Our Work

Blue Raster helps you tell your story through interactive
mapping technology. Make your message clear, exciting,
and user-friendly for both mobile and web platforms.

Restoration

Conducting Research and Data Analysis for The Nature Conservancy’s Coastal Restoration Opportunities Project

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental nonprofit that works to conserve the vital bodies of water and land on our planet, and it is also a long-term partner of Blue Raster. From 2021 until 2023, Blue Raster once again collaborated with TNC to help the organization with a project that aims to restore critical coastal habitats.

Determining Goals for TNC’s Coastal Restoration Opportunities Project

TNC required Blue Raster’s support in meeting its main goals for the Coastal Restoration Opportunities project, which included:

  • Delineating, mapping, and quantifying coastal restoration opportunities for five coastal habitats in the United States
  • Establishing natural historical and current habitat occurrences through research, subject matter expert surveys, and literature reviews
  • Creating interactive restoration opportunities maps

A Mission Rooted in History

Unlike some of the past projects for TNC, this one did not involve an application build-out. Instead, Blue Raster’s Abigail Krump and Jen Kern worked closely with TNC staffer, Bryan DeAngelis, and ocean resiliency expert, Annick Cros, to find, analyze, document, and map valuable datasets for the project. The five main datasets, which are habitats targeted for restoration opportunities, include:

  1. Oyster beds
  2. Salt marshes
  3. Mangroves
  4. Seagrass beds
  5. Kelp

In order to establish a historical baseline for the Coastal Restoration Opportunities project, Krump and Kern had to look at existing datasets from the government, satellite imagery, old scientific papers, and more. Inside the scientific papers, Krump and Kern often found hand-sketched maps or survey notes, which they then transformed into interactive restoration opportunities maps.

Coastal Restoration Opportunities
Coastal Restoration Opportunities

Impacting the Future of Restoration

The historic data collected by both teams has been published in various scientific journals and is available for scientists and coastal habitat experts to use for their own purposes, but the main goal is for it to be used to support and build cases for funding coastal restoration projects.

And the influence of TNC’s Coastal Restoration Opportunities project hasn’t halted since Blue Raster completed the research, data analysis, and map creation to produce the historical benchmarking resource the nonprofit requested. In fact, the datasets are already being used to support the pending legislation of California Assembly Bill 1407, the Ocean Life Recovery Act. If passed, Assembly Bill 1407 would protect California’s ocean ecosystems, including kelp, eelgrass, and native oysters, by launching essential restoration projects with the necessary backing from the state.

Could your organization’s data help change the world? Find out with research and data analysis support from Blue Raster.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Carbon Benefits Calculator

Most of our daily activities create greenhouse gas emissions which exacerbate climate change. Organizations like the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) spearhead efforts to mitigate these negative impacts by funding initiatives that offset emissions and create a greener earth. Blue Raster partnered with NFWF to create a robust Carbon Benefits Calculator. This tool estimates and visualizes the carbon impact of past and planned conservation efforts, restoration, and improved land management activities of NFWF.

NFWF Carbon Benefits Tool

NFWF wanted to innovate and optimize their existing in-house carbon calculator tool that was hosted in Excel. Blue Raster understands the need for a spatially explicit, robust tool that provides real-time calculations and eliminates hard-coded values to improve usability and usefulness. Additionally, this new tool enables NFWF to assess activities in various locations over different time series quickly and easily.

Our team created a web application backed by geoprocessing services in Python scripts. The tool allows a user to upload a spatial polygon for an area of interest to calculate carbon benefits, expanding the previous functionality that only allowed analysis at the county level. These calculations are done with python logic and geoprocessing services that are uploaded to ArcGIS Enterprise. Converting the tool from a spreadsheet-based calculator to a real-time and streamlined web application allowed for faster, easier, and more comparable results.

This tool uses various raster datasets including national land cover and carbon stocks to calculate the different properties and values such as climate, location, size, carbon stock, and land cover of the user submitted area of interest. Then, the tool automatically takes those values from the raster data and calculates the carbon benefits that would result from the selected project. NFWF can use this tool to estimate the carbon benefits of various projects and events such as invasive species clearing, crop and livestock use, thinning, fires, land transformations, over a 30-year period.

Previously, Blue Raster built out the Where We Work web map for NFWF to help illustrate the extensive geographic reach of their mission and impact of their conservation programs. Also, we built a proposal reviewer application and aided in NFWF's ArcGIS Enterprise installation.

We are excited to continue our collaborative efforts and work with a long-time partner by supporting NFWF with the Carbon Benefits Calculator and ongoing conservation efforts.

Ready to find out more?

We are excited to be a part of another non-profit's ongoing conservation and restoration efforts! Contact us today to learn how we can help your organization.

Non_Profit

Saving Wilderness Areas with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

African elephants

At the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), staff are using the Global Forest Watch MapBuilder platform to show their global impact. WCS works to conserve the world’s largest wild places in 16 priority regions. Their new MapBuilder platform is a powerful mapping tool for analyzing data in priority conservation areas.

WCS’ platform combines the use of remote sensing and GIS to visualize and monitor top priority regions for conservation. Through a combination of interactive mapping, data visualizations, and analytical reports, the platform provides staff with access to information on the current state of WCS protected areas around the world.

WCS' goal is to conserve the world's largest wild places in 16 priority regions, home to more than 50% of the world's biodiversity.

The platform incorporates a breadth of data on priority landscapes and sea- and coastal- scapes (known as “scapes”). In addition, it visualizes key project areas where WCS is working to have a conservation impact on species. By centralizing this data all on one platform, users can visualize overlap and patterns. For example, staff can overlay forest fragmentation, infrastructure development, and conservation areas to quickly see if wildlife movement is blocked between and within protected areas. This is especially important in Africa, where species like elephants, giraffes, and zebras travel long distances between wet and dry seasons to survive.

WCS Mapbuilder Platform

In addition to the data on the platform, the site also contains powerful analytics powered by MapBuilder’s custom functionality. Through a unique workflow built by our two teams, WCS can connect their API with the Global Forest Watch API to return time-series statistics within the application. This enables users to run specialized analyses to answer questions such as:

  • Which protected areas have experienced the greatest forest disturbance in recent years?
  • How have species population trends changed over time?
  • Where are the last unbroken swaths of intact forest?
Visualizing Results

WCS can also visualize their impact. For example, thanks to conservation efforts, Nouabalé Ndoki National Park is free from logging and contains no roads within its borders. The park covers more than 4,000 square kilometers of contiguous rainforest and is a stronghold for iconic species including forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees.

 

 

WCS’ platform is built with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, ArcGIS Enterprise, the Global Forest Watch API, and Google Earth Engine.

Check out the WCS MapBuilder platform today!

Exploring George Washington’s Mount Vernon in 3D

George Washington’s Mount Vernon home is a well-loved national treasure, meticulously studied by researchers, restored by preservationists, and visited by a million guests every year. It is the best-documented historic site in the nation, with a trove of information available about everything from the original builders and craftsmen of the house to the individual trees that lived on the grounds in George Washington’s day. Blue Raster shares this information to Mount Vernon’s patrons and stakeholders through an easy and intuitive website, in a partnership with the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) and Quinn Evans Architects.

Blue Raster developed a prototype online 3D GIS portal for viewing the available spatial, structural, and background information associated with a historic building information model (HBIM) created by Quinn Evans Architects. This includes location information and 3-D modeling and will include details and documents associated with individual elements of the buildings and landscape once the content management system is complete. The tool will make the extensive historical documentation of the estate accessible to scholars, educators, and the public while improving its conservation and maintenance.

mt_vernon_outside

The web application leverages Esri’s ArcGIS API for JavaScript 4.0 and makes use of its WebScene class, allowing the user to virtually explore the estate while investigating documents and historical artifacts. Blue Raster also designed a custom user interface for the application, aligned with the Mount Vernon style guide. Users will now be able to view Mount Vernon and learn about its history in ways never possible before.

mt_vernon_inside

Be sure to take a look at this new 3D web application today, and explore the Mt Vernon property, inside and out!

GFW Map Builder

Environmental restoration is becoming a top priority for many countries around the world, but it can be difficult to synthesize the numerous sources of information available to make decisions about where this restoration should happen. With the new GFW Map Builder template, anyone can create an online map application visualizing and analyzing their data alongside local, regional, or global land use data to identify future restoration priorities.

Blue Raster created Map Builder, a configurable ArcGIS Online template, for the World Resource Institute’s Global Forest Watch (GFW) program. The template allows users to overlay their own datasets, such as endangered species habitats, commercial concessions, or national protected areas, with GFW land cover and land cover change data in order to pinpoint the best locations to focus restoration efforts. The template provides built-in metadata and analysis tabs, which viewers can use to learn more about specific features in the map and generate reports with a variety of analyses on any feature.

Many users are already taking advantage of Map Builder’s impressive capabilities to create their own customized map applications. For example, Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources recently completed a national restoration opportunity assessment informed by their Tree-based Landscape Restoration Potential Atlas created using the Map Builder template. The atlas overlays rivers, land use, and population density with areas marked as having potential for restoration. Check out blog posts by Thomas Maschler and Asa Strong from World Resources Institute about customizing GFW and open data and GIS for more information and examples.

Built with ArcGIS API for JavaScript, Map Builder leverages ArcGIS Online templates as well as the ArcGIS for Server Image Extension for analysis. It features lightweight code with a fully mobile and responsive design, making it accessible even in countries with low bandwidth.


Thomas
Mapbuilder allows users to combine GFW’s geospatial analysis features with data that is important to their local cause and environment. With this highly-customizable tool users can now build web applications to monitor forests in their own backyard. Park rangers can track where forests were cut down as recently as a week ago, auditors can calculate countries’ carbon emissions from forest conversion and companies can find and address points in their supply chains that contribute to deforestation. WRI uses Mapbuilder as a platform for Forest and Restoration Atlases. These applications are published and updated together with partnering national government agencies. The tight integration with ArcGIS online allows our country teams to manage their sites independently and reduces the amount of necessary training and follow up support.

-Thomas Maschler, GIS Manager for GFW Africa, World Resources Institute

 


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