Session Description

Erin King Helton will be sharing her GIS career journey and demonstrating how the skills she has picked up supporting a wide variety of industries have culminated in a wholistic approach to spatial analysis. Erin's combined career experiences have allowed her to think "outside the box" and has resulted in the development of new ideas regarding the mystery of Oak Island. Erin will be sharing in detail how she triangulated the positions of features from a 1939 map across the island's famous "Money Pit" area.

Learning Objectives

To demonstrate the versatility of GIS to solve even the most obscure problems, and encourage other spatial analysts to apply their varied skillsets to projects that they are passionate about.

Session Description

Join us as we announce some new ideas in the works at TNRIS! We’ll be sharing the inspiration and high-level concepts behind launching a new TNRIS store featuring both historical and artistic geospatial products as well as Texas GIS-centric branded items that our community can show off with pride.

Learning Objectives

Attendees will learn about the background and inspiration behind the TNRIS Store and how it will benefit education and learning for the GIS community in Texas. Attendees will also understand how creating a Texas GIS brand, will unite the GIS community around our common goals and experiences as Texas GIS Professionals in a way that we can take pride in the work we do for Texas.

Session Description

Routing involves defining an optimal path in a real-world geographical space through user-defined points of interest subject to user-defined constraints. Although routing algorithms have been around for years, routing is typically implemented at the server level, which can result in significant costs and skilled labor requirements. We present here the development and implementation of a free and open-source software client-side routing library that minimizes these costs and labor requirements. We use a case study to show how to use the library in a demonstration web app. The library and demonstration web app are freely available on GitHub for commercial and noncommercial uses. Our goal was to build an affordable routing solution that would be efficient and useful to people who may have limited funds and development experience. In this presentation, we discuss the routing library functionality and associated algorithms implemented along with any limitations we discovered while using the library. We describe our public domain data sources and how to configure these and possibly other data sources for use in the routing library. Our case study web app is an historical walking tour of Castroville, Texas, that demonstrates one use of our routing library. This web app can help the community catalog historical properties for preservation and inspire tourists to come to Castroville and visit the historical sites. The demonstration web app also can serve as a starting point for other applications. We believe the routing library may be particularly beneficial to local governments and small nonprofits having limited funds for web app development. For example, a local public works department could use the library to build a web app for surveying field equipment. There may be many other applications, and we hope to inspire the audience to identify and discuss other possibilities with us.

Learning Objectives

1) Learn about Route30, a free and open-source software client-side routing library, 2) Understand the benefits the library can provide to organizations with limited funding and development experience, 3) View a case study web app implementation that uses Route30 and understand how this web app can be a starting point for other client-side routing applications, and 4) Understand the challenges of client-side route generation and how these challenges are addressed by Route30.

Session Description

A showcase of TNRIS's Historical Aerial Archive history, resources, recent organizational efforts and digitization workflows, and future plans for georeferencing and distribution to the public.

Learning Objectives

The presentation will provide a background of how the archive came to be and TNRIS's plans to publish its resources to the TNRIS DataHub.

Session Description

It’s time for you to Shine! Take charge of your career by deepening your relationships with your GIS colleagues, students, and mentors. Dig into you niche or find a new geo-love when you join groups for professional development and social events. Let’s look at some volunteer opportunities together and discuss tactics to strengthen your professional and soft skills to broaden your career horizons. You are worth it! Invest in yourself and your GIS Community. Together we are better and can grow to new heights.

Session Description

For 20 years, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) has facilitated the purchase of spatial data for North Texas as a cost-sharing objective for local governments and other interested entities. The program, which began with orthophotography only, has grown to include numerous remote sensing products and derivative data. Most of the program’s growth has occurred over the last decade’s partnership with Woolpert.

Session Description

Leveraging affordable talent and technology, Austin Community College (ACC) is using best practices to develop a comprehensive and accurate Geographic Information Systems (GIS) basemap for all 12 campuses. ACC GIS Students working for the ACC Incubator for Professional Skills (ACC Inc) and supported by ACC's Facilities & Construction, Safety & Operations, and GIS Departments are using leading-edge hardware and software to develop a distributed ACC-wide enterprise GIS while our students graduate with the academic, technical, and professional skills desired by employers.

Learning Objectives

Discover how ACC students, faculty, and staff are teaming up to map our campuses.

Session Description

Demonstration of SURDEX's FlightTracker that was developed as an inhouse flight management tool to efficiently move aircraft from one project area to another to maximize acquisition as weather conditions change. The FlightTracker uses available weather forecasts and other satellite data to assist in aircraft re-locations to avoid downtime during the project fight windows.

Learning Objectives

The FlightTracker demonstrates effective flight operations management and provides real time information to clients on acquisition progress.

Session Description

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) began a feasibility study in 2013 for improving travel in Caldwell County, Texas. The purpose of this high-level study was to ensure regional travel needs were met, and considered many factors including travel patterns, future growth and development, environmental constraints, and public input into potential improvement options. As part of the study, CAMPO partnered with BGE, Inc. to develop and investigate potential new roadway corridors within Caldwell County. Each of these potential corridors was subject to a complex and time-consuming suitability analysis that was originally planned to be executed manually by counting constraints such as homes impacted or streams crossed by each route. However, the design of the roadways was fluid, and any resulting changes to the road layout required another round of suitability analysis to be conducted. This left a finite number of iterations possible for the roadway design to meet the project timeline.

Learning Objectives

Converting background data into actionable data that decisions can be based on.

Session Description

Why can’t it be easier to share data? The basis of the conversation is understanding the user’s needs and the software they use. How can we improve communication between GIS and CAD users to work more seamlessly and provide each other with valuable, useable datasets? Using examples of Autodesk Civil 3D and Esri ArcMap, how can workflows be applied when not using the most up-to-date software? What is on the horizon for newer versions of the software and what will we need to look out for to prepare for a shift in interoperability or lack thereof?

Session Description

This presentation aims to show participants how FME can empower your GIS data through the use of traditional Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) processes and custom-tailored tools/applications. Examples of how NCT9-1-1 has used FME to transform, correct, and even enhance regional GIS data will be provided in this presentation. This presentation will focus on the impact that these transformative FME tools have had in the highly demanding environment that is 9-1-1/public safety, while also exploring other potential uses for GIS in general.

Session Description

Since the first release of TIGER/Line data in 1990, the Census Bureau has published block-level demographics for redistricting. What can these data show when compared across 4 censuses? What information can and cannot be learned from such data and analysis?

Session Description

Building Spatial Data Infrastructures is no easy task. From the required collaboration to the workflow and everywhere in between there are evil monkeys, poppies and wicked witches along the way. Organizations must work with local data suppliers, other organizational departments, and even federal partners to support the data supply chain. If you are lucky, you can get the data suppliers to agree on a set of Data Governance standards to help ensure decent quality and data in a format that can be readily integrated. However, this is more often the exception rather than the rule. And often, the most daunting piece of the puzzle is getting all this incoming data to align as well as to keep it aligned as updates are supplied year by year. With pressure to do more with less, support staff to manage these efforts can be hindered by lack of resources to establish, as well as maintain, the implementation. In this presentation, 1Spatial will share the success in thwarting many of the "wicked witches” challenges through automation in support of all aspects of the Spatial Data Infrastructure workflow. This includes our Spatial Data Infrastructure implementation for the State of Michigan as well implementing data supply chains for Next Generation 911 for State of Georgia, Minnesota, Arizona, and LA County. We will show how these organizations are helping their partners to easily understand data requirements and are empowering them to correct issues by identifying where there are potential non-conformances in the data while providing valuable metrics on the overall health of the data over time. Lastly, once data meets an agreed upon threshold, the data is integrated with multiple sources of data into seamless organization-wide enterprise databases. Put on your ruby red slippers and join us to learn about how to implement and enforce data quality to support data governance within your organization.

Session Description

Discussing the collaboration, technologies, and goals of the Texas Disaster Information System program.

Session Description

In 2019, the Texas legislature created a new state and regional flood planning process, with flood planning regions based on river basins. The initial regional flood planning groups were formed on October 1, 2020, with the goal of delivering the first regional flood plans by January 2023. The Texas Water Development Board needed to quickly provide the best possible representation of flood risk data statewide for use in upcoming flood planning efforts. Given the size of Texas, floodplain data can be disparate and exist in varying degrees of quality. There were quite a few challenges to overcome to provide a cohesive dataset in a rapid manner, while also maintaining quality. To assist in the development of regional flood plans, the Texas Water Development Board consolidated existing data sources to provide a composite flood risk dataset for the state of Texas. This presentation will describe the process used to consolidate various data sources and provide an easily digestible digitized floodplain dataset for Texas, in the form of a “flood quilt”.

Session Description

Following Winter Storm Uri, Sugar Land, Texas faced an unprecedented amount of green and bulk waste that required timely collection, hauling, and disposal. To supplement the debris contractor’s efforts in removing waste from 35,000 households, City Staff implemented a Debris Assessment Program, which utilized GIS tools for spatial data collection and representation. The debris survey was used to identify the type and estimated amount of waste throughout the City and fed into a dashboard that allowed City Staff to visualize the waste data. Using the spatial data, City Staff determined the collection capacity, developed recovery timelines, and allocated resources accordingly. This project assisted in minimizing expenses, improving the efficiency of collections, and providing a framework to expand to Rapid Damage Assessments that were then submitted to FEMA. 

Session Description

Outline the importance of government collaboration centered around common goals created one of the most useful and comprehensive flood applications in Texas.

Session Description

After the 2020 census, the capital area of Austin saw a dramatic change in the numbering and density of census tracts. This presentation will discuss the process and motivations behind decennial census tract changes.

Learning Objectives

Attendees will learn:

• Why changes to census tracts are necessary
• What these changes mean to data users
• How and why to become involved in the process for the 2030 Census

Session Description

Accurate mapping of complex heterogeneous landscapes using high spatial resolution imagery is necessary for better land management decisions. However, large-area mapping at this resolution remains challenging due to radiometric differences between scenes, low spectral depth of imagery, landscape heterogeneity and computational limitations. Furthermore, in most land use land cover (LULC) studies, the spatial structure of supervised training data is largely ignored, which often inflates the model's accuracy. In this research, we used the training data on which spatial structures were accounted for to evaluate the effectiveness of spatial blocking in LULC mapping. Specifically, we aim to 1) evaluate the classification performance of two widely used machine learning algorithms (Support vector machine[SVM], and Random Forest [RF]) accounting spatial structure of data, 2) showcase spatial accounting structures of sample data reduces the over-optimistic performance of random cross-validation while improving location accuracy. We mosaiced National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) digital-ortho quadrangle quads (DOQQ: n = 137) over Kenedy County, downloaded LiDAR footprints (2199), and derived surface features. We employed multi-resolution image segmentation on NAIP and LiDAR surface features using eCognition software and several features at the object level. We used 3719 spatially independent sample points on eight identified classes. We found that an RF-produced thematic map had higher accuracy in a grass-dominated landscape than SVM. Although LiDAR information on NAIP improved performance metrics, we concluded that the information contribution of LiDAR over NAIP data was not practically significant in grass-dominated landscapes owing to the large computational cost associated with LiDAR data.

Learning Objectives

• Evaluate the classification performance of machine learning algorithms on NAIP only and LiDAR products using random cross-validation strategy
• Showcase accounting spatial data structures reduces the over-optimistic performance of random cross-validation
• Identify suitable classification methods for improved LULC classification, emphasizing the characterization of small-scale grassland patches that are deemed suitable for certain wildlife species

Session Description

Coordination between Primary Markets and GIS to leverage technology is an effective solution to alleviate cumbersome tasks, opening the way to efficiently winning jobs and performing at competitive rates. The Technology Solutions team at BGE Inc set out in early 2021 to work with the Ecology team to automate the process of generating Wetland Delineation Datasheets. Opposed to having this solution implemented to a single project, we treated the Ecology team as our client, creating a way for those capabilities to become standard business practice.

Learning Objectives

Moving to a digital form collection (Survey123, Field maps, etc..)

Session Description

During an emergency event, data is critical for decision making. This presentation will review the methodology behind design a GIS based decision making tool followed by a product review of one such product. Utilizing common GIS products, the City of Sugar Land created a common operational picture which incorporated multiple data streams to organize, visualize, and store data before, during, and after incidents. Sugar Land’s Common Operation Picture (COP), gives Sugar Land employees the ability to access and visualize data spatially, allowing for decisions to be made more efficiently and effectively. The data feeds from multiple sources, including automated weather, traffic layers, reports from Field Staff, these combine to create situational awareness needed in the emergency operations center during an event. By employing this model, emergency management coordinators and GIS professionals could create a single source for emergency data utilizing ESRI products.

Session Description

NG9-1-1 systems are being implemented across the country and GIS data is required for location validation and geospatial routing of live 9-1-1 calls. This session will provide an overview of the NG9-1-1 implementations in the Commission on State Emergency Communications (CSEC) 9-1-1 Program, and the 9-1-1 entities’ journey of developing and maintaining this mission critical GIS data to support public safety.

Session Description

The Edwards Aquifer is the sole drinking water source for the San Antonio metropolitan area, and more than 2 million people. It is also the source of water for irrigation in the 8 counties whose agriculture and industry it serves. Irrigators depend on their permitted, allotted withdrawal from the aquifer to sustain their crops and Texas depends on them for food. As the population increases, the demand increases. However, only rainfall in the contributing and recharge zones increases the supply of water in the aquifer. Any pollution entering the underground aquifer cannot be removed; it can only be avoided for a time at the estimated affected areas and flushed out eventually by enough rainfall. Aquifer water is the natural resource whose wise management is in our hands to protect and enhance. To help prevent or reduce the discharge of hazardous and polluting materials in water runoff generated at fire incidents, the EAA collected infrastructure feature data and analyzed LIDAR data for 38 regulated facilities on the recharge zone in Texas. A GIS was built by georeferencing site maps submitted by facilities for registration of regulated substances and digitizing infrastructure data. Drainage patterns were confirmed or corrected using LIDAR and water accumulation was simulated to compare water levels at each site. Studying where water flows around features helped identify into which stormwater inlets, channels, or basins the water will drain. The data was published to AGO and field inspectors used Field Maps Mobile to do ground-truthing with disconnected editing. “Protective Areas” are the result of the final analysis, using a flowchart to determine where the water will go, where we want it to go instead, and where the firefighters should place protective boom to divert that water away from sensitive features and the aquifer (at each of the 38 sites). An app was built and delivered to the city for firefighters to access in their vehicles on the way to fires.

Session Description

Presentation demonstrates a GIS tool created to implement Water Benchmarking strategy adopted in the City of Austin’s Water Forward Plan to help reduce water demand in new commercial development projects by helping developments identify water conservation opportunities upfront and encouraging voluntary adoption of water efficiency strategies.

Session Description

In 2020 TNRIS and the TWDB began a project to better understand Texas water data and the needs of water data users. The goal of the project is to make Texas water data more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) through the creation of a statewide water data hub. We’ll share an overview of how we approached the project, learnings about how data users search for, evaluate, and access information, and our methods for organizing and preparing data for inclusion.

Learning Objectives

Attendees will learn how to incorporate a human centered design approach into a project, how users interact with open data portals, and methods for evaluating and preparing data for inclusion in an open data environment.

Session Description

Parks are prime real estate for the development of water resource-friendly infrastructure. With opportunities for stormwater capture, groundwater recharge, and reuse projects, these public-access spaces also provide an excellent venue for low-cost, passive public education in the form of demonstration areas and interpretive signage. The multi-functional approach to flood control and stormwater management looks to create designs that serve more than one purpose. Low Impact Development and conservation technologies create room for redevelopment that often improves the condition and aesthetic of existing infrastructure.

Learning Objectives

This presentation will provide strategies for addressing infrastructure challenges that meets mandates and earns public approval.

Session Description

Our work at AppGeo exposes us to a lot of the new ideas that are shaping the future of the geospatial discipline. We also see how the needs of our clients across the US intersect these new ideas, so we have been able to see patterns and trends that matter for state and local government GIS practitioners. This presentation will take you on a journey to explore these trends, highlighted with actual project examples from some of our recent work. This talk will not be focused on technology or the “nuts and bolts” of geospatial solutions, but rather a higher-level exploration of broad themes that include resiliency, equity, and safety that we are seeing on the rise and that you can expect to be dealing with in your future geospatial work.

Session Description

Fugro to present on the recent TNRIS lidar classification project. Fugro deployed machine learning techniques for adding building, vegetation, and culvert classifications USGS lidar data covering approximately 83,000 square miles in Texas.

Session Description

For decades, Sanborn has been in the forefront of data collection involving building information. Details specific to buildings are vital pieces of information related to both urban and rural populations and are fundamental to planning and policymaking. Critical infrastructures, such as public transport, electricity, water distribution networks, and emergency services, rely heavily on accurate building maps. It is a natural progression for our GIS data to evolve to a 3D representation. Esri’s newest software technology enable Digital Twin visualization-based GIS system integration. This presentation discusses the development of 3D models that are the genesis for creating a Digital Twin base map. Digital Twin models are paramount in building sustainable Smart Government and will become more and more relevant in our industry. This webinar will focus on the evolution of Building Information Modeling and will include a live demo within Esri software providing examples of Digital Twin base map products created by Sanborn.

Session Description

The field of aerial imagery has exploded in the last two decades. Advancements in technology and capture methodology have made aerial images better, cheaper, and more accessible to a wide range of users. Today aerial imagery is used in a number of diverse sectors including engineering, construction, transportation, energy, state and local governments and many more. In this presentation we will provide an overview of the aerial imagery Industry, insights into photogrammetry derived data, and multidimensional data applications, all while showing how Nearmap has been able to adapt and evolve with these changes and improvements.

Session Description

Gary Waters and Jeff Eisman will present emerging trends in the discipline of GIS and how GIS has evolved to accelerate decision-making across all organization levels. Not just confined to a mapping function, GIS offers a spatially enabled foundational system which can improve business processes and promote transparency across all tiers of the organization.

Learning Objectives

Learn about technical advances in GIS.

Session Description

Tabular join, spatial join, simple enough GIS operations when doing one to one. Things get a little more complicated when you have several polygons within the corresponding joining polygon, or one polygon spread into three or four. That is the case with buildings and parcels, now try that for 10M+ polygons and 253 appraisal districts! This presentation will talk about the problems encountered (so far) and how they can be solved. "Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes." and that is why you may attend this session, to learn from my mistakes!

Session Description

The empowerment and capabilities maturity work we are doing statewide. It would include overview of enterprise tools that have been released, training initiatives, resources, etc. to empower our users statewide and grow our overall GIS capabilities as an agency.

Session Description

This presentation will discuss the current and future iterations of the Texas Hidden History project. This project showcases the application of ESRI ArcGIS web applications, StoryMaps, Hub, and the use of ArcGIS Online as a collaboration environment with remote employees and customers.

Learning Objectives

How to apply ESRI ArcGIS web applications, StoryMaps, Hub, and ArcGIS Online as a collaboration environment with remote employees and customers.

Session Description

This presentation will discuss recent research into environmental factors associated with the presence of pathogenic organisms and vectors of infectious disease that have typically been thought to be restricted to specific tropical environments but are now emerging in new parts of the world. It will show how GIS software can be used for processing, analyzing, and mapping data pertaining to disease occurrence and environmental factors like climate and soil conditions to identify regions where diseases like melioidosis and Chagas may currently exist undetected or where they might be able to spread and become established in the future. A key focus of this research is to integrate various modeling approaches used to understand how climate-related events might influence the dissemination of pathogens and disease emergence. The automation of the research workflow through the use of Python will also be highlighted to demonstrate the benefits of using scripted processes to work with datasets like reports of disease occurrence that are regularly updated. Maps generated through this work, including maps of Texas, will be shared so that attendees have the opportunity to learn more about the local implications of changing environmental conditions and potential emergence of new diseases that have typically been confined to tropical locations. This work has benefited from and continues to be supported by the University of Texas at Austin Grand Challenge, Planet Texas 2050.

Session Description

The Geospatial team of the Texas General Land Office, in conjunction with experts from the Texas Colonial Waterbird Society (TCWS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS), Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP), Audubon Texas, the Harte Research Institute (HRI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and others, has developed an updated rookeries polygon layer for Texas coastal zone. The layer incorporates bird sighting data derived from the TCWS annual census and previous rookeries mapping data by various entities spanning the last four decades. This layer delineates the land boundaries of colonial waterbird nesting sites or colonies based on the most recent aerial imagery and Lidar elevation contours. This updated rookeries dataset assists with the management of coastal leases on submerged state-owned land, oil spill response, coastal erosion, habitat protection and restoration, among other applications.

Learning Objectives

To learn about the history and current status of colonial waterbird nesting sites or rookeries along the Texas Coast; the threats and efforts to protect and restore this unique and valuable wildlife habitat, and its accurate geospatial mapping.

Session Description

Caves have traditionally been found in one of three ways: 1) following a lead given by a friend or acquaintance, 2) informally walking the woods looking for caves, or 3) conducting a formal, systematic karst walk to survey a specific area. This involves lining up every 15 meters and walking together to comb the area and make sure nothing is missed. Formal karst walks can be very effective with good coordination and available manpower, but can require extensive hours in the field.

Session Description

The invention of radiocarbon dating fundamentally transformed how time was approached by archaeology. It has been argued that the adoption of geospatial technologies such as GIS, high-definition remote sensing, laser scanning has had equally significant consequences. This presentation explores the intended and unintended consequences of the geospatial revolution in archaeology.

Session Description

Overview of the GIO report, GIS Solutions Group and Community Meetings, the GIO Report, and other outreach initiatives.

Session Description

Introduction of the new IS team and an quick overview of future plans.

Session Description

Program overview including recent changes, visions of the future, SM Contracts update, and more. This will be an interactive session so we encourage all to participate!