42 GIS COMMUNITY NEWS OGC Recognizes Esri’s Commitment to Standards and Interoperability The power of the Web to reach anywhere in the world for content rests on standard protocols that enable diverse computer technologies to form a single community. Because of this, Esri has a long-standing commitment to standards and interoperability in the geospatial realm. Esri has maintained a leadership role as a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), Board of Directors and the Planning and Technical committees and has been a participant in numerous test processes, pilot projects, and specification products published by OGC. Esri’s commitment to standards and interoperability was recognized at the June meeting of OGC in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, David Danko, Esri’s manager of GIS standards, received OGC’s 11th annual Kenneth D. Gardels Award. The Gardels Award is given to individuals who have advanced OGC’s vision of complete integration of geospatial information and services into the world’s information systems. Danko helped draft the OGC abstract specification for metadata that played a key role in developing and maintaining a working relationship between OGC and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/TC 211. Since 1996, he has made important contributions in numerous other key technical committee activities, including the Documentation Subcommittee; the OGC Review Board; and the Mass Market, Defense and Intelligence, and Catalog working groups. More Information For more information on standards and interoperability, visit www.opengeospatial.org. Esri Is Your Total Solution Provider Total solutions from Esri can provide technology you need at prices you can afford. Esri works with leading hardware vendors to provide bundled solutions that include ArcGIS® Server, ArcGIS Desktop, ArcPad®, and much more. For example, you can purchase an ArcGIS Data Appliance or a server, workstation, notebook, GPS Handheld, or Tablet PC bundled with ArcGIS software. Custom hardware-only configurations are also available to existing Esri customers. Free Esri Publications Copyright © 2009 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri provides numerous periodicals, which can be subscribed to free of charge by simply going to www.esri.com/subscribe on the Web. Here are some examples. Energy Currents Energy Currents is a quarterly printed newsletter focusing on GIS in the gas and electric community. It offers practical and technical advice for those interested in energy and Esri. HealthyGIS HealthyGIS is a newsletter printed quarterly for the health and human services GIS user. The publication features articles describing the function of GIS in public health, workforce development, and health education. Those interested will find techniques for implementing Esri software into their health care work environment. ArcWatch ArcWatch is an e-newsletter published monthly for anyone interested in what’s new with Esri, its software, and GIS mapping solutions. Government Matters Government Matters is a quarterly printed newsletter for those interested in state and local government and its relationship with GIS. It addresses possibilities for more efficient community management using GIS. For more information on promotional offers, visit www.esri.com/hardware or call your local Esri office. Offers are updated frequently. Energy Currents Esri • Fall 2009 GIS for Energy by Circle Twelve Inc From Pioneer Town to GIS Pioneers City of Paragould Continues Historic Growth By Jessica Wyland, Esri Two U.S. railroads crossed for the first time in 1882 through the heart of the country and the corner of northeast Arkansas. The Missouri Pacific railroad, headed by magnate Jay Gould, and the Cotton Belt railroad, led by line president J. W. Paramore, made their junction through a stretch of largely uninhabited land. After some ado, the newly formed community was named for the railroad presidents. The city of Paragould, Arkansas, was born. Bolstered by a healthy timber industry, Paragould made fast strides toward becoming a flourishing town. By 1890, the population was 2,528. By the early 1900s, the city leapt to cosmopolitan status with paved roads, department stores, and a modern hotel. Within 10 years of the founding, both municipal water and electrical power plants were organized along with several private telephone companies. To this day, Paragould Light, Water & Cable (PLWC) continues to serve the community as a not-for-profit municipal utility providing electric, water, wastewater, cable, and Internet services to the 25,000 people who now live in the city. In This Issue Integration of GIS, SAP, and SCADA BREC Puts Mobile GIS in Every Truck Map Gallery Tech Corner Georgia Power’s Economic Development Strategy Distribution Integrity Management Solutions p4 p6 p10 P14 p18 p23 When Paragould’s timber industry declined around the 1920s, residents turned to agriculture, and the city continued its steady growth. Today, the still-burgeoning area is expanding to the eastern Arkansas population centers in Continued on page 9 The world’s first multi-user touch technology is now complete with software extension for ArcGIS. Esri • Fall 2009 GIS for State and Local Government Surprise Bridges the Gap between CAD and GIS Located in Arizona’s Sonora desert, the city of Surprise is a booming Phoenix suburb with a geographic information. However, Surprise’s spatial data has not always been available to its employees as a GIS enterprise-wide luxury. In recent years, data was provided by disparate departments and various developers, surveyors, and engineers in a CAD format. The GIS division then had to manually integrate data from AutoCAD into an Esri shapefile before it was accessible to employees working in an ArcGIS Desktop environment. Once in desktop GIS, select employees could perform advanced spatial analysis, model operational processes, and visualize results on maps. The interval between receiving CAD data and being able to view it in the city’s GIS could sometimes be lengthy, and CAD data was frequently incoming. Surprise had invested in In This Issue Esri Data Helps Governments Meet Citizens’ Needs Esri Online Bonner County, Idaho, Manages Invasive Weeds with GIS GIS Saves Lives, Protects Property p2 p3 p6 The Paragould, Arkansas, train depot opened in 1882. Esri • Summer 2009 healthy GIS In This Issue From My View Esri on the Road User News small-town feel and big-city amenities. One of those amenities is the city’s geographic information system (GIS), which has helped Surprise meet the geospatial information technology (IT) requirements of one of America’s fastestgrowing cities. At the peak of the housing boom, from 2006 to 2008, Surprise issued more than 800 new house construction permits per month. “GIS is the foundation on which both the city’s land information and asset management p3 p3 p5 p8 an accurate survey control network that city departments and developers alike were required to utilize while acquiring and submitting data. Says Abrams, “The network ensured that incoming data fit well into the city’s GIS basemap, but it wasn’t a seamless transition.” Anticipating a housing boom and the onslaught of incoming data related to urban sprawl, Surprise began to migrate its CAD data into an enterprise GIS. Centrally stored in a Microsoft SQL Server-supported relational database management system (RDBMS), AutoCAD map data became accessible via an intranet portal based on Esri ArcGIS Server. The upgrade to server GIS gave Surprise the power to streamline business practices and workflows within all city departments. Surprise’s permitting system, engineering activities, and utility maintenance tasks all benefited greatly from the GIS investments. However, Abrams’ department of four employees was still tasked with the manual translation of incoming CAD data from developers before it could be stored in the new GIS geodatabase. With years of an established, CAD-based maintenance workflow and the investment in software and expertise, Surprise began shopping for a software solution that could automate the frequent and time-consuming CAD-to-GIS migration progress. GIS for Health and Human Services Water Sources Mapping Contributes to Health and Development Goals in Rwanda GIS Project Contributes Its Drop to the Bucket of Millennium Development Goals in Sub-Saharan Africa In southern Rwanda, students and professors from the University of Redlands (U of R), California, are using geographic information system (GIS) technology to map the area’s water sources and collect water usage information. Their activities contribute to efforts to improve access to clean drinking water in the community and in similar communities across sub-Saharan Africa. In the bigger picture, the project contributes to an ambitious plan—the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)—that pledges to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. In 2000, representatives of 189 nations worldwide signed on to the United Nations’ MDG commitment to reduce poverty through improving health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure. Access to clean drinking water plays an important part in supporting these goals (MDG aims to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water). That is why undergraduate environmental studies students, led by Max Baber, Ph.D., associate professor in the U of R Master of Science in Geographic Information Science systems are based,” explains City of Surprise GIS Division manager Lloyd Abrams. From addressing to planning to emergency routing, nearly every department in the city relies on its enterprise GIS for accurate and current Hospitals Get a Jolt of Reality with HAZUS-MH Earthquake Analysis Results Salt Lake City Improves Mosquito Control Program with GIS p7 p10 p11 Product News program, and Katherine Noble-Goodman, visiting lecturer in environmental studies, found their way to Mayange, a rural sector in Rwanda, in 2008 and 2009. They arrived with GIS and Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment for mapping the area’s water sources. Some progress has been made in advancing MDG goals, but in sub-Saharan Africa, improvements have advanced more slowly than in other parts of the world. As a result, the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was established to work out a successful model in Africa for alleviating poverty using a set of integrated, communitydriven activities. Mayange is one of 80 MVP participants spread across 10 African countries. Located in one of the poorest regions in Rwanda and with a sector population of 25,000, the area is almost completely deforested and receives 800 millimeters (about 31.5 inches) of intermittent annual rainfall. As in many other rural African areas, Mayange villagers spend hours each day retrieving water their families need to survive. Often, the water source is contaminated, which can cause health problems. In addition, the time-consuming retrieval process diverts efforts from activities crucial to sustainable development such as education and farming. Accessing ArcGIS from Inside the AutoCAD Environment with Crossfire continued on page 4 The Mayange Sector in Rwanda locates current, nonfunctional, and proposed water access points in relation to current and future population clusters. continued on page 2 The DiamondTouch™ table with DT Collaborate™ extension for Esri’s ArcGIS features: - Multi-touch gesture navigation - Simultaneous multi-user input - Attributes so you know who did what - Time stamping / timeline playback - Complete integration into ArcMap framework multi^touch Circle Twelve Inc is an Esri Business Partner. ser u More information at www.circletwelve.com