Cruising Empire State Data Portals for Geospatial Content

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Expanding Suite of Online Portals Offer Data For All Types of GIS Users

Ever since the federal government launched Data.gov in May 2009 and President Barack Obama issuing an executive order in May 2013 establishing the Open Data Policy, as well as   Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signing Executive Order 95 (“Using Technology to Promote Transparency, Improve Government Performance and Enhance Citizen Engagement”) in March of the same year, governments at all levels across the country have responded in creating an array of online data portals with the intent of making data free and easily accessible.  Available and open to everyone including nonprofits, application developers, researchers and academia, business and industry, service industries, the geospatial community and everything in-between. Such portals purpose and intent is to promote government transparency, reduce data request and distribution costs, fuel business development and job growth, and drive innovation.  Open data portals are particularly useful in times of crisis or major incident when multiple agencies require access to the same data and/or may be limited in context of  data sharing agreements either ad hoc or formal.

Current Empire State Data Portal Offerings

Today, geospatial data portals across the Empire State have a variety of aliases including Open, Gateway, Hub, even the old school Clearinghouse title.  For the purpose of this article we’ll take a look at a range of the current publically available sites focusing on current content and some of the general functionality as it relates to the GIS/geospatial user. Sites included are those currently available in New York City, state government, and at the county and municipal.  It is by no means inclusive of all the sites across the state though for the ones itemized below, take a drive and see what you find.

 Map Services vs. Files

Accessing, or consuming, geospatial content has changed significantly since the early years of data sharing.  The term “open data” was barely in the geospatial vernacular in old school GIS with many sites providing access to data which was governed by formal data sharing agreements and/or requiring some kind of organizational membership.  Offering file-based downloads to support, which at the time, was a heavy-client software-based world of GIS computing.

While file-based downloads from the myriad of portals across the Empire State are more than adequate for most users of the sites, GIS/geospatial users often have software enhanced capabilities to consume large volumes of data content in both client and browser applications via map services.   Consuming web services is now even an option within certain versions of AutoCAD which greatly expands the use of government authored and published geospatial content.

Given the option of having to take the time to download numerous individual files vs. consuming one map service with many data layers and picking only the data layers needed – the choice is often pretty obvious.  As such, data portals which offer geospatial content as a service (or by extension developer tools to provide similar functionality) increasingly have added value to the GIS/geospatial user.

New York State Government

HEALTH.DATA.NY.GOV & DATA.NY.GOV

Launched approximately around the same time in 2013,  these two portals provide lots of file based content for the GIS/geospatial community.  Built on top of Socrata software (Tyler Technologies) the two sites differ only in content. DATA.NY.GOV serving more as a generalized repository for state agencies (and selected local governments) and HEALTH.DATA.NY.GOV focusing specifically on public health related datasets.  Creating an user account (if needed) provides developers and publishers to identical tools and documentation to each site including customization options, database connections and API endpoints, metadata documentation, visualization tools, and more..  Both portals as part of the broader Open NY initiative.

While centralized data access and data visualization (charts, dashboards, etc) have always been a primary Socrata focus, the software also includes a basic toolkit  to map and render datasets which include coordinate geometry.  Both sites also include the ability to download datasets in a variety of formats including KML, KMZ, Shapefile, and GeoJSON which can be used by a wide range of GIS software platforms.

Users of DATA.NY.GOV site need to be aware this site ALSO includes content from other statewide Socrata sites (HEALTH.DATA.NY.GOV, NYC Open Data, and  Open Data Buffalo) so it is important to use the filtering function in the lower left corner of the page after the initial data theme/category has been selected.  For example, in the image below, after selecting the “Transportation” category, the application returns 521 records – which includes those meeting the same criteria from the other three statewide Socrata sites. (And in this category many from the NYC Socrata library.)   After filtering for “This site only” (DATA.NY.GOV) the application returns just 251 records.  A small nuance but filtering does help if the search is specific to certain jurisdictional or geographic footprints.  Also, when searching for state agency data across the available statewide portals, users will begin to see that some agency data is published and available on more than one portal.  For example, some state agency data can be found on  DATA.NY.GOV, CUGIR, and the state Clearinghouse.

The filtering function on DATA.NY.GOV limits the search to specific domains

Plenty of geospatial data in both of these state portals albeit as the GIS community has come to know during the COVID-19 pandemic, address or large scale data is hard come by in the public health space.  Respectfully a whole other discussion and until there are fundamental changes in how public health data is published, it will be difficult for non-public health agencies, advocacy groups, or the general public to access such data at units of geography smaller than the county level.  Or sometimes if one is lucky, finding some at the zip code level.

For additional information on how to export Socrata data to other formats and/or platforms see this help document.  Also, Koop software is an Open Geospatial ETL Engine which enables users to leave geospatial data where it lives and transform it into a variety of formats including GeoJSON, CSV, KML, a Shapefile, or Feature Service dynamically.

There is apparently ongoing work/research within the state GIS offices with regard to both mapping NY Open data using the Socrata JavaScript API as well as enabling the Socrata platform to use the NYS GIS Program Office geocoder.  If successful, such efforts will greatly expand the Socrata data portals for the geospatial community.

NY Department of State Geographic Information Gateway

Launched in 2015, the Gateway is administered out of the NY Department of State, Office of Planning, Development and Community Infrastructure and is now home to over 700 datasets. The Gateway is an online mapping application that makes it possible to view geographic information in its native viewer or Google Earth and users can also download information in multiple file formats or even pull into other online mapping applications.  While the original geographic footprint of the Gateway focused on New York’s offshore planning area in the ocean and State’s portion of the Great Lakes, the repository now contains a wide range of geospatial datasets covering the entire State.

The Gateway has datasets  grouped  thematically and made available as map services. All content includes accompanying metadata enabling users to identify which data layers to select and easily consume from within the composite map service.    Perfect for desktop or web client mash-ups and analysis.  The site also includes links, integration, and content with crowdsourced apps.

The Gateway is a must see site having itself apart from other NYS departments in context of building a geospatial data portal with so much functionality and content.  There is a good chance you’ll find content for your GIS project here.

The Gateway data browser has icons for actions that can be taken with desired datasets; download, view in native map viewer, export to Google Earth, information for ingesting as a map service and metadata.

 NYS GIS Clearinghouse

The Clearinghouse was originally implemented in the late 1990s to facilitate statewide data sharing.   For many years it was the defacto #1 portal for all things/files GIS.  The focus being based on formal/written data sharing agreements between government and non-profit organizations. Amazingly in 2021 these agreements are still part of the Clearinghouse administrative structure though it does not get in the way of non-data sharing members – even those from industry and business – from downloading many datasets.  Give credit to those individuals who helped create the original Clearinghouse as it was one of the first of its kind at the time.

Much has changed since the Clearinghouse was initially launched which has impacted the data component of the site.  Time itself, and in this case decades, has proven to be a major challenge.  Publishers have come and gone, numerous retirements and point of contacts no longer exist, and limited metadata and datasets being out-of-date.  It’s a next to impossible to manage and keep most of the data files up-to-date and uniquely different in portals like the Clearinghouse.  Given the new generation of geospatial data portals that  we should expect to continue to emerge (particularly at the local level), the relevancy gap of the Clearinghouse’s data file inventory will likely continue to widen.  To say the least of the role of other similar data and web services available online via other free government and business sites such as The National Map, EPA Envirofacts, and ESRI’s Living Atlas.

The upside is the Clearinghouse is emphasizing and pushing data content  as  web services having placed this “option” at the top of the data catalog list. Seemingly to encourage users to “try this first” before sitting down and mining through the catalog on a file-by-file basis.  Much of the web service content are from the go-to State GIS office program areas (imagery, elevation, addresses, geocoding services, and to a limited degree tax parcels) albeit other state agencies are contributing services as well.   Kudos to the state agencies are keeping their individual file catalogs up-to-date and current albeit as earlier mentioned some of these state agencies are placing data on multiple portals requiring users to search in more than one location.

Instead of performing file based searches, users can access content via map services from a variety of state agencies

Hopefully, the legal shackles of the Clearinghouse data sharing agreement – instituted in the previous century – alone do not continue to influence the long term focus of the Clearinghouse with regard to managing and publishing individual datasets. One day, the statewide geospatial community would probably be better served when all of the remaining relevant  Clearinghouse datasets are consolidated into DATA.NY.US or CUGIR.     And perhaps leave the Clearinghouse to focus just on publishing data as a service with the current capacity it has built.

Municipal Government

NYC Open Data

Another Socrata site, NYC Open Data is the big kid in the statewide open data sandbox with over 3,000 datasets grouped into just five categories available from nearly 100 reporting NYC departments.  In addition to just datasets, the site also includes files, documents, and external links.  So, if you are looking for geospatial data for the NYC geographic footprint this is the place to go.  The site has been around for several years already and is the creation of the  Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics (MODA) and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT). As a hub of analytics in the City, MODA advocates for the use of Open Data in citywide data analytics and in the community.

The NYC Open Data Portal also provides excellent narratives and examples of how geospatial data is used and is critical to the operations of city government.

NYC Open Data exemplifies the use of open data giving rise to a broad user community including organizations such as BetaNYC which hosts events such as the NYC School of Data, Open Data Journeys, various Open Data Classes, and in concert with the Mayor’s Office, the signature NYC Open Data Week – this year March 6 – 14. And data from the portal is routinely used in the NYC BigApps competition.

To fully appreciate how far open data has come in NYC, take a look at the list of publications and reports on this web page which chronicles its growth over the past several years.  And if you need further convincing, take a look at the NYC Open Data Project Gallery.

Go to the site and drive around.   Its worth the ride.

City of Rochester (DataROC)

Cities are great units of geography to build data portals in that their governments often oversee management of all the geographic features and data within the municipal boundary footprint.  Albeit this does vary on occasion with regard to utilities and some infrastructure  Geospatial data is consistent at the city level as government business applications are built and deployed to capture data to the same geographic extent.  As city applications continue to be geo-enabled, and open data initiatives are initiated,  this geofencing of the data provides a consistent geographic extent and a great framework to support a geospatial data portal.

DataROC was launched in 2020 and due to the city’s long time relationship with ESRI and staff who are statisticians and/or business intelligence analysts.   “ESRI’s open data framework was a good fit for the city” according to Kate Day, Chief Performance Officer, Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics & Performance.   Prior to the rollout of DataROC, the city already had both a police data portal and a map gallery of different ESRI tools, so the first major part of DataROC was to bring previously decentralized content together and make it easy to search. GIS staff in the city’s IT department assisted as change champions to make sure that the wider GIS community spread out across the City were aware of what the focus of the portal was to be and drive more traffic to the  work analysts in various department had done over the years.  Currently there are 203 items in the city’s open data catalog containing data files, apps, maps, documents.  If you need geospatial data for a project inside the Rochester footprint, this is the portal to visit and search for data.

DataROC offers easy access to data, applications that feature maps curated for a specific purpose, featuring up-to-date data, and a gallery of web maps to get around the city

With regard to an “example” as how specific governments vet data to their portals, the City of Rochester “publishes anything that is classified as public data / documents / applications that have been requested to be published by an internal or external stakeholder, but only after they have been approved by a Data Governance Committee”.  This committee ensures each dataset is truly for public consumption (essentially that it poses no individual or group harm for being published, that it would not violate any law/regulation to publish, and that the dataset meets quality standards to accurately represent whatever subject is being depicted or summarized).

Other illustrative statewide local government data portals include the City of Buffalo (Open Data Buffalo), City of Albany (openAlbany),  Westchester County (GeoHub), and City of Syracuse (DataCuse).

Academic

Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR)

I’ve always been a huge fan of the CUGIR portal and related program offerings.  Housed in academia and on the fringe of the statewide GIS mainstream, its original homegrown portal was built  and developed in Java in the 1990s.   The current CUGIR portal was launched in January 2018 and  is is built on several modern open-source components.  The front-end interface uses GeoBlacklight — https://geoblacklight.org/  which is a collaborative project being developed by several universities, including NYU, Minnesota, Stanford, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Cornell, and others.  CUGIR has made various customizations, some of which have been incorporated back to the project.

Subjects such as landforms and topography, soils, hydrology, environmental hazards, agricultural activities, wildlife and natural resource management are included  in the CUGIR catalog. All data files are cataloged in accordance with FGDC standards and made available in widely used geospatial data formats.

Behind the scenes, CUGIR uses Solr for searching and faceting (also known as “data filters”).  The site  use GeoServer to access copies of the data in a PostGIS database to generate map previews via publically-accessible WMS/WFS web services for each dataset.  Amazon S3 is used to host all the downloadable data as pre-generated zipfiles, so downloads are quick and reliable. The site uses  Leaflet to display the map on top of a CARTO basemap (which is built from OpenStreetMap data the web viewer.   Maintaining and supporting the site is long-time CUGIR GIS front man, Keith Jenkins.

Today, CUGIR’s datasets total about 15GB.  The total number of “datasets” listed in the catalog is currently 458, which appears much smaller than the nearly 8000 it used to be because in the old system CUGIR had content split up into many smaller downloads to accommodate the bandwidth limitations of the late 1990s and early 2000s.  So to leverage newer technologies and internet speeds, several data series were merged into statewide datasets.  As part of the process, CUGIR also converted old formats like ArcInfo Interchange (.e00) files to shapefiles wherever possible.  As part of the site upgrade, old links which had bookmarked or published were updated as well.  Today, NYS DEC and USDA NRCS have the most CUGIR records with other large catalogs from NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and Cornell Institute for Resource Information Sciences (IRIS).   Data is also available from nearby Tompkins County GIS.   Excellent filtering tools enable users to search data by  several different categories  and download datasets in Shapefile, PDF, or KML format and export to either KMZ or GeoJSON.

CUGIR focuses exclusively on geospatial data which sets it apart from other general sites like DATA.NY.GOV.  The NYS GIS Clearinghouse and the NYS Geographic Information Gateway are more similar to CUGIR with each having their own unique datasets which in some instances can be confusing for someone looking for data and not sure where to look.  Additional CUGIR functionality includes pointing to and maintaining an index map to external datasets such as the National Elevation Dataset (NED).    Jenkins and his CUGIR team hope to build out similar functionality and integration with other Empire State geospatial portals in the future.

 

Geospatial Student Spotlight: Christopher Plummer

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Academic Institution:

The University at Albany, SUNY
Department of Geography and Planning
Pursuing M.S. in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Policy

B.S The College at Brockport, SUNY, Environmental Science and Biology

Research Focus:

Using drones to assess white-tailed deer abundance and habitat preference in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve

Plummer’s overall research goal was to use thermal imaging drones to perform aerial surveys of white tailed deer and associated drone technology to produce an up-to-date habitat assessment of the study area to assess both white-tailed deer abundance and associated habitats. Plummer’s research proposes drones:

  • Offer a faster and lower cost of aerial data capture
  • Can be flown with lower detection from wildlife
  • Can be equipped with thermal sensors to aid in wildlife detection
  • Offer high accuracy population data with robust statistical strength

Study Area and Background:

Located northwest of Albany, the Albany Pine Bush Preserve (APBP) is approximately 3,350 acres supporting a broad variety of habitats highly fragmented by roads developed areas.  Hunting, fishing and trapping are recreational activities that are carefully regulated in the preserve following relevant APBP and New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC)  rules and regulations.

Historically, the monitoring of whitetail deer (WTD) has been difficult to establish due to obtaining reliable abundance estimates as traditional survey methods are normally very work intensive and/or expensive.  In the past such estimates have been done within the preserve with spotlight surveys and camera trap surveys.

(Historically, obtaining reliable abundance estimates of white-tailed deer has been difficult to establish, with more traditional methods being work intensive and/or expensive, and having issues with imperfect deer detection. In the past such estimates have been done within the preserve with spotlight surveys and camera trap surveys. Plummer plans to use the findings from the previous work to help understand how the use of drones compares to the more traditional survey methods.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) technology, more commonly called drones, was chosen as a means to facilitate WTD data collection and analysis in the Preserve.  Specifically, DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual was used for the thermal deer survey while other DJI drones (Phantom 4 and  Insprie 2) were used to help create the orthophoto map.  A MicaSense RedEdge 3 multispectral camera which was attached to one of the drones helped pick up additional reflectance characteristics of varying vegetation types.  This camera has 5 bands, with the two additional bands sensing red edge (~715 nm) and near infrared (~825nm) wavelengths.

Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) and DJI Pilot software was used to develop flight plans over three distinct focus areas in the Preserve.  Multiple flights were made to acquire enough images with sufficient overlap.  Plummer used Agisoft photogrammetry software to generate orthophotos of the study areas.

ENVI software was used to generate a supervised canopy cover classification of the study area.  Plummer was able to classify the entire orthophoto with >95% accuracy into herbaceous/open canopy, deciduous canopy, coniferous canopy, bare ground/no canopy, and developed canopy.  ArcMap 10.6 was used in a variety of ways as well as R-Studio and Microsoft Excel for data analysis.

Three flight plans in Blueberry Hill East and West and the Kaikout Kill Barrens

The research team flew a total of 34 surveys between March 9th and May 22nd 2020 with all flights occurring within 1 hour of sunrise collecting over 950GB of imagery files.  A total of 405 deer were spotted and identified in 143 unique locations.

Silhouettes of five deer as seen through Plummer’s use of thermal imaging photography

Project Findings

Plummer’s initial calculated observed average density of 13 deer per sq. km is unlikely to be uniform over the entire Preserve due to varying  landscape dynamics and various habitat types. The abundance within their study area varied widely over time, which Plummer suggests  is explained by daily movements made by individual groups into the nearby residential areas.  With regards to habitats, deer were more frequently found in the following areas of the Preserve:  (1) areas of recent timber harvest, (2) Pitch Pine cover and in the pitch-pine scrub oak barrens, (3) areas with significant dune activity, and (4) close to the edge of Preserve boundaries. He believes this new method for assessing white-tailed deer abundance has high potential in the wildlife monitoring space and hopes  his findings about deer within the Preserve will help generate well informed deer management decisions.

Plummer generated a habitat classification map based on the percent of each canopy type within a 50m x 50m grid covering the entire study area. The Pitch Pine Dominant Forest habitat along the southern border of the Preserve was one of the areas with the highest WTD counts.

Actual WTD observed during any given survey varied over time. Over the near three month data collection period in early 2020, WTD observation counts ranged from 1 to 30

Summary

Plummer’s SUNY Albany graduate work suggests that thermal drones are a viable tool to assess WTD population dynamics and can generate reliable abundance estimates.  Drone deployment provides the ability to survey large geographic areas in a small amount of time and a cost effective manner.  Results show that deer use a variety of habitat types in the Preserve and numbers at any one location varies temporally.  A detailed video presentation Chris made outlining his work to the members of the APBP is available here on YouTube.

Post-graduate work, Plummer would welcome the opportunity to work for an agency such as U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service or NYSDEC Division of Fish and Wildlife. He’s not opposed to going back to school for a PhD but not anything immediately.  He is also very interested in public policy related to climate change and sustainability.

Contact:

Chris Plummer
Graduate Student
University of Albany
Geography and Planning
ccplummer@albany.edu

Dr. Alexander Buyantuev
Associate Professor
University at Albany
Geography and Planning
http://www.albany.edu/gp/Buyantuev.php

MGRS Mapper: Software for Military Operations Mapping

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Program built and designed by Rochester area New York Army National Guard member

While serving in a Joint Multinational Training Group in Ukraine (JMTG-U) in 2018 along with other NATO nation soldiers, New York Army National Guard CPT James Pistell, a Rochester resident, was using a website to make operations graphics as they planned training operations while training Ukrainian soldiers and battle staffs. A self-taught software web developer in civilian life, Pistell felt the website was outdated, had limited functionality, and believed he could build a much better version based on his military in-field service and programming skills.

Pistell makes available both free and subscription-based versions of MGRS-Mapper. The web site landing page provides access to the free version enabling site visitors to see samples of the military symbology and easy-to-use drag and drop functionality

Upon his return to the states,  leaving his full-time job in marketing and dedicating over a year of full-time development work,  Pistell released MGRS-Mapper (MGRS for Military Grid Reference System) in late 2018.  (The MGRS overlay is based on standard Grid Zone Designator intervals commonly found on military installation maps using the NAD 83/WGS 84 industry standard).  

Developed entirely with JavaScript the application enables users to easily overlay the MGRS grid atop of a Google base map (other base maps are available as well) and provides Premium users access to the latest standard in military symbols as part of  ADP 1-02 (Army Doctrine Publication) which contains over 737 unique symbols used by many branches of the military. This set includes all Land Forces, Equipment, Activities, Graphic Control Measures, Tactical Mission Tasks, Installations, Supplies, Command Posts, Civilian Authorities, Sea Units, Air Units and Sustainment.  Definitely not the same symbol sets the GIS community is accustomed to using in making land use and environmental maps albeit interesting nonetheless!

Premium Version

With access to the premium version I was able to build, if only an introductory amateur version at best, a CONOP (Concept of Operation) map.  Using symbols compliant with ADP 1-02, I’ve mapped out a National Guard training program in the area of Ft. Drum showing the locations of friendly (blue symbology) platoons and infantry, armored tank units, and field artillery. Red colored symbols, or hostile resources, identifying the locations of infantry and artillery units. Also included in the map show the locations target reference points (black crosses), check points on the western edge of Ft. Drum along Route 11 and a larger blue symbol in the southwestern part of the map to highlight a National Guard Command Post.  The symbol circled in green in the middle of the map is an Amnesty Point. Hundreds of other military symbols are available for the user.

The horizontal toolbar on the left side of the application provides the user with the capabilities of taking a screen snapshot (camera icon) and saving as a .png to be downloaded and emailed to another user, printed out as a handout, or embedded in slides.

Users can click on any symbol on the map and drag it to your preferred location. From there you can rotate, resize, invert, scale up or scale the symbol down.

Pistell is currently working on several enhancements to the application including allowing Premium mobile users to cache maps on their device for use in places with limited internet connection, porting the application for use on both Apple iOS and Android devices, and the ability to share live links of user maps for live map scenario collaboration.  MGRS Mapper also offers certain organizations a large discount on team accounts including Volunteer Search and Rescue Teams, Volunteer Fire Departments, ROTC Battalions, U.S. Military elements at section level or above, as well as any  organization that relies primarily on volunteers.

MGRS Mapper allows users to find locations by either typing in an address or inputting a valid MGRS grid coordinate as well offering several easily accessible and open source base maps including OpenStreetMaps (shown below), National Geographic, ArcGIS, Stamen (black & white) and OpenStreetMap.

Pistell notes he has about 225 active subscriptions with many in military (Army).  He also includes on the list the Panamanian National Guard, Californai Search and Rescue Team, and numerous civilians who are military trainers.  “It’s incredibly rewarding to see individuals and organizations using a software program that you’ve written all the code for and built from scratch”, he says.  Continuing he notes “ this all started with my experience overseas and wanting military leaders and colleagues to make training maps and apply the same principals to organizations stateside.”

It would appear with the release of MGRS Mapper that Pistell is fulfilling that vision.

He currently serves as Cyber Network Defense Manager for the 173rd Cyber Protection Team in the New York Army National Guard.  

Contact:

CPT James Pistell
MGRS-Mapper
admin@mgrs-mapper.com

Geospatial Business Spotlight: Adirondack Research

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Location:                      Saranac Lake, New York

Website:                       https://www.adkres.org

Employees:                  3 Full-Time / 6 Seasonal

Established:                 2012

The Company

Adirondack Research is a small business located in Saranac Lake which focuses on building expert-backed and science based geospatial solutions.  Currently the firm’s primary focus is on applications and work involving invasive species, climate change, and socio-economics.  Adirondack Research staff includes GIS specialists, web developers, and field technicians and the company produces a retail line of recreation and way-finding maps under the brand Green Goat Maps.

Geospatial software used inside the company  includes ArcGIS Pro on the desktop and ArcGIS Online for a variety of web maps and viewers.  Field data collection is also supported by ESRI tools including Collector and Survey123.  For hardcopy map production both, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign are used.

Adirondack Research’s Director is Ezra Schwartzberg who received his undergraduate degree from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF),  graduate degree from University of Kentucky, a doctorate in Entomology  from Penn State and additional post-doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin.

To date,  Adirondack Research clients include the U.S. Forest Service, Adirondack Council, Lake Placid Land Conservancy, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S. Department of Agriculture, ADK Action, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation which it has contracted for several invasive species projects, and others.   While most of Adirondack Research’s work is focused in New York State and across New England, their work has taken the firm to Lebanon as well as assisting to the development of a science curriculum for elementary schools in China.

Geospatial Products and Services

  • Environmental mapping using geographic information systems (GIS)
  • Biological inventories
  • Field experiment logistics
  • Ecosystem services assessment
  • Long-term ecosystem monitoring
  • Invasive pest management planning and analysis
  • Comprehensive management plans
  • Public outreach and stakeholder engagement
  • Citizen science
  • Grant writing
  • Expert witness testimony

Schwartzberg uses research expertise to guide processes, including program design, data analysis and project evaluation.  By combining ecological research with print and digital media, Adirondack Research is able to communicate science to help our clients reach their policy goals.

Illustrative projects include:

Surveying Adirondack Lakes for Invasive Species

Over the past several summer field seasons of 2018 – 2020, Adirondack Research was contracted by the Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP) to survey lakes throughout the Adirondacks.  Data collected during these surveys was used to produce individualized lake maps of aquatic invasive species (AIS) distribution. Objectives for these efforts were twofold:

  1. Detect and delineate any new or existing invasive plant or animal infestations within prioritized lakes.
  2. Utilize a Lowrance ELITE-7Ti fishfinder to map the vegetation beds, contour lines and bottom substrate hardness of a select set of those lakes as a way to gather important data on plant distribution and other physical parameters that influence aquatic plant invasion.

In 2018, Courtney Pond in Essex County was the first year this pond was surveyed and no AIS  detected.

Mapping invasive plant beds is accomplished using a suite of software and hardware tools including GPS, sonar detecting units, C-Map by BioBase, and ArcGIS Pro.  Data from sonar units such as Lawrance Fishfinders can be translated using third party software platforms, including C-Map BioBase and ReefMaster into a format which can be interpolated with ArcGIS Pro to create visualizations of the lake bottom.  This enables staff to assess exactly where an AIS infestation is located within a larger bed of native plants and useful overtime to monitor AIS beds and their spread.  Raster layers generated as part of the work flow are then used to generate maps in ArcGIS Pro and Adobe Illustrator for final reports.  The 2019 report is complete with maps of all lakes or ponds surveyed and can be downloaded here.

Additional information on this and similar Adirondack Research invasive species projects, visit this page.

Lake Placid & Saranac Lake Winter Trails Map

While Adirondack Research makes maps for a variety of purposes to support  geospatial analysis,  ecological species distributions and for land acquisition and conservation easements, the firm also produces a line of recreation and way-finding maps under the brand Green Goat Maps.

As part of this effort, Green Goat Maps emphasizes responsible recreation and environmental stewardship by partnering with organizations to promote principles like Leave No Trace.  Maps also make reference to the proper etiquette for publicly accessible trails, how to prevent the spread of invasive species, and information and regulations specific to the areas covered in each map. Green Goat Maps has  partnered with organizations such as Barkeater Trails Alliance, the Adirondack Land Trust, and The Nature Conservancy Adirondacks in these efforts.

One example of a Green Goat map is the region’s “go-to” map for winter recreation – The Lake Placid and Saranac Lake Winter Trails Map  – which offers all of the area cross country ski, snowshoe and fat bike trails in one document.  The map highlights the Jackrabbit Ski Trail and covers ski trails from Paul Smiths to Wilmington including the popular Hayes Brook Truck Trail, Deer Pond Trails, Moose Pond Trail, Brewster Peninsula Trails, Henry’s Woods, Heaven Hill and more.  The map also includes commercial ski centers, including the Paul Smith’s College VIC, Dewey Mountain Recreation Center, Cascade X-C Ski Center and Mt. Van Hoevenberg.  For the Winter Trails Map, Adirondack Research also added trails on private and municipal land with permissions well as adding gates and parking areas which were mapped from ground research. The top banner on each map inset also shows info about what activities people can do on each individual trail network

Additionally, Green Goat gives 1% back on the sale of its maps to nonprofits through 1% for the Planet.

For more  information on this and similar Green Goat Maps products, visit this page.

Mapping Broadband Infrastructure for Essex County

A current project Adirondack Research is working on is with Essex County (as well as four other counties) and local community leaders towards designing and implementing web mapping  visualization tools which will help support and guide expanded broadband installation across the County.   These easy-to-use geospatial tools are intended to be used by local officials in multiple governments to pinpoint gaps in infrastructure coverage. Other aspects of the project include mapping the boundaries of current broadband contracts with providers across the County, checking and verifying property addresses, and performing quality assurance on plan of record build-outs.

Broadband is only available is specific areas of Essex County. Mapping at the street level by Adirondack Research will enable government officials to work with broadband providers to expand coverage.

Contact:

Ezra Schwartzberg, PhD
Adirondack Research
73 Church St
Saranac Lake, NY 12983
www.akdres.org

D.I.Y MS4: Erie County

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The County’s Homegrown Application Provides Mapping and Data Collection Support to the Multi-Agency Western New York Stormwater Coalition

While the  Municipal Stormwater Sewer System (MS4) regulatory program may be taking a back seat in focus to COVID-19 across Empire State governments in 2020, compliance efforts nonetheless continue in the background.  The DEC program has seen governments responding to meet annual submission requirements in a variety of ways ranging from full vendor supported solutions, hybrid approaches of using in-house resources and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products, while others have built the solution totally in-house.  Aka Do-it-Yourself (DIY).

One such MS4 DIY organization is Erie County which provides administrative and technical support to the Western New York Stormwater Coalition (WNYSC) which has a broad geographic footprint.  Erie County took the stormwater management regional lead in western New York in 1999 when it became apparent both Erie and Niagara Counties would be required to come in compliance with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Phase II Stormwater requirements. Recognizing much of the MS4 General Permit was general in context of most permit requirements being the same for all governments, the Coalition was created in 2003 as a means to share work such as public education and outreach, development of policies and procedures, employee training – and mapping.  While the Coalition is not an official Erie County government agency, it is housed administratively inside County offices.

Erie County MS4 Support 

Initial development of the program started in 2012 by the current Director of Erie County’s Office of GIS, Lisa Matthies-Wiza, who was part of a team that designed databases, field applications, and quality assurance plans to manage data collection.  This was facilitated through a series of grants through NYSDEC and partnerships with Erie County and Buffalo State College provided to the Coalition.

More recently, support to the Coalition’s MS4 compliance efforts has been Michael Ruffino who came to the County in March of 2019.  Prior to Erie County, he had experience in the use of ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Survey123 and Collector in Chautauqua County where he was able to incorporate similar apps for the environmental health department septic systems and water supply inspections.  Currently Erie County hosts all of the GIS data and hardware/software infrastructure for the entire WNYSC program.

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Focus on Hudson River Flooding Impacts

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Online Application Provides Tools and Data for Communities at Risk Along the Hudson River

Background

The Hudson River Flood Impact Decision Support System (HRFIDSS) is an online mapping application as well as a collection of geospatial products and data which illustrate the scale of potential flooding for tidally-affected shorelines of the Hudson River Valley and Westchester County coastal communities. In all, the viewer covers the shoreline communities in 11 counties in the region.  Developed by researchers from Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Stevens Institute of Technology, and the Columbia Water Center, the application enables individual residents, community groups as well as municipal and regional planners to evaluate risk based on potential outcomes, and to determine the impact on and effect of social vulnerability, natural resilience, and critical infrastructure.

The tool also provides downloadable estimates of flooding impacts, including affected population and critical infrastructure, and cost estimates of building damage.  It is further enhanced by including hydrological models which expands the flooding impacts to include storm tides/storm intensity and the contributions of river tributaries and streams.

The Hudson River Flood Impact Decision Support System helps address the growing interest across all levels of government in the New York region towards developing better forecasting capabilities and a better understanding of flood probabilities under a variety of sea level rise and storm frequency scenarios.

The application was developed using OpenLayers.  Critical infrastructure data is housed in a relational PostGIS database which are served as a Web Feature Service (WFS) using Geoserver.  Flood layers are raster data published from an ArcGIS Server at CIESIN while supporting imagery layers are consumed from New York State.

Impact Assessments

In addition to a variety of unique mapping tools, one of key features of the application is the generation of “Impact Assessments”.  These are generated by application flood maps using a combination of historical and synthetic flood events which include water depth, surge, rainfall, and  sea level rise scenarios of 0″, 6″, 12″, 18″, 24″, 30″, 36″, 48″, 60″, 72″ as well as 5-year through 1000-year flood zones.  Flood scenarios presented in the mapping tool are accompanied by a set of impact estimates at the local level. These are divided into three themes: critical infrastructure, social vulnerability, and natural resilience features.
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Green Map 2020: Evolving with Technology and Staying Community Focused

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For nearly 30 years, Green Map has been an anchor in the Metro NYC nonprofit mapping community.  Led by its original founder, Wendy Brawer, Green Map’s portfolio of work and advocacy in locally-led mapping and sustainability efforts is quite impressive.  Since the launch of the Green Map System by Wendy Brawer in 1995 and publication of the original Green Map of NYC through her eco-design company, the program’s engagement tools and mapping resources have been adapted by locally-led projects in 65 countries.   Many joined the Green Map network when Greenhouse – their first content-managed website – was activated in 2007.   The site grew to become a rich resource highlighting community developed mapping work in all parts of the world.

While “green” mapping was one of its early defining products and focus,  the organization has expanded its services to include interactive web mapping, education, multimedia, event coordination, workshops, tours, planning and consulting, and creating software development tools.

 

Community Engagement Maps and Tools

Green Map’s award-winning icons, tools, platform(s) and tutorials help create engaging and visually powerful mapping content used as guides for local nature, culture, community living, social justice and resources for sustainable living. In addition to providing tools and tutorials on making maps, Green Map promotes their mapping efforts as part of Project Stories.  Project Stories are locally written and use tags to categorize the story type, theme, and purpose. Users can  discover how Green Map projects were created, people and organizations involved and about the project’s impact on their community.   Green Map projects are tagged and can be searched as part of the following 11 categories:

Besides its own mapping platform (with version 2 of the Open Green Map now in beta), the program also offers suggestions and tutorials on how to promote the use of the Green Map icons in other interactive mapping platforms such as ArcGIS Online (Story Maps), CARTO, Google Maps, Google Earth, and the Map of Tomorrow.

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COVID Era Geospatial Applications to Support Empire State Communities

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Here in southeastern New York State, it’s amazing how fast the COVID wave came and went. At first, mid-March to mid-May seemed like an eternity, but now, not so much.  I likened the preparation for COVID to preparing for Super Storm Sandy.  Albeit phenomenally different, the buildup and the anxiety of waiting for it to show up.  Peering out the windows to see the outcome of a completely different kind of damage and suffering  altogether.  Physical and psychological.  Now July, it seems and feels like we can see the first wave of the pandemic in the rear view mirror.  But then as we refocus on the road in front of us, we know there are speed bumps ahead of us.  Not if, but when.

There were a plethora of interesting and meaningful geospatial viewers created across the state during the mid-March to mid-May time frame.  Most included highlighting COVID case numbers by larger units of geography (municipal or zip code boundaries),  generalized heat or pattern maps, impacts to businesses and institutions, as well as  information on hotlines and sources of assistance.  However, its pretty well documented the geospatial community across the state has struggled with being part of providing detailed spatial analysis or mapping support functions at the address level.   Or for that matter, even being asked to participate in this regard.

Personal health related data is uber protected with its use regulated and governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).  HIPPA  regulations reign supreme and contributed to a lesser involvement of GIS analysts in  providing geospatial content, metrics and analytics during the pandemic.  There is also the unspoken reluctance on the part of the public health community to release data sets  which might be difficult to understand or easily misinterpreted by the general public.  Department of Health  professionals often cautious to release data – particularly in new instances such as the COVID pandemic – and leaving analysis/interpretation  to internal professional staff only.  Ultimately though,  releasing some flavor of the data but in a more generalized context.

NYS Department of Health (DOH)  COVID-19 reporting has improved dramatically since the pandemic appeared in March.  Though while numbers  are made available only on a county basis, users can access and visualize the data in a variety of ways.  Reporting and posting of the data has become much more timely.  DOH is also now publishing a regional “Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard“.

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Google Earth in the Classrooms

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Chromebooks, Google Classroom and Google Earth Together Provide a Framework for Teaching Geography and many other subjects in K-12

I actually started drafting an article on Google Earth in the classroom last fall but since then it’s been one thing or another pushing things to the back burner.  Mostly work priorities but then COVID-19 sent everything sideways.  Seemingly pointing us all in a new and uncharted direction.  A new and greater reliance on the internet as many of us found ourselves working remotely.

The remote work force in many of our extended families includes teachers of whom I now have even greater respect after watching what is involved in teaching remotely and online.  The lesson plans, prep work, surgically attached to the computer, and the seemingly endless hours of the encompassing interaction with students – and parents – well beyond the normal eight-hour work day.

In a roundabout way watching this teaching workflow unfold during the COVID lockdown brought me back to the Google Earth article.  Google’s presence in the classroom is ubiquitous built around Google Classroom which I can only imagine will grow immensely as remote K-12 education expands in the future.  Wrapped in with kabillons of lesson plans, templates, covering every education topic, discussion groups, forums, and blogs from around the world – everything built on top of Google technology.  Easily delivered and made available to the masses at all levels of the educational spectrum with the uber cheap and incredibly functional Google Chomebook.  (btw – using one as I type).   And easily accessible within this framework – and bringing me back to the beginning of this article – is the Google Earth product for use in the classroom.  It’s an incredible product to augment K-12 classroom teaching and not just for geography.

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10 Questions: Larry Spraker

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My guess the name Larry Spraker doesn’t need much of an introduction across the New York State and New England GIS landscape.   His work and contributions since the late 1980s to the geospatial community are many and have included efforts from academia, government, and for many years the private sector.  As well as a ton of volunteer work with GIS user groups and the like. It has been an privilege crossing paths with him in so many ways over the years.  

So depending on the time of day, I recommend grabbing your favorite beverage, pull up a chair and continue reading.  There’s a lot here.  And after you are done, close your eyes and envision Mr. Spraker in another time or comos. Or, as the immortal Rod Sterling would say on the Twilight Zone “Another Dimension”.  Under the bright lights, behind the desk, and waving his hands fevorishly.  Yup, that’s him in his new gig – performing his best Chris Berman “Swami Sez” imitation as he hosts the 6PM ESPN SportsCenter broadcast.

Enjoy.

eSpatiallyNewYork:  Let’s start from the beginning.   The Albany-area boy goes to SUNY Albany for undergraduate and then on to Indiana State for graduate work.  How and when did geography become your educational and professional focus? 

Spraker:  I originally went to UAlbany as a Communications major with aspirations to be a sportswriter. After realizing that was a tough gig that didn’t pay particularly well (at least back in the early 80’s), someone recommended Computer Science. After a few courses, I really liked programming, but hated the high-end math courses such as Calculus and Differential Equations. A minor in Computer Science didn’t require the math courses, so I went to my advisor and asked “What would be a good major with a Computer Science minor?”. He listed a number of majors that included Physics, Math, and the last one he mentioned was Geography. I had already taken 6 credits in Geography as electives, so I asked for more details and somehow this guy had a fair bit of knowledge in this area and explained just enough of cartography, GIS and remote sensing to pique my interest. I registered for Intro to Cartography and Intro to Remote Sensing the next semester and fell in love with the both courses, and quickly found my new major. I focused primarily in Remote Sensing as an undergrad, and my professor, Floyd Henderson, really encouraged me to go graduate school. At the time Indiana State University was a leading remote sensing program, having the first remote terminals into the mainframe computers at Purdue which was the state of the art for image processing software. Floyd knew the professors at ISU, wrote me a recommendation and helped me get a Research Assistantship, so I packed up my car with everything I owned and drove to Terre Haute, Indiana for 2 years and finished my Masters. Although I focused a lot on Remote Sensing, I got exposed to a lot of GIS as well, and by the end of grad school had really got the GIS bug.

As an aside, after I graduated from ISU and came back to the Capital District, Floyd called me and asked me if I would teach his Intro to Remote Sensing and Aerial Photo Interpretation classes while he was away on sabbatical that year. So I returned to SUNY Albany as an adjunct professor and taught his classes that year. When Floyd returned, I stayed on as an adjunct faculty member and transitioned to developing and teaching several GIS courses. I really enjoyed working with the students and ended up teaching at SUNY Albany for 17 years.

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