK Map, an internal web-based map that Escarpeta built using Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS. With LitterTRAK Map, county employees, such as program managers and crew supervisors, can review and analyze the litter data coming in from throughout Prince George\u2019s County. Escarpeta can add layers to the map as well\u2014such as hot spot analyses, council and maintenance districts, and other background information\u2014to enable county employees to better visualize the data.\r\n\r\nWith all this, agencies such as the Department of Public Works and Transportation and the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement can run reports on the types of cleanup activities they conduct, like roadside litter removal and the disposal of illegally dumped items. These departments can then figure out how to guide legislation and better allocate their resources, determining where to focus outreach efforts to reduce litter, where to place more trash receptacles, and where to position cameras to impede illegal dumping.\r\n

Reducing Litter Across the County<\/h2>\r\nAlthough Prince George\u2019s County developed PGCLitterTRAK to target the Anacostia watershed, the app is helping to reduce litter countywide."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":78682,"image_position":"right","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cPGCLitterTRAK is making it easier for Prince George\u2019s County government to reduce litter in our waterways, streets, and neighborhoods,\u201d said Adam Ortiz, the director of DoE. \u201cThis user-friendly app gives us the ability to obtain real-time information and see a catalog of trash picked up by our county\u2019s \u2018trash warriors,\u2019 who are on the front lines of the battle against litter in Prince George\u2019s.\u201d\r\n\r\nAdditionally, program managers throughout the county are examining how to employ Survey123 for tracking other assets and issues, like storm drains in need of \u201cno dumping\u201d imprints, street signs in need of replacing, and residents in need of little nudges to pick up their pet waste.\r\n\r\nPGCLitterTRAK is now an indispensable tool for keeping Prince George\u2019s County clean, green, and beautiful, according to Ortiz.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhether you are cleaning roads, streams, parks, or your neighborhood, PGCLitterTRAK tracks litter reduction achievements and encourages citizens to support the county by volunteering and being good stewards of the environment,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nTo find out more about Prince George\u2019s County\u2019s litter reduction program, email\u00a0Rutherford<\/a>. For more information about PGCLitterTRAK, email\u00a0Escarpeta<\/a>\u00a0(soon to be Catherine Adams)."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"\nRestoring a Watershed, One Bag of Litter at a Time | Fall 2017 | ArcNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Prince George\u2019s County Uses Survey123 for ArcGIS to Meet Waste Reduction Targets.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/restoring-a-watershed-one-bag-of-litter-at-a-time\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Restoring a Watershed, One Bag of Litter at a Time | ArcNews | Fall 2017\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prince George\u2019s County Uses Survey123 for ArcGIS to Meet Waste Reduction Targets.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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