Fall NEARC 2024

The City of Woburn, Massachusetts needed to migrate from a third-party work order management solution that they had been relying on for water and waste waster operations and maintenance (O&M) tracking. The previous provider was divesting, and the City was looking to make better use of the resources already at their disposal in ArcGIS Online. Weston & Sampson was contracted to develop in that environment a comprehensive solution for the full work order lifecycle from generation through assignment and tracking and finishing in summary report generation. This was particularly important to the O&M strategies of their water department which is responsible for weekly and monthly tracking of statistics on their water quality for reporting to state regulatory commissions. Weston & Sampson proposed and implemented a system based in ArcGIS online that synthesized the complementary platform components of ArcGIS Online, Field Maps, Experience Builder, Work Force and Survey123. Bringing all of these together in a single total solution that allowed their water department to create work orders for specific tasks such as daily treatment rounds, sampling, meter changeouts, hydrant flushing, service line installation, meter reads and more and then deliver the assignments electronically to users in the field, track their status collaboratively, and output automatically formatted reports for submissions to the requisite state agencies. The solution was constructed based around the existing schemas of the previous solution to allow for easy porting of historical data and was also designed to accommodate easy expansion to other departments notably the sewer department and to incorporate MS4 compliance through the integration of stormwater O&M forms later.

Vector tiles are rapidly rising in popularity due to improved performance over raster tiles and the ability to dynamically style maps based on attribute data.

Traditionally vector tiles have required creating an entire static datset upfront before serving it. This can be quite time consuming and cumbersome -especially during the early phase of a web application build.

Recently the ArcGIS JS api has been quietly equipped with some features that allow reading of attributes from 3rd party vector tiles servers.

I plan to demonstrate how a developer can leverage pg_tileserv to automatically create instantaneous layers for any table, view or tileset returning function in a Postgis database and dynamically style them in the ArcGIS JS Api client without needing to pre-generate any static tilesets in advance.

I also plan to go over some tips for vector tile performance we've learned in recent projects at Stone.

The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) Office of Aquatic Invasive Species (OAIS) has surveyed over 260 waterbodies across Connecticut since 2004 to document native and invasive aquatic plant species. This extensive data collection aims to map species locations and abundances, track the spread of invasives, and monitor changes in aquatic plant communities over time. These data are crucial for lake associations, lake management consultants, and government officials in managing aquatic invasive species and preventing their spread.

The goals of this project were to enhance public access to the data and transform the way OAIS communicates information with the public using ArcGIS Experience Builder. Achieving these goals required a comprehensive overhaul of the data management system. In this session, you will learn about the necessity of the project, its implementation, and the challenges encountered along the way.

In 2022 the Connecticut GIS Office, began collecting parcel and CAMA data from Councils of Governments (COGs). In previous years the information was gathered and packed in zip files for public use. In 2023 the GIS office created the first rendition of a statewide parcel layer from the years collection and published this data in the CT Geodata Portal. The state of Connecticut has been making strides to improve the parcel and CAMA data collection process as well as the parcel and CAMA data itself. This talk will dig into the challenges, findings and future of the Connecticut Parcel and CAMA collection.

The NHDOT had a need to map their buried fiber optic system to a high level of accuracy to support fiber system maintenance, development of an accurate asset inventory, and implementation of a GIS environment. NHDOT contracted with CDM Smith to implement a geodatabase design and data collection process for 29 miles of fiber optic cable that runs along the I-93 corridor in southern NH. To support NHDOT requirements, it was clear that a subsurface utility engineering (SUE) approach was required by locating buried lines using geophysical tools such as ground penetrating radar and line tracing equipment. The end result was a highly accurate dataset that primarily meets “Quality Level B” mapping standards as documented by the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Standards for Subsurface Utility Mapping.
This project took a fresh look at a traditional data collection workflow, and the lessons we’ll share are valuable process and management insights that are applicable to any kind of field collection project. The project involved a variety of data sources coming from several field teams, including fiber optic cabinet component inventories, manhole inspections, subsurface utility location information, and centimeter RTK-GPS measurements of asset locations in ESRI Field Maps, and it was all compiled into a single, integrated GIS workspace. Throughout this presentation, we will detail the approach to the data collection process and share some best practices that were gleaned regarding setting up quality control procedures to ensure accurate capture of assets is achieved. We’ll also dive into the components of the final product, share how it is possible to take advantage of the collection phase to assist in the final data development by using tools like 360-degree GPS-enabled cameras, and show how this process produced a valuable database that will find use in future locating efforts, system overview visualizations, and asset management. Through our example, you’ll take away some experience-based tips about how to plan ahead for your field collection efforts to ensure a smooth turnaround from field to office and set up a successful and thorough a data development process from start to finish.

In my presentation, I will demonstrate our python based workflow for automating setup and the publishing of Enterprise Geodatabase layers within a Portal environment.
Enterprise Geodatabase is essential for managing large scale operations. In contrast, utilizing hosted layers for publishing data is convenient, however the data store is a black box and can only handle so much. In circumstances where domains are being updated on a regular basis, this puts a huge strain on the publishing services of an ArcGIS Server instance. As well as disconnected domains from one feature service to another.
Moving to Enterprise Geodatabase helps us properly manage our domains while not overwhelming ArcGIS Server’s publishing tools, by giving us direct access to the underlying data.
This process has streamlined our data maintenance procedures, along with standardizing our schema and improving our data life cycle management.

Climate change has impacted forest growing season length, streamflow quantity, and the intersections of complex forest hydrologic processes. This research explores the geospatial hydrology and forest phenology (e.g. growing season length) change points throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States from 1982-2012. Gridded NDVI data were obtained from NOAA AVHRR satellite imagery and analyzed to determine the growing season length. Hydrology datasets and watershed boundaries were extracted from the USGS HCDN (Hydro Climatic Data Network) dataset, which consists of exclusively natural (non-anthropogenically impacted) watersheds. Hydrology and phenology variables in each watershed were analyzed to determine the year(s) that a change point occurred and to determine the temporal duration between a mean shift in growing season phenology and watershed hydrology.

This past spring, the City of Boston’s Analytics Team collaborated with the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) to determine where 100 new Bluebike stations (Boston’s bikeshare system) should be placed throughout the city, and why they should go in that location. This project is set to grow Boston’s bikeshare network by 40%- a major impact to the city to expand mobility options for residents.

The Analytics team worked together to apply data science methods and geospatial analysis to make station location recommendations, utilizing data such as job and population density, and ridership and station status. The Bluebikes data was translated into informative metrics such as station trip volumes, instances when stations were empty or full, and a pair of metrics- lost trips and lost returns- that highlighted areas of the city that are not able to meet the existing demand for starting a trip or ending a trip. The team used this data to identify locations with strong latent demand for bike share and to maximize the percentage of households in Boston within close proximity to a Bluebikes station.

In order to provide BTD with specific locations, the team utilized a geospatial suitability modeling approach, inputting dock, population, and job density data, and the new lost trip/return metrics into the model. The suitability modeling was done in two groupings- once for ‘expansion’ stations and one for ‘infill’ stations.
The groups had differences in data inputs as well as how the data was weighted and transformed, due to different priorities for the purpose of that station placement. Once the weights and transforms were applied, the team selected the highest scoring locations (with a minimum buffer distance between existing and proposed stations). Currently, BTD is siting the Analytics Team’s proposed station expansion locations, with plans to begin installation within the next year.

The accuracy and completeness of utility GIS data are critical as data now plays a key role in utility management, improvement, and maintenance. Today, GIS and asset management data support various functions, including compliance reporting, construction management, complete streets, and utility operations. However, many municipalities and government agencies face challenges with outdated GIS and asset data developed over a decade ago, which often do not meet current needs. This has prompted a trend of reinvesting in data development to achieve higher accuracy and broader usability. Utilities are seeking guidance on improving their GIS and asset data.

To address this need, the municipalities, government agencies, and utilities are enhancing their GIS and asset management capability by increasing the quality and scope of their GIS. Advanced technologies like mobile GIS, subsurface utility location tools, 360-video, and 3D LiDAR are being utilized to accomplish this goal. These tools help map the location and assess the condition of assets, providing higher-quality data to staff through improved web, mobile, and augmented reality applications. Additionally, utilities are unifying their information management systems (GIS, CMMS, models, etc.) to enable better decision-making through integrated technology.

This presentation will overview how the Town of Hudson, NH, the US Navy, and other organizations are enhancing the accuracy of subsurface utility systems using techniques such as ground-penetrating radar, 360 GPS-enabled cameras, and enhanced GPS. These advancements allow utilities to expand their technology environment for various uses, including improved asset management, condition assessment, construction management, 3D augmented reality, and data-driven capital planning. Case studies will demonstrate how utilities are improving the quality and detail of their data, showcasing the processes and benefits of these enhancements.

Python and the pandas library are great for processing data, but if you're working with a large database, SQL is often faster and more straightforward. While working on a large spatial data processing project, we've replaced much of our Python code with SQL while still using Python to run the data pipeline. We store our SQL code in a Git repository and use Python to test it, modify it using Jinja templates, and send it to the database. We've worked out a system in which each language does what it does best.

Of all the resource areas protected by the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act, coastal bank is particularly challenging to define. The authors propose a GIS-based approach using the Spatial Analyst extension, to be presented with a case study.

In Vermont, development projects that require historic preservation consultation for federal and state undertakings often necessitate detailed field surveys of buildings and structures, accompanied by comprehensive map exhibits. VHB Preservation Planners consult for an array of clients including municipalities and state transportation agencies, tackling projects ranging broadly in scale from individual buildings to statewide surveys.

This presentation will showcase recent advancements in historic preservation GIS deliverables, emphasizing the use of ArcGIS Experience Builder, and exploring how mobile data collection tools such as ArcGIS Field Maps and Survey123 have improved field data collection in historic preservation. Notable projects involving large-scale field surveys, including the BUILD Grant Mitigation - Rail: Historic Bridge Mitigation Survey, the Town of Brandon Preservation Survey, and the Middlebury Village Historic District Survey and National Register Nomination Update, will be highlighted.

The presentation will demonstrate efficiencies achieved during field survey data collected using Field Maps and the benefits of automated reporting capabilities integrated with the Vermont Architectural Resource Inventory form adapted for Survey123. Additionally, the presentation will highlight the dynamic map deliverables made possible by Experience Builder, underscoring their value in presenting and managing historic preservation data.

Do you know how much of your property, campus, or office complex is covered by asphalt or concrete? Discover the crucial role of high-resolution aerial photogrammetry in assessing such impervious surfaces, vital for effective stormwater management. This presentation delves into how municipalities leverage the 2D planimetric mapping of man-made and natural features derived from aerial orthoimagery to support sustainable funding strategies. One leading example is stormwater utility fee programs, which charge businesses and residences a fee proportional to the impervious surface existing on their properties. Accuracy is the name of the game, and high-res orthos with high horizontal (x,y) accuracy is the tool of choice by municipalities to avoid billing disputes and lawsuits. Join us to gain insights into the evolving landscape of stormwater management and the pivotal role that aerial photogrammetry plays in reducing flood risks to our communities.

As the frequency of natural and human-caused disasters increases, there is a greater need for efficient coordination amongst emergency responders, resource managers, and the public. GIS is often touted as an invaluable and underutilized tool for public safety teams. But what does mapping in near real-time entail, and is this feasible for a small municipality? This presentation will explore how the Town of Concord, MA recently embarked on answering this question using ArcGIS Online’s suite of tools.

In March 2024, the Town’s GIS team was asked to facilitate a tabletop exercise, in coordination with several other Town departments, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), and students from Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s Emergency Management program. We created a web application to edit and visualize near real-time updates of an excessive rainfall/flooding event in a simulated Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

In this presentation, we will demonstrate our final application and operations workflow, which took inspiration from the Emergency Management Operations ArcGIS Solution. We will also share our thought process for selection of appropriate tools, how we customized a solution within a limited scope and timeframe, and how we integrated data collection, maps, dashboards, and live data feeds, using Experience Builder. Finally, we will share our ideas for ways to expand and improve upon this application in the future.

As the movement away from “car-only” design continues and more communities integrate Complete Streets planning and design, there is a challenge to collect the detailed data required to scale up from community engagement to actionable, biddable projects. The Town of Barrington, RI recently completed a comprehensive field assessment of its roadways using crowd-sourced data collected via a Survey123 webform. The project provided cost-effective data collection, but also provided public education and coalition building for increased advocacy and implementability. The fieldwork also resulted in Level of User Stress Assessment leading to prioritized capital investment.

The Survey123 form empowers trained volunteers to gather critical data about roadway characteristics, contributing to improved identification of gaps in existing transportation networks and prioritizing projects to improve multimodal transportation infrastructure. Volunteers used the form to record information on:

•Roadway features: Number of lanes, presence and condition of sidewalks and bike lanes
•Traffic conditions: Vehicle speed, traffic volume
•User experience: Perceived stress levels for cyclists and pedestrians

This crowdsourced data, aided by intentional cartographic choices for public engagement, provides valuable insights into the safety and usability of roadways for diverse users. By identifying areas with high stress levels or inadequate facilities, municipal planners and transportation authorities can prioritize improvements, ultimately creating safer and more accessible streets for residents and taxpayers.

This presentation will discuss how we have leveraged the capabilities of SQL database views to create streamlined, dynamic reporting workflows for enterprise geodatabases.
Oftentimes, as the technical needs of a project evolves, the geodatabase schema created at the outset may not be suited to best report on and track the data via dashboards or other web applications. SQL database views offer a method through which GIS professionals can transform, join, or aggregate datasets dynamically to fit their needs without overhauling their geodatabase model or affecting the underlying datasets. In addition, SQL database views can offer an alternative to other automatic field calculation methodologies such as attribute rules or scripts.
In this presentation, we will dive into three different real-world project examples, ranging in complexity from beginner to more advanced, to showcase how database views allowed us create maps, apps, and dashboards best suited for our clients’ needs. The first use case will show how database views can be used symbolize stormwater assets based on their related inspection and maintenance data as well as create dynamic, calculated fields to track asset inspection statuses. The next will demonstrate how views can aggregate multiple different datasets to optimize stormwater illicit discharge inspection reporting efficiency and create more streamlined user interfaces for web applications. The third example will delve into the process of using database views to temporally manipulate stormwater best management practice inspection data, granting the end user the ability to examine overall inspection statistics from not only the current year, but also any previous year over the inspection program’s duration.
To wrap up the presentation, we will give a high-level overview of how to get started with database views, including which tools and software are required, to empower attendees to implement database views for their own project needs.

Maximize your GIS investment by learning the benefits of integrating a CMMS with Esri’s ArcGIS platform using a modern, GIS-Centric approach. Understand how work management can be accomplished faster and more accurate as work orders are developed from the map using GIS-Centric technology. Become versed in the best practices for identifying assets in the field, creating work orders, attaching work history to assets, and analyzing the data through reporting. Get an overall picture of how budgets are being consumed and how capital planning tools can help prepare for upcoming expenditures.

The use of technology is a controversial issue in many communities, and there is a growing disparity between those who want to share and those who want to maintain privacy in this fast-moving world of information. This is true globally, as we see places that we enjoy being “overloved” with activity once they are public, and conversely that communities are being underrepresented because they fear putting their “place” on a map. Using examples from mapping and engagement methods used with the indigenous Micronesian communities of the Ulithi atoll, in the Yap Outer Islands of the Federated States of Micronesia, this talk will discuss the benefits of starting an early community engagement strategy, considerations of information gathering, and the steps used to train non-users in science and technology from a modern western perspective. There are many sub-categories of learning associated with this topic, including ethics in GIS, how to capture data using offline FieldMaps technology, increasing buy-in to the planning process with enhanced transparency, and improving the results of the information-gathering process to create a more comprehensive, thorough and thoughtful GIS.

In May of 2023, we launched the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas – only the third statewide zoning atlas in a nationwide movement to create a National Zoning Atlas. After wrangling zoning maps and regulations for 269 jurisdictions, the data had to be stitched together into a cohesive statewide zoning layer and analyzed to make some (hopefully) insightful conclusions on zoning’s effect on housing in NH. One of the challenges was how best to tell the story of zoning in NH (spoiler, using a StoryMap), and how to build an interactive viewer for users to explore the data in a meaningful way (spoiler 2 – Experience Builder). Join me for a behind the scenes look at putting the StoryMap and NH atlas together and brief demo of the final product, plus an update on planned improvements moving forward.

Chapter III, Section 4 (g) of the Niagara County Sanitary code (Sanitary Code of the Niagara County Health District, 2022) charges the Niagara County Health Department with informing property owners who utilize a septic system that there is a requirement to connect to a sanitary sewer if one is available at the time of a property sale (or transfer). If sanitary sewer is not available at the time of sale, then the county health department must perform a test (tracer dye testing) of the existing septic system to ensure that the system is in good working order. Also, at times when an aging septic system is replaced, county public health engineers may be called upon to inspect and approve a new septic construction. Historically, GIS has played no role in this process.



The Niagara County Department of Public health has embarked on an ambitious multi-year GIS project; the goals include:



--> To map existing sanitary sewer pipeline GIS data (covering the entirety of the county’s 12 towns and three cities).

--> Append to the GIS data the layout and components of newly installed septic systems (using a high-accuracy GNSS receiver with RTK augmentation)

--> Provide a document management tool via a web map application/interface that will easily link the user to the project file of each septic system inspection or new installation.


The purpose of this session is to share our experiences thus far in in this process. We hope that attendees of this session will share their own in-house processes to fulfil county health code requirements. We aim to use GIS to improve access to, as well as the accuracy of our project records. While the process will take time, our end deliverable of this project will be a modernized record management tool and high precision mapping of the county’s approximately 18,000+ septic systems.

Over the past two years, the Town of Concord, MA deployed Field Maps for data collection and asset management applications across multiple departments. These projects include catch basin cleaning operations for MS4 compliance in Public Works, to developing an asset management and tracking program for the Natural Resources Commission, to quarterly hydrant flushing operations with the Water department.

Field Maps has proved to be an invaluable tool for jump-starting and recovering stalled data collection projects, and has become integral to how we as a GIS team serve our colleagues in their day to day operations. In this presentation we will offer insights on deploying and maintaining Field Maps solutions for a wide array of departments. We will demonstrate the customizations we utilize in Field Maps like auto-calculated fields and logic trees for field visibility, and explain how we integrate Field Maps with other Esri and third-party applications. We will cover the benefits and challenges of the application when working across knowledge and skill bases, discuss best practices for updating solutions built from scratch, and reflect on developing custom solutions as a stand-alone GIS team within a municipality.

School districts often require spatial modeling for enrollment forecasting, program analysis, or school boundary changes. Providing accurate data for school districts for long and short-term curriculum and facilities planning can make a world of difference for students, enabling them to have access to a more equitable and robust education. ArcGIS spatial tools can be used in tandem with Alteryx modeling software to create custom workflows that provide data-supported answers to school district questions. Alteryx is a powerful data analytics software with spatial capabilities that allows for rapid and easily customizable model building (no coding required), while spatial data preparation, investigation, editing, and mapping are all performed within ArcGIS. This session will show several examples of how ArcGIS and Alteryx can be used together to improve workflows and perform complex data modeling and will dive into our Enrollment Modeling Application and special programs accessibility analysis. While the session focuses on school district analyses as an example, the integration of ArcGIS and Alteryx for spatial data modeling is widely applicable to a variety of topics.

Parcel data management can be an efficient and enjoyable process with ArcGIS Pro! This presentation will demonstrate using ArcGIS Pro and esri's Parcel Fabric to work with land record datasets effectively. Workflows and tips & tricks will be discussed for two distinct approaches: (1) use of a simple geodatabase model and (2) use of the parcel fabric. Topology and attribute rules will be covered, as well as using a map series to produce tax maps. The presentation will also cover esri’s latest Parcel Fabric record-driven workflows, its flexible data model, automatic history, and tools unique to the Parcel Fabric dataset. The continued improvements to ArcGIS Pro have made custom tax mapping tools obsolete. Find out why ArcGIS Pro is becoming the standard for land-data management!