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Watersheds New Release for EPA

EPA’s Global Change Explorer provides data visualization across all aspects of environmental change and is now available to the public. Blue Raster worked with The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to redesign and improve their Watersheds mapping application, one of the three modeling projects which focuses on the largest 19 watersheds in the United States and how these watersheds are predicted to change under various climate change and urban development scenarios.

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The application explores trends in sediment levels and nutrient loading, enabling viewers to visualize the sensitivity of watersheds nationwide. The sites selected represent a range of geographic, hydrologic, and climatic characteristics of the US.  While several water quality measures are included, the project has particular emphasis on stream flow, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment loads.

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The site’s powerful data visualization is made possible by ArcGIS for Server, the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and ArcGIS Desktop. To learn more about the project, visit the Watersheds Application and full report publication.

 

2016 Esri DevSummit: Learning with the Best

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The Blue Raster team returned energized more than ever from the Esri Developers Summit in Palm Springs, California. The DevSummit is where we innovate with others on the latest approaches to web mapping and GIS as well as get a sneak peak on what’s coming up in 2016 specific to the Esri Tools.

Stand out technological upgrades from our experts:

  • The ArcGIS JavaScript 4.0 release promises fresh architecture and enhanced capabilities. We are particularly excited for the 3D capabilities that this release supports.
  • Portal for ArcGIS 10.4 supports sharing information throughout organizations with each team member having personalized access and editing capabilities.
  • The Spatio-Temporal Big-Data Store can hold archives of large-volume data with longer retention, essential for big-data projects.
  • Optimizing access to cloud-hosted Rasters using the Nasa-developed MRF (Meta Raster Format) Driver along with Limited Error Raster Compression (LERC). This allows imagery to be stored in Amazon S3 while be accessed as if located on local drives.
  • Vector Tiles for ArcGIS Pro allow full customization of Basemaps and Vector Layers. This meets the demanding requirements of high-performing web maps for desktop and moble

Joshua Tree Story Map

The DevSummit is Blue Raster’s chance to get one-on-one time with Esri experts as we innovate together and reflect on the latest trends in analysis, web mapping and GIS.

Phil Satlof and Amy Ramsdell were inspired by a presentation by Stephen Sylvia of Esri on Customizing Story Maps and quickly created a Story Map for their trip to Joshua Tree National Park, a day long venture filled with hiking, fun and of course maps. The platform allowed the team to publish and share their adventure via maps without any custom development.

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Lastly, the team let off some steam with some good old-fashioned fun at the Esri DevSummit party. During our record-breaking advancement into the final game of the dodge ball tournament, we enjoyed reflecting on a week of learning and catching up with other devs — ultimately finshing in 2nd place out of 40 teams.

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REL Midwest Releases New EdMaps

This year, REL Midwest EdMaps launched two new story maps analyzing education trends in the Midwest. With the ArcGIS Online Map Journal template, the story maps naturally walk through the narrative behind the maps.

The first story map, Advanced Placement (AP) Program Participation explores the expansion of the AP Program, a College Board offering giving high school students the opportunity to earn college course credit, exemption from introductory courses, or both.  The story map shows how access to the AP Program has spread from 2006–2012, with expansion in both urban and rural areas. A case study in Indiana attributes eliminating all fees for math and science AP exams as a contributing factor for the spread of AP participation within the state. The annual AP exams are necessary for receiving college credit, and removing the fees is one way schools are making it easier for students to participate in the AP Program.

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The second story map, Incidences of Pre-Kindergarten Suspension capitalizes on a new preschool-discipline dataset from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The Civil Rights Data Collection released by the OCR showed that more than 8,000 public preschool students were suspended at least once, with almost half of those children suspended more than once in a single school year. The new data helped to reveal racial disparities, with black students accounting for 18 percent of preschool enrollment but nearly half (42%) of the preschool children suspended one time.

With a wide range of opinions on the effectiveness of suspension, Minneapolis has stood out for eradicating suspensions for nonviolent behavior for preschool, kindergarten and first grade students. Former Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson argued that, “If you’re not in school, you can’t learn, and if you’re not learning you cannot address the achievement gap.” (Minneapolis Public Schools, 2014).

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Working with Blue Raster has been both a lesson in story map creation and an archetype for collaborative project management. I was able to tell stories about topics that matter in a way that a broad audience can digest, and wouldn’t have been able to do that without Blue Raster’s guidance and partnership.
-Megan Norris, American Institutes for Research (AIR)


Turning Concept into Reality: Green Infrastructure

Water is one of the world’s most pressing challenges.  Faced with the opportunity to find better water solutions for global stakeholders, the Earth Genome, backed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), enlisted the help of Blue Raster and Arizona State University to create the Green Infrastructure Support Tool (GIST). The interactive web mapping application provides high-level wetland-restoration site analysis and portfolio prioritization to address water scarcity and was recently launched at GreenBiz 2016.

The tool employs criteria-based screening via spatial data and end-user inputs, enabling end users to weigh options across the region and compare relative value and costs. Financial metrics include net present value, area cost curves, and environmental return on investment. Together, they help determine the best “bang for buck” restoration sites to provision water across an entire basin. The application combines environmental data such as wetland areas, biodiversity and land cover with business initiatives that consider both investment and costs for various land-cover restoration options, resulting in a truly spatial decision support system.

GIST Site Definition

Key in the development of GIST was the ability to present data in an easy-to-use way and to incorporate millions of points of disparate environmental data. As a result, corporations, governments, water authorities, resource engineers or anyone interested in potential water restoration are able to create their own development sites with corresponding financial analysis. The reporting engine supports comparing multiple sites, determining the optimal green infrastructure investment, based on landscape characteristics and hydrologic modeling.

GIST Analysis

 

The ability to create these custom reports is made possible by on-the-fly statistical/histogram calculations leveraging the ArcGIS Image Server extension. The GIST also uses the ArcGIS JavaScript API and Highcharts to supply the data and charting throughout the application.


“Blue Raster was a terrific partner. The Earth Genome exists to unite data, science, visualization and end users to solve some of the planet’s most wicked problems. Blue Raster was essential in pulling off GIST, what we believe is a breakthrough tool that puts environmental data, translated via world class science, into the hands of real decision makers. I’m most pleased with the work Blue Raster did on the visual interface. The tool is elegant yet simple: anybody can use it to find the opportunities that make most financial sense for their organization.”

Earth Genome – Glen Low
Co-Founder, The Earth Genome

 

ArcGIS Online Accelerate Training

We visited Austin, Texas last week to lead a second round of ArcGIS Online Accelerate training for the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Texas State Education Agency (TEA).

We held a first round of hands-on training in August that covered the skills needed to create (and to teach others in creating) maps in ArcGIS Online. At the end of the training, AIR and TEA were able to answer questions such as:  How can I create and share maps with colleagues within my organization or within a targeted audience? How can I make the most of my ArcGIS Online subscription? And most importantly, how can I create content that allows educators across Texas to effectively do their job?

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This February, Blue Raster returned to Austin to build off of last year’s training and cover advanced topics. The two-day deep dive focused on refining and advancing the teams’ ArcGIS Online skills and covered spatial analysis and web application creation and deployment. The teams also utilized Blue Raster’s Story Map Starter Kit to learn the building blocks for creating effective Story Maps.

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See images of two story maps from the training below. Learn more about Blue Raster’s GIS training at our ArcGIS Online Accelerate Solutions page.

The Geography of School Improvement in Texas

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