VAMLIS GeoCon 2024

The Virginia Department of Conservation (DCR) has upgraded its web mapping application, the Virginia Flood Risk Information System (VFRIS). VFRIS helps communities, real estate agents, property buyers, and property owners understand an area's flood risk. By pulling together information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Esri (GIS mapping software), and the Virginia Geographic Information Network, VFRIS allows users to quickly locate a property to see if it is within the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The previous iteration of VFRIS was developed in house by DCR staff using ESRI’s Web App Builder platform, and although it was widely used (7,500 unique visits per quarter), the system needed a redesign that addressed a wide range of needs for a diverse audience.

VFRIS now allows users to quickly assess whether they are in a special flood hazard area using a user-entered address and provides an “expert” level view which aggregates the most relevant flooding information for specialized users. This upgrade was developed in collaboration with GeoDecision using ESRI’s ArcGIS Experience Builder (Developer Edition). ArcGIS Experience Builder leverages a drag-and drop interface and highly configurable templates, interconnected widgets, and themes. This solution creates a compelling, immersive web experience for the public with flexible design.
Using Esri's Experience Builder, DCR can make configuration changes to mapping elements such as widgets, layers, basemaps, etc., without needing to modify the application’s codebase. Additionally, a custom widget was developed to query data from a user entered address or map click and displays that information in the flood panel. The tool’s queries are maintained in a json file that can be easily updated by DCR staff if needed. This upgrade to VFRIS has allowed DCR to stay current in ESRI’s platform ecosystem while creating a more user focused and friendly interface that is easily maintained by staff.

Notes: This report was made possible with financial assistance from the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency (CCRFR). The author would like to acknowledge Matthew Simons from the City of Norfolk and William Bradfield from FEMA Region III for providing access to the data used for this analysis.

Abstract:
With an increase and intensification of tropical storm events into the future, it becomes paramount for individual communities and homeowners to understand their potential risks of impacts from these events. This study describes an empirical modeling methodology using the City of Norfolk in southeastern Virginia to indicate areas of higher risk based on built infrastructure, property exposure, and temporal records of previous losses. Under this new empirical modeling methodology, a risk score is defined as the properties that may be at higher risk from future flooding events based on elevation differences, the number of flood insurance payouts a property has received, and whether a property has an active flood insurance policy. Results make evident how the methodology can be used to characterize a community’s risk and highlight higher risk hotspots that can in turn be used for future resilience planning and hazard mitigation. Future work to refine the model can reduce the overall uncertainty levels as data becomes more publicly accessible.

After 40 years, the National Geodetic Survey is modernizing the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS). Much of the same advanced technology that makes a more rigorous and accurate NSRS possible also make the update absolutely necessary. We live in a world where positioning, navigation and timing are critical. We can no longer afford the magnitude of uncertainties that reside in the current NSRS. Scheduled for completion after 2025, the modernized NSRS will provide improved three-dimensional positional accuracy through time for improved comparisons of diverse GIS data sets, development of parcel-based Land Information Systems and an array of other uses including precision navigation, intelligent transportation systems, etc. Discussion will include how modernization might impact current geospatial activities, and how the design and implementation of the new NSRS can implicitly improve products and services.

Panel Discussion with the following GIS professionals:

Steve Waldron – Moderator (Timmons Group) Private, current VAMLIS President
Breece Robertson (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy) Non-profit, GeoCon2024 keynote speaker
Justin Madron (Center for Geospatial Solutions - Lincoln Institute of Land Policy & University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies) Academia, ESRI map award-winner
Eric Schmidt (GIS Manager, Franklin County) – Local Government, former VAMLIS Board
Joe Sewash (Coordinator, VGIN) – State Government, VGIN Coordinator

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology has long been the backbone of many municipal asset management and planning strategies. It is common for municipalities to invest time and resources in this technology to inventory critical infrastructure assets, develop agile and quick mapping and visualization tools, and provide land use information to the public. To maximize the functionality offered by such systems, extensive effort is required to ensure that accurate data goes into the system.

One of the most important considerations in implementing and using a GIS is having full, complete data to use as a baseline for analysis and planning. As a system designed to manage expensive infrastructure such as water and wastewater systems, roads, and emergency response programs, it pays to first have a full account of a municipality’s infrastructure asset data. This data is used at the fundamental level of any municipal planning tools or asset management programs built in a GIS and is the key to making the most of such a system.

The Town of Herndon understood that going back to basics – the integrity and quality of their data – was critical for them to continue their progress with their substantial plans for enhanced GIS and asset management systems. In this presentation, we will cover the steps that Herndon took to update the GIS data, and how having solid baseline data will allow them to expand their GIS to include the development of processes which will benefit their asset management program, capital budgeting, public outreach, and internal analysis and planning.

Herndon Department of Public Works – GIS Data Update Pilot Project
The Town of Herndon, VA owns and maintains a variety of infrastructure including water, wastewater, and stormwater systems, among other public assets such as a highly rated parks system. Herndon has long used GIS to manage their data and in 2010, they completed a town-wide survey of the utility assets. Like many municipalities, however, they haven’t always had the staffing resources available to consistently maintain the GIS. In 2023, Herndon requested assistance from CDM Smith to bring their system up to date and fill key gaps in their data. The first task was to update the Town’s GIS databases with the water, sanitary sewer, and stormwater data from the most recent construction projects and infrastructure replacement projects dating back to 2010. CDM Smith and Herndon gathered as-built drawings and records and started the update process by converting the as-built infrastructure records into an appropriate format for georeferencing. Utilizing the tools in the GIS, new assets were added to the Town’s GIS database and existing assets were modified to reflect new configurations. This was also an important opportunity for Herndon to decide what type of assets they wanted to add to their system and expand the types of data they manage in the GIS.

This data development phase is the first step in series of plans to build a sustainable program that will empower Herndon to be able to keep their data up to date and continually improve the accuracy and completeness of their utility systems. Having a full, complete base level of data allows for the creation of more useful and pertinent planning and analysis tools for the Town for years to come.

Acknowledge: Star Carter, Jessica Bynaker

In a town of 8 square miles, making the best use of available land and communicating the ever-changing developmental landscape is a vital role of the Planning and Community Development department. To move towards a more transparent government, the Town of Culpeper GIS team created several ArcGIS Online web applications to help the public and internal staff keep track of ongoing projects. This discussion will show how information is being easily communicated to the public, workloads are managed, and public engagement is encouraged using ArcGIS Hub, Experience Builder, Survey 123 and ArcGIS Dashboard. The team will showcase examples from our Town of Culpeper Zoning Ordinance Update Project HUB site, Land Development and Transportation Projects web application, Public Utilities Lookup, and more.

With more gravestones than address points, the Town of Culpeper embarked on a years-long project to inventory and map the historic Fairview Cemetery. Since this is an active Cemetery, the Town Clerk’s office needed a way to know what spots are still available, where decedents are located, and the potential for the creation of new burial plots. This discussion will show how the Town of Culpeper GIS department, in collaboration with the Town Clerk, created a public search application and an internal editing application that allows the Clerk’s office to manage the Cemetery on their own while giving the public in-depth information about availability and location of decedents.

GIS has been incorporated into both the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) at the federal level. Indeed, there are many natural and powerful synergies between the principals and tools of GIS and the principals and tools of Emergency Management. That said, a profound gap between the practice of GIS and the structure of Emergency Management is still all too common in many local jurisdictions. The gap between local GIS and local Emergency Management typically comes down to a lack of understanding and/or communication between local professionals. This gap needs to be closed, and it needs to be closed from both sides. This being a GIS conference, however, we will discuss ways that local GIS practitioners can begin to close the gap from our side…and why you should.

During the course of Next Generation 9-1-1 GIS onboarding, VGIN fielding questions about documenting extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes and ways to automate them. Both of these are aspects of the ongoing MIDAS program: maintain, improve, document, automate, standards changing. As more and more Virginia localities transition to the long ongoing maintenance phase, programmatic techniques may become increasingly helpful. But how do you get started? "Programming" can commonly mean several things in a GIS environment. Using ArcGIS Pro as an example platform and an ETL of addresses for an NG9-1-1 upload as a scenario, this beginners guide to programming for experienced desktop users pops the hood and explores how users interact with different types of "programming" whenever they use GIS by working through several of these meanings including:

• running or using a program or tool through the graphical user interface
• exploring, modifying, and executing a tool with the Python window
• building a script
• Modelbuilder as a graphic user interface for scripting
• deploying a script as a tool

Attendees will have more confidence in knowing what situations may benefit from fine-tuning their GIS approach for performance, automation, time savings, and how to make these changes.

As local governments are modernizing and adopting new workflows as part of the adoption of NG911, Avineon has developed an ArcGIS Pro Add-in too to assist local governments in the creation and maintenance of addresses that are NG911 complaint. This presentation will walk through the process of migrating to a schema that is fully compliant and what tools can be used to streamline the process of adding new addresses.

Esri’s Web AppBuilder is being deprecated, and organizations are transitioning to Experience Builder. With good, clean data, building dynamic low or no-code applications is easy. This presentation will provide tips and tricks for configuring Experience Builder to create data-driven applications. We will demonstrate how we incorporated out-of-the-box tools to develop a seemingly custom solution. We will also share some Experience Builder nuances and discuss lessons learned from our latest Experience Builder project.

Integrating Survey123 with Experience Builder web maps has significant potential for enhancing community engagement. To highlight what can be done, the workflow established for the Clean Essex campaign is used as a case study.

In the Spring of 2024, Essex County, Virginia continued its twice yearly litter cleanup campaign where residents compete to see which organization can pick up the most bags of trash. This time, however, we used Survey123 and a web map built in Experience Builder to allow people to see where they ranked in the competition in (near) real time, as well as the spatial distribution of cleanups and photos from each cleanup event. As a safeguard against improper photo uploads, we implemented a filtering process where each submission had to be approved before it would appear on the map, but that approval was a simple change in a dropdown question. Using Microsoft Power Automate minimized the time delay between submissions and approval as it sent an email notification each time an entry was submitted.

The survey and map that were produced can be viewed here: https://essex-county-virginia-gis-portal-essex-virginia.hub.arcgis.com/pages/2b2b3ed16a69481bb72e3fd5d1582bab. The same process was used to develop the Wildlife of Essex County web map (https://essex-county-virginia-gis-portal-essex-virginia.hub.arcgis.com/pages/e70b90d3c3f74bee9e7877b7515c5cde) demonstrating the versatility of the toolset.

This has become an annual event that provides local government GIS practitioners the opportunity to gather together to discuss topics of shared concern in an open discussion forum. It's also an opportunity for local government GIS practitioners to meet and greet one another to continue developing working relationships that can help support our local government GIS community.

VGIN staff will provide updates on activities including the Virginia GIS Clearinghouse, 911-GIS support, Virginia Base Mapping Program orthoimagery collection, and the base layer report card program.

In this session, William & Mary’s Center for Geospatial Analysis (CGA) Associate Director and one of the CGA Fellows will share strategies for interdisciplinary collaborative efforts between higher education and partners from various sectors, both public and private. The CGA’s community outreach provides partners with geospatial technical assistance with projects of all sizes, topic areas. The partnership also provides students the opportunity to enhance their geospatial skills with real-world applications. Past projects have been focused on a local spatial data problems; with a state and/or Federal agencies and even tackle larger global research problems. Come learn about the projects and the framework we use for mentorship, project life cycle and collaboration between students and professionals.

Since 2020, Blue Raster has worked with the City of Manassas Park in Northern Virginia to migrate their legacy GIS workflows and applications to ArcGIS Online and Esri's platform of GIS tools. ArcGIS allows for the City to expand their GIS offerings to the public and the multiple departments relying on analysis and mapping for day to day activities. To the City, ArcGIS as the platform and Blue Raster as the services provider offered innovation and continued development, capitalizing on the investment made in GIS. Within the platform, Manassas Park has integrated GIS with CAMA, CAD, and Asset Management tools, leveraging technology such as ArcGIS Velocity, Azure Logic Functions, and scripted automation. The ongoing work has allowed Manassas Park to achieve important milestones for centralizing data navigation, visualization, and analysis in support of their long-term vision for GIS. Our presentation will cover the steps taken to help Manassas Park execute their vision for long-term GIS Strategy, and how other city and county governments can do the same.