MACURISA2018

This Full Day Workshop will be presented with two instructors, one a GIS staffer (F. Peirce Eichelberger) and one a surveyor (Peter Borbas) using with many graphics, illustrations and photographs.  The point/counterpoint format encourages attendee interest and engagement. The format allows for the development of two perspectives on many key issues that need to be discussed and better understood by all involved.    Interactive sections in the workshop are planned. 
This workshop will benefit the larger GIS, survey and related communities, ex. title communities, assessment and Clerks and Recorders.  GIS interests will get a new appreciation for the role of surveyors in GIS including, geodetic control, base map accuracy, precision, as-builts and other GIS theme/layer involvement.  Surveyors will gain a new appreciation of what is GIS and better understand their important role with all things pertaining to legal descriptions.  A goal of the workshop is for both the GIS and survey communities to better understand each other’s perspectives and what each brings to the table.  
What Really is GIS?—What exactly is a GIS map?Role of the GIS base map.All layers are not created equal!Parcel role/Subparcels3-D DiscussionWhere does GIS data comes from?Imagery’s Role Photogrammetrists and (versus) the SurveyorGeodetic Control—the real framework, yet still poorly understood.  The Ideal vs. the Practical.State Plane Coordinates joint perspectives for parcel mappingParcels/lots survey/GIS perspectiveGet ready for a new datum in 2020.How the map is built/maintained/improved?IT Keys and Things that tie it all together.  Addresses, names, contact information.  Data standards.  Surveyors/Developers/Engineers and the Title Community—How GIS can help?Why GIS Needs Surveyors?  Read Legal Descriptions.Subdivision ordinances, SPS, monuments and workflow.    Why the Title Community Needs Surveyors?    Uniform Parcel Identifier (UPI) program in PennsylvaniaThe PRIA (Property Records Industry Association) Land Records/GIS Integration Initiative.GPS/GIS/CORS—the Europeans are coming, so are the Chinese!Monuments from A-ZPLSS Versus the Original 13 ColoniesStaffing/CertificationURISA’s (Urban and Regional Information System Association) G-LIS’ RoleVarying State Roles and Responsibilities

***CANCELED***Disturbances are frequently the impetus for habitat change, but this is especially true at the land-sea interface. In coastal dunes that buffer upland areas, dynamic flux is the norm, and wind events, especially major storms, have the potential to drive change by denuding once vegetated microhabitats and creating hollow blowout depressions. These blowouts are considered ephemeral, ripe for recolonization, and inherent among coastal systems, both recently storm-affected and ‘healthy’, worldwide. However, we do not understand on what timescale recolonization operates or what factors control the rate and magnitude of localized changes associated with further erosion or vegetated stabilization. Since Superstorm Sandy, October 2012, we have conducted a yearly census of blowouts created by the storm along a 3km stretch of a model barrier island coastal dune system, Island Beach State Park, NJ. We use a Trimble GeoXT Explorer 2008 and vertex mapping to map the outermost vegetated blowout edges as a metric of extent change over time. Using various GIS tools, we split these polygon bowls up into quadrants and halves to explore extent shifts directionally within quadrants defined by compass direction as it relates to wind direction; substrate stability and blowout extent shifts are likely coupled with wind forcing dictating where vegetation is able to root and survive. We are also using structure from motion with drones to create RTK-GPS referenced digital elevation models (DEMs). With these models, we can explore how the boundaries of the bowls, as defined by ground truthing the plant extents, differs from the boundaries of the bowls, as defined the change in angle or drop off from foredune into the depression. Thus far, we have mapped the bowls with ArcMap and Trimble four times, since Sandy in Fall 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017. After Sandy, there were 55 blowouts of various sizes and shapes within the foredunes. As of 2017, 29 of these 55 have become colonized and 26 remain unvegetated though their extents have changed. Distinctly new bowls have been created each year and fragmentation of existing bowls from colonization has also occurred. The edges of bowls have been changing location over time primarily due to vegetation encroachment via clonal growth, with negligible germination from the seedbank. Results show that the smaller the blowout, the more ephemeral it will be. We have thus far flown three drone flights, March 2017, December 2017, and March 2018. We can visualize the bowls with these flights and subtract the DEMS to look at changes in the bowl geometry. Similarly, we compare the March 2017 DEM extents to the Fall 2017 ground truthing to relate the two definitions that one might define as the boundary of a blowout. Understanding the controls on dune recolonization in a natural setting has implications for management with dictating planting locations as well so for understanding how habitats will likely change and evolve as a function of increasing disturbances related to climate change.
***CANCELED*** This talk has been canceled ***CANCELED***

Harrisburg University is working on a large grant project in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to create raster mosaic datasets of underground mine maps in the State of Pennsylvania. This compilation of datasets involves a great deal of map analysis – looking for elevation points, common mine workings, and other underground mine features, as well as examining cross sections of coal seams. After many maps are analyzed to determine which have optimal features, the georeferencing and the digitizing of the mosaic footprint is performed. Underground mine maps are often georeferenced to surface maps and surface features, and sometimes even to each other using specific edge-matching techniques. Once a mosaic dataset is created, analysis of the workings begins and leads to the digitization of particular mine workings that are valuable to examining mine subsidence risks in the state. This presentation will discuss the methodology behind the creation of underground mine map mosaics using the Mosaic Raster Tools in ArcGIS and some of the problems that are encountered along the way. Lastly, this presentation will look at the significance of these mosaics in terms of how they effect the public.

Wildlife corridor analysis is a conservation tool used to identify and preserve undisturbed habitat connectivity, allowing species to have access to breeding sites, and food sources that minimize the risk of vehicle collisions. As the human footprint increases habitat fragmentation threatens the health of these ecosystems. Historically, corridor analysis has been directed at larger mammals, but the same principles can be applied to smaller species such as reptiles and amphibians. This project details a methodology for modeling a series of fine-scale wildlife corridors with high-resolution data layers using a geographic information system (GIS). A focus of this project is to use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for geospatial technology to model fine-scale wildlife corridors. I developed a fine-scale approach based on the habitat needs of the Eastern Tiger Salamander in the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province of Virginia. Both raster and vector GIS data formats were used along with Python scripting to create a repeatable process. The analysis identified widespread fragmentation of habitat and breeding sites throughout the species’ habitat and identified key areas where mitigation techniques should be initiated. Relying solely on FOSS technology, data preparation and analysis were completed with PostGIS, GDAL, QGIS, and Python. The analysis process was designed to be easily adopted by groups without access to often expensive proprietary software and aims to highlight high-risk areas and inform conservation efforts so that mitigation strategies can be developed.  

The New Jersey Office of GIS (NJOGIS) serves as the data steward for a statewide, comprehensive address point and road centerline dataset that is used for various purposes throughout the state. In order to facilitate the maintenance of this data set while promoting a standardized schema, and assuring quality control, NJOGIS provides the ability for data contributors to perform check outs from and sync back updates to an enterprise database via a secure geodata service. This presentation will provide an overview of the infrastructure behind the geodata service, how data intake is performed, and highlight some of the reasons that the establishment of this service is so critical to the NJ Office of GIS.  

 The New Jersey Geographic Information Network (NJGIN) portal, v. 1.0, was built 16 years ago to be a central place for the GIS community to find geospatial content. Since that time, technology has evolved, the way that geospatial content owners share their content has evolved and expectations about searching for content has also changed.  The NJGIN portal, https://njgin.nj.gov, is also evolving and being rebuilt from the ground up to streamline how people find and access content as well as make it easier for data stewards to share their authoritative information.  This session will review lessons learned from operating the original NJGIN portal and focus on how the NJ Office of GIS, along with its partners, are modernizing the way geospatial content is shared and discovered in the Garden State with the NJGIN 3.0 project.

NJGIN 3.0 - Metadata Requirements & Recommendations / Good news! Handling documentation for shared data will be much easier in the NJGIN 3.0 environment than it has been in earlier NJGIN releases.
The need to document shared data has not changed, and structured metadata is still the best way to do that. Structured metadata can both document data for internal and shared use, and also serve as an efficient cataloging tool.
Because there are big changes both in hosting environments for sharing data and metadata, and in metadata authoring tools, there is a learning curve involved. For ArcGIS Online Items, full metadata is accepted only in ArcGIS format. NJGIN 3.0 initially is using ArcGIS Online metadata style FGDC-CSDGM (Federal Geographic Data Committee Content Standard for Geospatial Metadata - the old one.)
ArcCatalog 10.3.1 and later can be used to transition from existing FGDC-CSDGM metadata and to update the resulting ArcGIS format files, or to write informative metadata from scratch; both products will function properly on ArcGIS Online sites configured to use FGDC-CSDGM style metadata. Uploaded metadata can be used to fully populate the ArcGIS Online Item Information.
In order to do the work described above, a user has to configure the ArcCatalog metadata editor properly. It also helps to understand that the editor interface and the ArcGIS metadata file are organized around the ISO geospatial metadata standards; as a result, authors familiar with the FGDC-CSDGM often need some assistance in learning new “locations” for some pieces of information.
The NJ Office of GIS publishes help documents to provide guidance on what information is required for cataloging data to be shared on NJGIN 3.0, and what additional information is required for full documentation of state resource GIS data. 
Authors of New Jersey data who do not use Esri products are welcome to contact the NJ Office of GIS for assistance in getting their data and standard-compliant metadata published.
The future is rapidly approaching when one of the suite of ISO 19115 standards for geospatial metadata will be the metadata style for NJGIN. The NJ Office of GIS anticipates making the transition after Esri’s Pro software has full metadata functionality. 

The actual process of publishing content, sharing it and getting it included in the statewide NJGIN Search is simpler that you may expect.  In this last presentation of this session, we will pull it all together and show how a local government partner actually publishes content, such as a data file or map service, and how that same content is configured for Search in the NJGIN site by OGIS. We will publish content, attach a metadata record to it and share it as well as demonstrate the steps taken by OGIS to include that content in NJGIN Search.  The publisher retains control of their content throughout the entire process including content updates and removing one’s content from the NJGIN Search.

*New Jersey Roads and Addresses – Taking the Collaborative Route (Deepa Sanjeevaraya): As an initiative to support- geocoding, 911 Emergency dispatching, routing and transportation needs, the New Jersey Office of Geographic Information System (NJ OGIS) has created a statewide centerlines and addresses database. Which successively will also serve as foundation information for New Jersey’s Next Generation 911 database.
To attain these goals, the NJ OGIS is requesting local government partners (county, municipal and Public Safety Answering Point(PSAP) entities) to collaborate with us on reviewing, updating and validating the records to generate and maintain an accurate and encompassing database. This talk will present various collective methods available for potential partners for data maintenance and sharing.
**Detailed Statewide School Locations - The NJ Office of GIS Approach (Yelena Pikovskaya): Knowing the locations of schools throughout New Jersey is very important. They are needed for uses like proximity to known contaminated sites, emergency dispatching, homeland security, prospective homebuyers, Megan’s Law applications and drug free school zone development.
Every year the NJ Office of GIS (NJOGIS) works in conjunction with the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE) to update school locations throughout the state.  This process includes taking the NJDOE tabular data, running various models, analysis queries, research and manual verification using multiple sources to update the spatial location points of all the schools throughout the state.  The school locations include known public, public charter and non-public schools.  The annual updates include new school locations, relocated schools, closed school campuses and additional campus locations.
***Introduction to BIM - GIS Integration (Moderated Presentation ~25 minutes): Building Information Modeling or “BIM” technology has become the the hottest trend in the construction industry since Autodesk released their white paper “Building Information Modeling” in the early 2000’s. Promising improved planning, design, construction, and operations of the facility over its entire life cycle was what the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry was looking for.
Similar to GIS, BIM is a digital representation of the different elements within a facility with the added value of performing advanced geospatial based analysis. BIM is the evolution of CAD towards GIS while focusing on its strengths for the AEC industry.
Last November, Esri’s president Jack Dangermond, and Autodesk’s president and CEO, Andrew Anagnost, announced “the start of a new relationship to build a bridge between BIM and GIS mapping technologies”. This unusual cooperation between the two toughest and largest competitors in the market ignited the spark for a new era: the GIS-BIM integration.
This presentation will focus on the BIM technology and its effect on the GIS technology and community. The presentation will present some of the challenges, opportunities and concerns in GIS-BIM integration through case studies. The presentation will conclude with a discussion on the future engagement of the GIS and BIM communities.
****CANCELED* Effects of Uber in Low-Income Communities (Moderated Presentation ~25 minutes): Transportation options have recently evolved into the sharing economy; however, not all communities have access to these options due to multiple historical and contemporary barriers. Is the sharing economy inaccessible to low-income communities? In the context of major transportation, hospitality, and marketplace branches evolving due to new
ventures, how will low-income communities adapt to changes in established public transportation modes?
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of Uber on low-income communities. Specifically, the accessibility of services, or lack thereof, being provided to these communities and testing their feasibility as a mode of transportation in comparison with higher-income communities. Six randomly selected low-income and high-income census tracts will be used to explore the service coverage and accessibility of Uber. The data collected from low-income census tracts will be compared to those from high-income census tracts using a t-test and regressions to determine similarity or difference of service coverage between the tracts and the significance of different variables. Results are expected to display disparities between high-income and low-income census tracts. Low-income census tracts are predicted to have less service coverage and accessibility as determined by price and wait time. *CANCELED***

The five precepts are useful as they provide a framework for defining, planning and implementing Enterprise GIS.  While these precepts take a data focused view which experience has shown has delivered excellent results.  The precepts also help determine needed GIS applications and datasets.    

Time Slices/Historic Data
A big change to accomplish Enterprise GIS is to begin to provide historic data for the most critical data in the GIS data model.  This relates to pixels and vectors as well as attributes.  The surveyor’s role is especially critical when we add time slices and historic data to our Enterprise GIS.     

Highest Quality of Data
Almost by definition, all GIS data, themes or layers will need to be of the absolute highest quality.  This includes pixels, vectors and many attributes too.  With GIS data quality assured many more uses and applications are possible from GIS, especially many finance and Geoauditing opportunities.  The surveyor’s role is especially critical in this precept as others.     

Addresses and Supporting Framework
In forty years plus, implementing GIS has shown us the overwhelming importance of situs addresses as the most fundamental part of the GIS architecture and integral to the GIS’ enhanced data model.  The role of 3-D and addresses will also be covered.  The important role of the centerline constructs will also be covered.

Complete Data sets
This precept represents complete coverage of an activity, inventory, category or condition.  QA/QC procedures will also be covered.  Daily operations to ensure data quality will be covered.   

3-D/Subparcels
This goes far beyond “building points” as we must include all apartments, suites, rooms and occupancies in our Enterprise GIS.  Air and mineral rights are another perspective on 3-D/Subparcels.  The plethora of underground and above ground utilities will also be needed for Enterprise GIS.  The notion of subparcels is “catching on” and will change our entire perspective on Enterprise GIS.  With parking spaces now being bought and sold we must also connect parking lots and spaces better to GIS.  

PSAP is the once a decade geographic program that offers local governments and regional planning agencies the opportunity to review and modify select statistical boundaries that the U.S. Census Bureau uses to count people and produce data for the 2020 Census and beyond.

Statistical boundaries are used by the Census Bureau to produce small-area statistics and spatial data to provide relevant, useful data about population, income and housing for small-area geographic analyses. These boundaries tabulate data for the 2020 Census, the American Community Survey and the Economic Census. Data tabulated to PSAP geographies are used by state and local agencies for planning and funding purposes, as well as by the private sector, academia and the public.

The standard statistical geographies include Census tracts, Census block groups and Census Designated Places. The program allows participants (primarily at the county level) to make modifications to Census tract boundaries when current boundaries are found to be invalid. Participants are also asked to suggest boundaries for splitting Census tracts when population thresholds exceed stated criteria. Participants may also modify Census block group boundaries to better reflect local data needs.

Census Designated Places (CDPs) are unincorporated sections of a town that are held as a statistical unit. Participants may suggest CDP boundary expansion, contraction or dissolution. This is also the only opportunity this decade to suggest new Census Designated Places.

To reduce participant burden, the Census Bureau anticipates creating 2020 Census statistical areas for review and update by PSAP participants. Participants may accept the Census Bureau’s 2020 Census proposed statistical areas, update the 2020 Census proposed statistical areas, or use the 2010 Census Statistical area geography as a base to make updates.

Participants reviewing standard statistical area geographies are required to use the Census Bureau’s Geographic Update Partnership Software (GUPS) to delineate updates. The GUPS runs in QGIS, which is an open source Geographic Information System (GIS), and it contains all functionality required to make PSAP updates, execute automated checks for program criteria compliance, and create standardized data output files for Census Bureau processing. The GUPS will be available for download from the Census Bureau's website or available on DVD.

In July 2018, the Census Bureau will invite regional planning agencies and local governments to participate in PSAP. In January 2019, the delineation phase will begin. Participants have 120 calendar days to submit updates.  

Middlesex County, NJ has recently completed the Local Update of Census Addresses Operation (LUCA) project during the spring and summer of 2018. This presentation will explain the methodology used to submit address data for the County and the 25 municipalities. County staff will explain how this data can be used as a baseline for address information while still adhering to the confidentiality regulations. The presentation will also consist of project management methods for working together as a County to submit the best available address information for the 2020 Census. This project served as the basis of our goal for Enterprise GIS within Middlesex County.