Geography Matters

Resources available to make a 2009 GIS Day proclamation

What better way to celebrate GIS Day than to have November 18, 2009, declared GIS Day in your city, county, or state. The GIS Day Web site offers sample letters and proclamation templates to send to your public officials and instructions on how to have your proclamation posted. The State of Oklahoma and the California University of Pennsylvania already made GIS Day proclamations this year!

Arbor Day is a nationally-celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and care. Did you know that GIS technology is used as a tool to manage data about trees?

Here's how a few organizations around the world have employed GIS to do just that:

GIS Is Used to Help Manage Tree Maintenance
The San Francisco Botanical Garden in California uses ArborVue, GIS software built with ESRI's ArcPad and ArcGIS Engine and designed specifically for tree care and inventories, to manage its trees. Read the article.

The "Garden City" of Singapore Manages More Than One Million Trees with GIS Technology
The Singapore National Parks Board relies on GIS technology to manage data about and inspect 1.3 million trees. Read the article.

Buffalo, New York, Urban Tree Management Evolves from Surprise Storm
Known as the "City of Trees," the City of Buffalo has maintained a complete urban forest inventory since 2001. This inventory includes all city-owned trees in the public rights-of-way between the curb and sidewalk and also all trees in the city parks. Read the article.

Ideas

• Ways you can celebrate Arbor Day.
• Incorporate GIS for forestry into your next GIS Day event.

Watch PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday April 14 and see how the simple act of planting trees lead to political change and a Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai was the keynote speaker at the ESRI International User Conference in 2007.

Check for local broadcasting times.

Take a few minutes to learn how members of the GIS community celebrate GIS Day.

GIS Day YouTube Channel

The 2009 video, along with past GIS Day videos and videos from the GIS community are now available at the GIS Day YouTube Channel. We encourage you to post your GIS Day footage to YouTube. Then send us a link to your video by e-mailing gisdayvideos@esri.com.

November 19, 2008 marked another successful GIS Day celebration. For ten years, GIS users continue to uphold the vision of this important event and share with others the role of GIS in our daily lives.

People observe GIS Day in different ways. This year, more than 1,000 organizations on all seven continents (yes, there was an event in Antarctica), held local GIS Day occasions, such as corporate open houses, hands-on workshops, community expos, and school assemblies. Here's a small sample of the 2008 celebrations.

• GIS Day in Abu Dhabi
• Grand Valley State University field trip lets kids see the global picture
• GIS Day events from Canada
• College Station Hosts GIS Day
• Indiana University
• Delaware County's GIS team celebrates for tenth straight year
• University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
• GeoDecisions Celebrates GIS Day with Educational Events
• Sonoma County GIS Day
• GIS Day at Augusta State University shows how maps could be used to find lead hazards
• City of Johannesburg celebrates GIS Day

Additional information about GIS Day events can also be viewed from the GIS Day Web site.

• GIS Day success stories
• GIS Day proclamations
• GIS Day baked goods

At 10:00 a.m. on November 13, 2008, millions of people throughout Southern California participated in The Great Southern California ShakeOut Drill, the largest earthquake preparedness exercise in U.S. history. The ShakeOut was organized by the Earthquake Country Alliance (ECA), a partnership of earthquake professionals, emergency responders, business leaders, and community activists. The drill simulated a magnitude 7.8 earthquake along the San Andreas Fault in Southern California.

GIS technology was used to help build an accurate, continuously updated emergency information repository; aided decision support and resource management; and enhanced multijurisdictional communication.

GIS software developer ESRI supported participating agencies with software, staffing, and resources used during the exercise, which modeled assessment, rescue, relief, and recovery efforts.  

"We worked diligently to create a realistic exercise that helps us see where we are with our response capability in the event of a major earthquake," says John Ellison, agency technology officer and geographic information officer (GIO)/California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES) director, California Resources Agency.

The ShakeOut kick-started a weeklong collection of exercises called the Golden Guardian 2008, held November 13-18 and involving 5,000 participants from public agencies around the state.

The goal of the drill was to test and evaluate processes, equipment, technologies, and shared workflows. Results helped determine best practices, opportunities for improvement, and potential new capabilities. "The GIS platform developed for the Golden Guardian 2008 exercise proved to be an invaluable tool," says Paul Hardwick, GIS project manager, San Diego Homeland Security Regional Technology Center. "We were able to post pertinent information to provide situational awareness to the state emergency command center and affected communities as well as areas adjacent to the disaster. The ability to transfer information between systems and to implement server-based tasks for analysis helped make the event a success."

Web-enabled laptops. Mobile GIS helped field crews collect remotely sensed data that was automatically sent back to the comprehensive spatial database.

Related blog posts:

Proclamations are official declarations to celebrate special days, weeks, and months. For years, GIS Day supporters have actively encouraged public officials to proclaim GIS Day in their respective cities, counties, and states. Find out if a GIS Day proclamation was made in your area. Learn how to get your governor or other local public official to make a GIS Day proclamation.

Happy GIS Day 2008! Interested in knowing how GIS Day supporters around the world are celebrating right this second? Search the Twitter Web site for "GIS Day" and read the large collection of posts.

Join in and announce your GIS Day event to the world.  

Directions Magazine editors share the key themes they'd want to get across to the public on this special day. Listen to the Podcast.

GIS Day is tomorrow, Wednesday, November 19!

Geographic Technologies Group, Inc. (GTG) will be holding a free GIS Manager's Workshop in Forsyth County, Georgia, on November 20. The workshop will be held at the Forsyth County Public Safety Complex. The workshop fee of $299 has been waived in celebration of GIS Day. Read more.

The Land Information Council of Jamaica (LICJ) in collaboration with the University of the West Indies (UWI) will be streaming GIS Day 2008 activities live from the UWI campus on Wednesday, November 19, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  This feed can be accessed via the UWI home page or directly at http://tv.mona.uwi.edu/.

The theme selected for the week and for their GIS Day activities is, "GIS: Driving Response - Ability". The theme was chosen in order to raise awareness and educate children and adults about GIS technologies and how they can be used to improve our ability to timely and effectively respond to various emergencies.

Can you believe GIS Day is just a few days away? If you did not get the chance to plan an event, don't worry. Here are a few quick ideas to help you celebrate GIS Day.

• Decorate your office. Visit the GIS Day materials page and download free posters to hang.
• Put you baking skills to the test and make a GIS Day cake or batch of cookies. See what others have done.
• Send your friends and colleagues an electronic GIS Day postcard.
• Submit a post to the Geography Matters Blog. Share how GIS is making a difference in your organization.
• Although GIS Day 2008 is officially recognized on November 19, you can have an event any time of the year. Why not plan an event for December?
• Attend or volunteer at an event near you. You can search for events here.

Regardless of how you decide to celebrate, just remember to have fun!

More than 200 community colleges and universities are celebrating GIS Day this year. GIS Day gives students, faculty, and staff who are passionate about GIS the opportunity to interact with peers, introduce GIS to other departments, showcase work, and promote geography or GIS clubs. Here are a few community colleges and universities celebrating GIS Day this year.

• Ball State University
• Texas Tech University
• University of Kansas
• Technical University of Sofia
• Northwestern University
• Northern Virginia Community College
• Southern Connecticut State University
• Purdue University
• University of Ottawa
• Green River Community College

Don't see your community college or university listed above? Search for it here.  

It is not too late to register your event!

Registration only takes a few minutes. Follow these steps:

1. Visit the GIS Day Web site
2. Tell us a few details about your event
3. Click the Submit button

Your event will be listed in the event finder and might be featured on the GIS Day Web site homepage, Geography Matters Blog, or in GIS Day-related articles.

Happy GIS Day 2008!

As part of the 10^th anniversary GIS Day celebration, Dangermond will speak at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference, November 18-20, 2008, in Huntsville, Alabama. This year's conference will include a special plenary session that will focus on how geospatial technologies were used for various aspects of planning for and recovering from hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which recently battered the Gulf Coast of the United States. Read more about the conference agenda and exhibition.

Are you curious to know how members of the GIS community plan on celebrating GIS Day this year? Read about some examples or search for events by location.