case study
Utah’s breathtaking landscapes often mask its susceptibility to diverse natural hazards. While safe from hurricanes and (most) tornadoes, the state’s varied geography and climate present unique challenges. Wildfire, high winds, earthquakes, snow avalanches, and floods are just a few of the threats Utah faces. The Utah Division of Emergency Management (DEM) unites the state’s emergency management community by leveraging geographic information system (GIS) technology to mitigate, plan, respond, and recover from emergencies, fostering cross-agency collaboration.
The Utah DEM GIS team makes geospatial application a priority in every aspect of their work. The team uses ArcGIS Online, a secure and scalable software as a service (SaaS) specifically designed for geospatial workflows. The technology is used for mitigation projects, monitoring civil unrest, identifying hazards, and for specific events response coordination. Staff also use ArcGIS Dashboards to visualize data and for community coordination.
Given the agency’s successful and extensive use of GIS, Hobie Willis, systems and data solutions section manager at Utah DEM, recognized the importance of extending these benefits to create a centralized common operating picture.
“There was a strong need to create a centralized location for situational awareness. As the state agency, our goal is to efficiently collaborate with our state, county, city, and private sector partners,” said Willis. “With the creation of the Utah Situational Awareness Tool, our partners know they can access real-time data daily.”
Utah All Hazards Data Hub allows users to explore situational awareness data by hazard, community lifelines, or specific incidents.
To keep each agency from the state, county, and local level in Utah aligned, the DEM team used ArcGIS Experience Builder to maintain a real-time status of common hazards and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) community lifelines.
“The idea was to create a centralized location for key agencies to have the same awareness and data,” said Emma McFee, GIS analyst at Utah DEM. “Having critical information and live data sources in one spot makes it more accessible to the agency partners we work with.”
The Situational Awareness Tool is divided into four sections: hazard awareness, incident monitoring, community lifeline, and state situation brief.
This section of the tool pulls daily precipitation and temperature data from the local National Weather Service and updates when there is a change in reporting.
The incident monitoring section includes data on weather watches and warnings, current incidents, impacted lifelines, situation and impacts.
The hazard awareness section focuses on the hazards aligned with the state’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, including wildfire, wind, earthquakes, floods, air quality, snow/avalanche, drought, and space.
The community lifelines section references the eight FEMA lifelines, and the lifelines change colors based on the status of incidents. The Utah DEM team also integrated buffers to identify the proximity of key structures impacted, live traffic data, and data on road closures from the Utah Department of Transportation.
During active wildfire incidents, buffers are created to identify which structures are most imminently impacted to ensure efficient awareness of response and recovery efforts.
The state situation brief section features a digital story created with ArcGIS StoryMaps. It outlines the status of the State Emergency Operations Center, current community lifelines, significant events, weather watches and warnings, active wildfire and smoke forecasts, drought monitors, and weather advisories. It also includes a section for users to ask questions about the report.
Since the launch of the tool, collaboration with partnering agencies has flourished. Common users of the application have been other Utah state agencies and county and city emergency management departments. Additionally, the Utah Governor’s Office and the Department of Public Safety Commissioner’s Office have been using this dashboard to stay alert to any potential activations.
Using ArcGIS Online partnered collaborations as a foundational tool allows UDEM to enhance the way they partner with agencies. One of the next phases of the Utah Situational Awareness Tool is to host a login-restricted portion for search and rescue work.
In collaboration with the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS (NAPSG), the UDEM team is integrating geospatial technology into the emergency support functions (ESF). By incorporating GIS to Emergency Support Function 9 (ESF #9), the search and rescue section will be able to log in to a specific dashboard to track the real-time search and rescue operation directly from the Search and Rescue Common Operation Platform (SARCOP) system.
“We are really excited to partner with such an experienced organization like NAPSG and leverage the amazing workflows they have created in ArcGIS Online,” said Willis.
In addition to natural disasters, the UDEM team is using GIS to monitor isolated incidents and potential threats. In 2024, the UDEM team worked on the strategy and response for an aging dam, which had a risk of damage or partial collapse. To ensure the team was ready, UDEM created both public and internal dashboards with vital information.
The internal dashboard outlined critical infrastructure information, including potential evacuation zones, routes, and additional items to ensure the public’s safety. The UDEM staff also launched a dashboard to anticipate potential threats from the spring runoff. To monitor these threats, the team focused on stream gauges and snowpack levels, aiming to understand potential risks over the coming months.
“Using GIS to supplement our work has been critical to our success,” said Julia Surkis, GIS program manager with Utah DEM. “We have been able to collaborate and communicate effectively with our state and local partners across Utah.”
Through the innovative use of GIS technology and collaborative efforts, UDEM continues to enhance its emergency management capabilities, ensuring the safety and resilience of communities across Utah.
Using GIS to supplement our work has been critical to our success. We have been able to collaborate and communicate effectively with our state and local partners across Utah.
Learn more about the products used in this story
Esri offers multiple product options for your organization, and users can use ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, or ArcGIS Location Platform as their foundation. Once the foundational product is established, a wide variety of apps and extensions are available.