Category Archives: Spatial IT/GIS

Mapping Internet Deserts

North Carolina uses GIS to identify rural communities with poor broadband access to help farmers and fight poverty When Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited North Carolina last year to announce a $17.5 million grant for broadband connectivity, it felt like a lottery win for Warren County officials. Without the vital Internet connections that drive economic...

Low-Code/No-Code Mapping

Location-aware apps can now be created with almost no coding expertise. Is this the next frontier in mobile GIS? When authorities at the Ara Hīkoi Aotearoa, New Zealand’s Walking Access Commission, needed to revamp the country’s web-based maps, they knew that they had to build a handy and more user-friendly alternative for their hiking patrons.  ...

How Cool

Los Angeles uses GIS technologies to help residents find respite during heat waves In late August 2022, a vicious heat dome sat over Los Angeles just when summer would typically fade into fall. For a week, temperatures climbed as high as 115 degrees in parts of Southern California—and didn’t cool off much at night. The extreme...

How Green Is Your City?

As tree-planting efforts take root in cities around the world, urban managers turn to geospatial tools to map and monitor their community’s canopy cover.  New Yorkers are fast walkers. But there are those who prefer to take it slow, like the group of well-trained volunteers who purposely roamed around the streets of the Big Apple,...

Surveying for Safety at Waipio Valley

Lush vegetation, beautiful ocean vistas, and a historic Hawaiian valley provide the setting for a complex engineering project that addresses technical and cultural concerns.  The Waipio Valley on the island of Hawaii has great historical significance within Hawaiian culture. Known as the Valley of Kings, it was home to many generations of the royal family...