Understanding the Evolving Direction of the GIS Community

According to Josh Murphy from the NOAA Coastal Services Center, the migration of GIS from the desktop to the web has been the most critical advancement in geospatial technologies in recent years. The following Q&A pinpoints the various advancements in GIS capabilities, challenges to this, and how the industry is addressing the need of an expanding GIS arena while meeting the demands of an increasingly precision driven field Pinpoint the various advancements in GIS capabilities in recent times and how they’ve contributed to mission critical operations The mission of the NOAA Coastal Services Center is to support the environmental, social, and economic well-being of the coast by linking people, information, and technology. We primarily use geospatial information, delivered through our Digital Coast platform, to facilitate this linkage. In recent years, the most critical advancement in geospatial technologies has been the migration of GIS from the desktop to the web. This shift has enabled many more of our partners and constituents to integrate geospatial information into their missions by removing barriers to entry. Where once costly investments in hardware, software, and specialized training for staff were necessary for GIS implementation; now only a web browser and internet connection are needed. As more of our user community has made the shift to web-based GIS, we’ve responded by focusing a vast majority of our software development to internet mapping applications and map services. Our Digital Coast Data Access Viewer was developed to provide user-driven access to one of the largest repositories of coastal lidar in the nation. Our Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) Land Cover Atlas tool was developed to provide land cover change analysis capabilities through the web. And we’ve recently released the Digital Coast Data Registry to facilitate access to coastal data through web mapping services. As we look to the future, we see the expansion of web-based GIS from traditional computers to mobile devices as the next major advancement in GIS. [eventPDF] What are your major GIS challenges being faced at the NOAA Coastal Services Center… In order to fulfill our mission, we’ve adopted a user-driven and application-focused approach. This presents several challenges that we must overcome to ensure success. First, we must recognize that our users possess a wide range of GIS knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Some of our users are technically proficient, and want access to our raw data products to conduct specialized analyses. Others understand how GIS can be used to address their coastal management issues, but lack the necessary technical capabilities to fully implement GIS within their organizations. As a result, we must develop a range of products and services to ensure use and application within our user community. The second major challenge that we face is related to the broad spectrum of issues faced by our users within the coastal management community. Our nation’s coasts represent a small fraction of our total land area, yet are home to more than half of our population. Furthermore, the coastal zone is a major driver of our nation’s economy. As a result, coastal managers face a variety of issues, from managing population growth, to balancing economic and environmental interests in the marine environment, to addressing the threat of a changing climate. These issues are spatially variant, requiring place-based solutions. To address these challenges, we must not only be attuned to our users’ technical capabilities, but also to the wide variety of issues they face. The Digital Coast Partnership helps us do this. Composed of six national-level organizations, the partnership represents a strong collaboration of coastal professionals intent on addressing common needs. The responsiveness of these organizations and the direct communication channels fostered by the effort have proven essential for ensuring the success and continuing relevance of Digital Coast, and have allowed the platform to constantly evolve and adapt based on changing needs and priorities. How are you addressing the need of an expanding GIS arena while meeting the demands of an increasingly precision driven field? This is a great question and one that our staff of geospatial professionals face on a constant basis. We rely on two key principles to address this issue: flexibility and transparency. Whenever we develop a new tool or methodology for the Digital Coast, we fully document the process so that our more advanced users can replicate our work and integrate their own data and tools. This, in effect, ensures that the products we develop are less of a "black box" and more of an adaptable solution that facilitates use. One specific effort in which these principles are critical is inundation mapping. Accuracy and precision are central to this effort, which is used to illustrate the risk from coastal flooding. However, there is some uncertainty that results from the data and methods used to model the potential inundation surface. Depending on the underlying topography of the land, this can result in varying levels of confidence in which areas will be inundated, and which areas will not. Our Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Impacts Viewer addresses this issue head-on, by providing inundation maps in conjunction with maps that communicate the potential uncertainty in the data itself. This, in turn, ensures that we are providing comprehensive information to drive the decision-making process. What studies are underway or have recently been conducted and what have they taught us about the evolving direction and nature of the GIS community As a federal organization, we are encouraged by the release of the Adminstration’s Digital Government Strategy in 2012. As a whole, the federal government provides a vast array of geospatial information for use by state and local partners. However, it’s not always easy for these same groups to access, use, and apply this information to meet their ever-evolving needs. The Digital Government Strategy provides a roadmap for all federal agencies to ensure that we collectively provide information in such a way that it is easily accessible and facilitates use. It includes foundational principles that mirror those that our organization in the Digital Coast effort, including: a "customer-central" approach, and a focus on the information that our data and tools provide. In addition, the Strategy espouses the need to think about our increasingly mobile society through the development of platform-independent interfaces and mechanisms to facilitate greater interaction with the user community. Josh Murphy will present at IDGA’s GIS for Government, June 24-26 in Washington D.C – for more information download the brochure, here: http://bit.ly/16NhUbF- or visit Josh’s LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/josh-murphy/7/5a3/b85

Understanding the Evolving Direction of the GIS Community

Upcoming Events

Homeland Security Week

Wildfire Technology Summit

Air Dominance Summit

Armored Vehicles USA Conference

Next Generation UAS

Veterans Healthcare 2026

Follow Us

Latest Webinars

Responsible and Transparent Approaches to AI in Biometric Algorithm

Securing the Defence Industrial Base: Mitigating Risk and Delivering Resiliency in Physical and Digital Supply Chains

Treatment Option for Two Subsets of Challenging to Treat Major Depressive Disorder in Adults

Recommended

Facial Recognition: Art or Science?

Facial Recognition: Art or Science?

NORAD’s Perspective on Radar: Interview with Lieutenant General Pierre St-Amand...

OBIM's View On Biometrics

Controlling the Waters Biometric Security at Port Everglades

Trump and Tricare: How will the new administration affect Military Healthcare?

Trump and Tricare: How will the new administration affect Military Healthcare?

How Will the New Administration Affect Military Healthcare?

Unmanned Solutions for Ground Combat Systems: with Johns Hopkins University

CERDEC On Energy Storage Solutions

The Future of Biometric Technology With U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services...

Military Healthcare: Presentation Case Study

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

IDGA COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE IDGA COMMUNITY

Understanding the Evolving Direction of the GIS Community

Upcoming Events

Follow Us

Subscribe to our Free Newsletter

Latest Webinars

Recommended

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

IDGA COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE IDGA COMMUNITY