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NYC H2O: Advocating Cleaner Water through StoryMaps

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NYC-based nonprofit has developed extensive portfolio of educational products for all ages and settings

StoryMaps are such a great communication tool.  Turning geographic and location-based features and concepts into an easy-to-understand medium for the much broader audience which help identify key community resources, assets and experiences that can inform planning and policy-making.  By combining narrative text and other multimedia content with Geographic Information System (GIS) maps and data, story maps serve as an effective means of helping residents and developers visualize and understand projects with greater clarity.  Increasingly becoming an art form unto itself.  Broadly and increasingly used across the geospatial spectrum from the industry-leading ESRI StoryMaps platform  to say the least of the versions being offered by others in the geospatial space including Google Earth, CARTO, or Tableau. 

I’m sure its not the first time Story Map subject matter has found its way to be included in a more technical oriented conference, but I was nonetheless interested, if not surprised, to see a presentation by NYC H2O at the recent the September 9th New York City Watershed Science and Technical Conference.   A conference historically the home for geospatial-based technical and scientific presentations by engineers, biologists, and others in the water science disciplines, NYC H2O’s presentation was entitled “Engaging an Urban Population With Water Engineering Utilizing a Virtual GIS Platform in the Pandemic Era”.

Having received its nonprofit 501(c)(3) designation in May, 2012, such work is not new to NYC H2O as it has built a niche in the environmental education space using the Story Map platform as its primary teaching and outreach tool. Story Maps augment and support their mission to “inspire and educate New Yorkers of all ages to learn about, enjoy and protect their city’s local water ecology.  Since 2009, NYC H2O has offered over 120 educational programs focused on NYC’s water system and ecology to a combined audience of 4,000 people.  Their StoryMaps often incorporate  digitized historic maps, photographs, videos, and social narratives to tell the story of water‐related  infrastructure.

A couple of NYC H20’s StoryMaps in the water sciences and environmental space include:

Water Systems Overview

I’ve often heard the New York City aqueduct system referred to as the “eight wonder of the world”.   Maybe not as sexy and visible as the Great Pyramid but an incredible engineering marvel nonetheless.  Conceived, designed and built in another era to support the drinking water lifeline of the city. 

NYC receives 90% of its water from the Delaware and Catskill Watersheds. Aqueducts (red line work) transports the fresh water from a series of reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains over 100-miles from the city.

Fitting that the first StoryMap posted by NYC H2O on their “Hub” website is entitled  Water Systems Overview outlining and showing the many geographies of the system which originates in the Catskills Region.  An interactive StoryMap highlighting the major aqueduct systems (Catskill and Delaware – named for the watersheds where the water is collected), as well as the individual reservoirs both upstate and those in the city.  Household water consumption stats are also included in the StoryMap as well as several interactive learning activities as illustrated in the application toolbar below.  Included in the Site Specific Lessons is a StoryMap just for High Bridge and the Jerome Park Reservoir.

Sewer System and Stormwater Management

This StoryMap, focusing on the relationship between storm water and sanitary sewage, and its overall impact on water quality in the metropolitan region has lots more maps and associated data.

Beginning in 1850, NYC laid 70 miles of sewers, or underground pipes that carried away wastewater.   Today the city has over 7,400 miles of sewer pipes. These pipes move wastewater with the help of 95 pumping stations to 14 sewage treatment plants located in all five boroughs.  Each day, NYC wastewater treatment plants process, or “clean”, a total of 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater.   Produceing about 1,400 tons, or 60 truckloads, of biosolids!

The city maintains 14 sewage treatment plants covering the five boroughs. Treated sewage effluent is discharged into the Hudson and East Rivers and Long Island Sound.

About 60% of New York City’s sewer system is a combined sewer system. This means that one single pipe carries both stormwater runoff AND sewage from city buildings.  During heavy rainstorms, combined sewers systems receive more stormwater runoff and sewage. Wastewater Treatment plants have a capacity, or a limit, to how much water they can clean. When there is more water than the capacity, a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage empties directly into the City’s surrounding waterways. These wet weather events are called combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

The presence of combined sewers are still very prevalent in the metropolitan region with the majority emptying into the East River and the east side of the Hudson River.

Also central to the long term management of clean water – are government regulated programs entitled Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) programs.  In populated areas many neighborhoods, including in New York city, as well as industrial areas along coasts, have deployed MS4 programs.  A MS4 has one set of pipes that transports sewage to sewage treatment plants and another set of pipes that transports stormwater directly to local waterways.   Unfortunately, many pollutants (like oil, trash, pet waste, pesticides, and fertilizers from lawns) are washed into this system when it rains. MS4 helps solve one problem (CSOs and sewage in the local waterways) but causes a similar, although smaller, problem since trash and pollution can still enter the local waterways when it rains.

Currently, only about 40% of the NYC footprint is covered by an MS4.

As it relates to the collection of data for the purposes of monitoring citywide water quality, this StoryMap also includes interesting map displays of both fecal coliform (1985-2017) and dissolved oxygen (1909-2017) testing.

Summary:

It’s nice to see as part of such advocacy efforts the use of open data sets and geographic content as made available by government agencies and data portals.  Much of which is included in many of the 21 StoryMaps listed on the NYC H2O HUB.

“StoryMaps allowed us to keep students engaged in learning about their local water issues throughout the challenges of the pandemic. The tool has been so popular with schools that this year we launched a curriculum introducing GIS and StoryMaps to several environmental science and environmental justice in high school classrooms”, notes Kevin Barrett who guides NYC H2O’s mapping instruction.

With regard to the September 9th New York City Watershed Science and Technical Conference, Stalin Espinal, School Program Manager for NYC H2O adds “The conference gave us the opportunity to share our work and programs to a community of our peers. We were delighted to have received such enthusiasm and interest in our work with GIS and StoryMaps.  Even resulting in a new StoryMap collaboration in partnership with the Watershed Agriculture Council (WAC) which works with local farms on and around the upstate New York City watershed to promote Best-Practices and make improvements that help protect the water quality of our drinking water.”

Contact:

Kevin Barnett
GIS Education/Project Manager
kevin@nych2o.org
www.nych2o.org

Geospatial Science Education at the U.S. Military Academy

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While academic institutions across the State of New York offer rich and diverse geospatial educations at the graduate, undergraduate, associate, and increasingly certificate programs levels, one location offers a unique and phenomenally different perspective on application of GIS and geospatial technology:  The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Over the past several years I’ve had ancillary introductions to the geospatial program at the U.S. Military Academy, albeit it was greatly broaden after a presentation by West Point instructors at our May 2016 Westchester GIS User Group meeting at Purchase College.  It was here conference attendees were fortunate enough to see a video – accompanied by the display of an actual device  – on how drone technology was being introduced and taught in the Military Academy classroom environment.  Since then I continued conversation with staff from the Geospatial Science Program in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and was recently invited to attend a Computer Cartography classroom lecture earlier this month with instructor  Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Jared L. Ware.

Instructor LTC Jared Ware leading a classroom lecture in his Fall 2017 Computer Cartography class

Teaching and Classroom Environment

The U.S. Military Academy is an internationally recognized institution for combined academic and military excellence. West Point offers cadets a bachelor of science degree in GIS, and the graduates go on to serve in the armed services as well as various positions in the public and private sectors.  Graduates are posted to installations across the USA and the world.  There is no specific place graduates specializing in geospatial technology move on to as they have a choice based on their preferences for a military branch or a priority installation.  Some will have the opportunity as junior officers to serve at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency focusing on military intelligence while others will apply the technology in more traditional applications with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  Understandably, the program also focuses on the utilization of geospatial technologies – including GPS, satellite imagery, real-time force tracking, sensor integration, and massive geographic databases – for use on the military battlefield.  The Army also provides geospatial support in a wide range of humanitarian relief efforts such as those currently ongoing in response to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.  The efforts, as well as other Army geospatial products and services are highlighted on the Army Geospatial Center website:

GIS instructors at the Military Academy use a suite of software including  ESRI, ENVI and ERDAS as the primary GIS software, along with Socet Set and Trimble for survey and photogrammetry.  There are plans to begin building additional capacity with Open Source software such as QGIS as the Army is increasingly seeing this software being used in developing countries.  And as a result, needs military personnel trained in the software to collaborate and work with local users.  For Fall2017, the Geospatial Program has 60 declared GIS Majors which includes sophomores, juniors, and seniors.  This major requires the completion of a 26-core course  curriculum augmented with a wide range of electives many of which are similar to other traditional academic coursework offerings such as Urban Geography, Water Resources Planning and Design, and Principles of Land Use Planning and Management.  There are additional 80 students taking GIS-related courses from other academic majors from the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering including Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, and Geography which use GIS coursework as an elective.  The newly created Space Science major is anticipated to have a significant GIS/geospatial focus as well.

With regard to their approach in teaching geospatial science at the Academy, Instructor LTC Ware notes:

“We want cadets to understand the theoretical and applied aspects of geospatial information science.  Our program provides a comprehensive grounding in the theory of academic disciplines such as geographic information systems, photogrammetry, remote sensing, and surveying.  Our program also challenges cadets to understand applications that are developed and derived from the theory, and we use systems (mainly hardware and software) to allow cadets to create their own products and learn from a hand’s on approach.  We want our students to be intelligent in the science so they can solve problems should applications not exist, or they can easily troubleshoot existing systems and reach a solution.  As an example, we want cadets to understand the hardware and software, how the hardware and software works, and the theoretical underpinnings so as technology changes, they can adapt with it.  We also adapt our academic courses as theories and applications evolve, and we are currently exploring data visualization so we can be at the forefront of new ideas and new technologies.”

Drone technology is becoming an important teaching tool in many areas of the Military Academy curriculum and LTC Ware and his colleagues have been very proactive in utilizing drone technology in the Geospatial Science Program.  An excellent overview of the development of drones at West Point appears in the November 2016 edition of the Commercial UAV News.

Drone map products developed by cadets for Range 11 at the U.S. Military Academy

The Military Academy’s Geospatial Information Science major is accredited by the United States Geospatial-Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) which developed the GEOINT Certification Program.  The GEOINT certificate provides a foundation on which GEOINT professionals can certify the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for successfully meeting the duties and responsibilities within the multi-faceted GEOINT tradecraft.  With this accreditation from USGIF, the Military Academy can offer students GEOINT certificates accompanying their college degree.  (In previous blog posts I’ve referenced in the head-to-head GISP vs. GEOINT certificate match-up, i.e., which might be better for the NYS GIS professional, my vote goes to GEOINT due to the large – and growing – drone research and development industry here in the Empire State.)   Additionally, in 2015, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) selected the US Military Academy to be one of the academic institutions included in the Centers of Academic Excellence in Geospatial Sciences program.

Hudson Highlands Land Trust (HHLT)

Its always interesting to learn about an organization’s work outside of the day-to-day norm.  Maybe, and often, in context of a contribution to the larger good.  Such was the case as I was exiting my time on campus with LTC Ware when he mentioned a cadet’s volunteer summer work with the Hudson Highlands Land Trust (HHLT) across the Hudson River in Putnam County.  I reached out to HHLT Conservation Stewardship Manager, Nicole Wooten to find out more about the project and its outcome.  She replied:

“Working with West Point LTC Ware and Cadet John Stabler to map the current trail system on Hudson Highlands Land Trust’s new Granite Mountain Preserve was a great experience and partnership that benefited both the Land Trust and the community of Putnam Valley.  Under LTC Ware’s guidance, Cadet Stabler gained real, immediately-applicable GIS skills.  His work took place both in the computer lab and in the field, combining aerial imagery and prediction with on-the-ground proofing.  He really dedicated himself to the project, going above and beyond to generate data on not only existing recreational trails, but also historic stonewalls and important natural features.  The Land Trust is now using that data to plan the best possible trail system for Granite Mountain Preserve.  We are grateful for LTC Ware’s and Cadet Stabler’s work, and look forward to continuing this great partnership.”

U.S. Military Academy cadet John Stabler with Nicole Wooten (L) and Hudson Highland Land Trust Executive Director, Michelle Smith (R).

Summary

While the theoretical geospatial concepts are similar to that in civilian applications, the final applied use of geospatial technology, as taught at the U.S. Military Academy, is often uniquely different.  Most notably is in the defense of our country and allies.   The Empire State’s higher education academic geospatial offerings are indeed very diverse and continue to contribute to the development and evolution of the technology.

For information contact Lieutenant Colonel Jared Ware, Assistant Professor in the Geospatial Information Science Program, at Jared.Ware@usma.edu.