June 2007

Welcome to The Sensor -- the newsletter of the Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) bringing you the latest developments from Mississippi’s emerging geospatial industry cluster. Please feel free to share this with friends and colleagues. To subscribe, visit www.eigs.olemiss.edu

For further information, or to submit story ideas, please contact Lisa Stone - lstone@olemiss.edu 

Director's Cut

Lisa Stone
 Acting Director, EIGS

One of the purposes of The Sensor is to keep the pulse on all things geospatial in Mississippi through the monitoring and sharing of information of interest to the geospatial community in the state of Mississippi. Every several months we like to include a feature in The Sensor that provides a flavor of how the use of geospatial technology is spreading across the local landscape in Mississippi. Below are excerpts from news articles from all over the state. The common link of these local news stories is the recognition of the value of GIS and geospatial tools and how these tools are being integrated into everyday operations and processes.

“Technology backbone of disaster response plan”
The MS Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and other state agencies have taken the real-life lessons of Hurricane Katrina to upgrade the use of technology in preparing for and responding to large natural disasters…. Another way technology is vital in natural disaster recovery efforts is the use of GIS. During Katrina, MEMA had the cooperation of numerous state and federal agencies, as well as private companies, who provided sophisticated GIS information to aid in search and rescue, damage assessment, and to identify where resources needed to be placed. Since the storm, MEMA has worked to make sure those relationships are formalized sot he agency will be able to use the same resources in the future.
Mississippi Business Journal, Jackson, MS -- May 28, 2007

“Service policy in works for water extensions”
The city has also begun mapping water lines throughout the county, according to Robert Moore, GIS Coordinator. “It will improve the time in getting leaks fixed. Officials take a GPS unit out and say ‘this is where the line is’ instead of searching 15 feet in the area.”
Daily Star, Grenada, MS – May 4, 2007

“Timber industry embracing geospatial technology tools”
When Robby Toombs, regional manager for Resource Management Service, LLC (RMS), goes out into the field visiting a tract of land in the more than 300,000 acres under the firm’s control, he has an incredible amount of information – literally – at his fingertips. Using a laptop computer that contains data on the entire acreage, GIS software and a hand-held GPS, Toombs call pull up current information gleaned from a combination of data collected in the field and remote sensing to help him make educated decisions on what that track of land needs.
Mississippi Business Journal, Jackson, MS – April 23, 2007

“Mapping with a bird’s eye view toward recovery”
Pre-Katrina Geographic Information Systems (GIS) had been in the vocabulary of county officials for years. It had even been in use to some extent, mainly in the assessors and collectors office. Along comes Katrina and what was once an ‘extra’ something that would “someday be nice to have” became a necessity in many ways for Mississippi’s coastal and nearby counties. Post Katrina, GIS came into its own.
Mississippi Supervisor, April 2007

“How’d you find me, Mr. Deputy Sheriff?”
She’s only four years old and was being prodded by some older children in the car to dial 911. The Moorhead girl using an old cell phone called a half dozen times, talking to the Emergency 911 operator in the sheriff’s department in Indianola. Lisa Nance, E911 operator looked on her new E911 tracking screen and saw the coordinates of the location of the caller’s cell phone – a new state-of-the-art feature of Sunflower County’s new E911 equipment. She gave those numbers to Deputy Doug Grantham. The coordinates were transmitted into the deputy’s hand-held GPS device. “As I got closer, I went by the GPS coordinates, which take you within about 15 feet of the spot,” said Grantham. “I saw these kids in a car. And the girl had just hung up from the 911 operator.”
Enterprise-Tocsin, Indianola, MS -- March 22, 2007

“Charting new territory: Geographical information systems to replace paper maps”
Tax Assessor Reynolds Atkins accesses the Adams County Geographical Information System. The system uses aerial photos of Adams County, along with street, boundary, and elevation maps to visually chart the county and surrounding area. A company hired by the county recently finished translating the paper maps into electronic ones. Then, they superimposed the maps on aerial photographs of the same plots, making a much more accurate and easy-to-read map.
Natchez Democrat, Natchez, MS -- March 1, 2007

IMAGE OF THE MONTH

The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season got off to an early start with Subtropical Storm Andrea forming prior to the official start of the hurricane season. It impacted the East Coast from North Carolina to Florida with high waves, beach erosion and strong winds, but overall, little rain for the drought-stricken Southeast. Read more

Image taken May 9, 2007

SEEN AND HEARD

An interview with the Associated Press has sparked a spirited debate regarding the censorship of satellite imagery:

Robert Murrett, the director of the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) stated in the interview that some censorship of satellite imagery might be necessary for national or military defense. This has stirred questions among experts of whether such restrictions would be either feasible or prudent. "If there was a situation where any imagery products were being used by adversaries to kill Americans, I think we should act," Murrett told the Associated Press on May 8.

"I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas," he explained, adding "I think we may need to have some control over things that are disseminated. I don't know if that means buying up all the imagery or not. I think there are probably some other ways you could do it," he said, deferring specific methods to legal and policy experts.

However some private experts disagree, suggesting that Murrett's claims for defense might actually do more harm than good.

"We're very close to this subject, and NGA is our biggest customer," said Chuck Herring, a spokesman for DigitalGlobe. "We take it seriously, and work with them very closely."

That said, Herring added that control measures already exist. Both of the remote sensing companies are licensed under the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the U.S. Department of Commerce, and NOAA mandates rules for operation, including provisions for shutter control, or preventing imaging over a given geographic area for a given period of time.

"For example," Herring said, "because we're running at sub-meter (0.6 meter) for resolution, we have to hold imagery for 24 hours, abiding by our license as a sub-meter satellite operator. We also can't sell to certain individuals and organizations. There are mechanisms already in place, and we work hand-in-hand as it is right now."

Mark Brender, GeoEye's vice president of communications and marketing, agreed with Herring.

"If there's a threat to national security or a foreign policy concern, then the U.S. government has the authority to interrupt commercial service," he said. "Not since we launched the world's first high-resolution, Earth-imaging satellite in 1999 has the government ever imposed such imaging restrictions...Over the years, we have been more than cautious, and we know who our customers are, and our track record is our measure of success."

Experts say this debate regarding security concerns has been around for years.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 27, 2007
 International GeoScience and Remote Sensing Symposium
 Barcelona, Spain

October 7-10, 2007
 ESRI Health GIS Conference
Scottsdale, AZ

October 15-17, 2007
 Rocket City Geospatial Conference
Huntsville, AL

November 5-7, 2007
2007 ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit
Denver, CO

DID YOU KNOW

Did you know that in recognition of National Hurricane Preparedness Week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) initiated specific actions to prepare for the hurricane season?

Hurricane season runs from June until November. Four major actions are underway to prepare for monitoring floods arising from hurricanes and other tropical storms.

USGS activities include:

  • Strengthening streamgages along the Gulf Coast;

  • Implementing rapidly deployable, mobile gages on streams;

  • Developing capabilities to measure hurricane-driven storm surges;

  • Installing an emergency satellite-communications and data-distribution system

These activities are coordinated with the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other Federal, State, and local organizations.

Learn more about the USGS.

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

Global Gateway to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and Mapping for Aquaculture and Inland Fisheries GISFish is a "one stop" site from which to obtain the global experience on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and Mapping as applied to Aquaculture and Inland fisheries. GISFish sets out the issues in aquaculture and inland fisheries, and demonstrates the benefits of using GIS, remote sensing and mapping to resolve them. The global experience provided by GISFish is captured in Issues, Publications, Activities, Training, Data and Tools, Contacts, Discussions, News and events.

Material in GISFish is constantly updated and expanded. Near future improvements will include increased coverage of abstracts and of full papers. Additional links to Cultured Aquatic Species fact sheets will also be made available for each GISFish publication record in which scientific names of plants and animals are mentioned.

Learn more about GISFish.

Mississippi Communities Benefit from Results of MARS
High School GIS Projects

Photos from MARS

Water Valley High School Receives a GPS unit for winning the poster contest.  Veronica Schindler with ESRI helped select the winner

Enterprise High School

Claiborne County Vocational and Technical Complex

Zack Watts with NVision Solutions helps a South Panola student during the geocaching exercise.

On May 4, 2007, at the Mississippi ETV Auditorium in Jackson, EIGS and the Geospatial Council of the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) hosted the high school participants of MARS (Mississippi Area Remapping Strategies), the geospatial high school adoption program. Participants included students and teachers from Water Valley, Batesville, Cleveland, Enterprise, and Claiborne County. Special guests included:

  • Dennis Watts, Office of Academic and Students Affairs for IHL

  • Mike Mulvihill, MS Department of Education

  • Sam Russell, GIS Director for Desoto County

  • Dave Benway, MS Emergency Management Agency

  • Veronica Schindler, ESRI

During the MARS program, the participating high schools worked with university and community college partners to design and complete a community-based geospatial information science and technology (GIS&T) project. Below are summaries of the projects.

  • South Panola High School worked with Northwest Mississippi Community College and NVision Solutions, Inc., to use GIS technology to track school buses in order to determine more efficient routing. The tracking devices, provided by EIGS member company, NVision Solutions, provide 5-minute updates over the Internet to identify the shortest and most efficient routes in order to eliminate redundancy in routes. The overall goal of the project is to reduce fuel costs and to cut down on pollution.

  • Water Valley High School partnered with The University of Mississippi to use GIS and GPS technology to map out all the fire hydrants in the City of Water Valley. Working with the Water Valley Water and Waste Department and the Mayor’s Office, the students reviewed outdated maps to find and plot every fire hydrant in the city to help better prepare Water Valley for an emergency. They also compiled statistics on every hydrant, such as manufacture date, company and part types.

  • Enterprise High School had students from the Forestry Program working with Jones County Junior College on a project to help the Mississippi Forestry Commission on re-mapping efforts for Section 16 land in Clark County. In just under a two-week period, the students mapped out 640 acres.

  • The Delta State University Center for Interdisciplinary Geospatial Information Technologies worked with local students and the Cleveland/Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce to use geospatial technologies and digital recordings to create enhanced audio and video content for an Internet-based interactive experience focused on local sites of interest for tourism and recreation in the City of Cleveland/Bolivar County.

  • Claiborne County Vocational and Technical Complex worked with Alcorn State University and the Claiborne County Water and Fire Departments to GIS Code fire hydrants in Port Gibson. Using GPS units provided by Alcorn State University, the students recorded latitude and longitude addresses of all fire hydrants within the city limits of Port Gibson. They were able to convert the information into several maps and used data from ArcView software to see how many rental homes and households had fire hydrants near them. They also identified fire hydrants close to schools and gas stations for safety purposes.

Water Valley’s presentation was selected as the winner of the poster contest, earning the school a $2,300 GPS system.

“This is not the end of the MARS Project for Water Valley,” said Liz Reynolds, Water Valley High School teacher. “This is just the kick-start. We hope to be involved with numerous city and county projects, possibly plotting water mains or manholes.”

As part of the program, all participating high schools received computer hardware and software, technical support and training, and resource books to support the projects.

“This has been a great program for getting GIS more integrated in secondary education,” said Chad Garick of the Forestry Department of Jones County Junior College. “This has been such a good opportunity for all these high school students.”

MARS was funded through EIGS in cooperation with the IHL Geospatial Council. Northwest Mississippi Community College served as the statewide coordinator for the MARS pilot program.

Global Perspectives

Save the Elephants incorporates PCI Geomatics software solutions to enhance mission objectives
Richmond Hill, Ontario

PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of image centric software and solutions for the geospatial industry, is pleased to donate its premiere software suite Geomatica® to assist the Save the Elephants (STE) organization in Africa.

Geomatica will be used to process and analyze satellite imagery to help understand the movement and ranging behaviour of elephants and to answer questions about habitat locations.

Learn more about PCI Geomatics.

Nigeria's First Home Made GIS Software – ProxyCAD 1.1 Released
Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Proxy Logics Nigeria has announced the release of Nigeria’s first GIS software application – ProxyCAD 1.1 and a new range of technical services for the Automated Mapping/Facility Management and Geographic Information System community in Nigeria. The services include latest technologies in the conversion of CAD data formats (.dwg,.dxf, .gdn) to structured Geodatabase content using its new ArcInfo customized Application and ArcGIS extension ProxyCAD.

Learn more about ProxyCAD 1.1

Orion COO Shafik Jiwani Keynotes at GISWORX 2007
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Shafik Jiwani, Chief Operating Officer of Orion Technology Inc., was a keynote speaker at this year’s annual GISWORX conference in Dubai. GISWORX 2007, hosted by GISTEC, was the second annual three-day event featuring GIS Workshops and Exhibitions for ESRI users. The conference offered a unique in-depth learning environment on different aspects of GIS designed for both beginners and advanced users, and featured many industry experts. This year, the GISWORX conference offered around 50 focused workshops on topics covering GIS, IT, and Systems to over 300 attendees from all Gulf States.

Learn more about GISWORX.

Geospatial Podcasts

Podcast is one of those new words we hear fairly often these days. The question is do you know what a podcast is? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a podcast is a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player. A number of industries are capitalizing on the use of podcasts including realtors, home builders, travel consultants, and automobile manufacturers just to name a few. Below are a number of podcasts focused on the geospatial industry:

Conference Report

8th Annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference

The 8th Annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference was held May 9th and 10th on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources’ (MDMR) Comprehensive Resource Management Plan (CRMP) served as host to the conference in association with the CRMP Stakeholders, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce.

Since 1999 the CRMP has lead the way providing the format for local decision-makers, leaders, experts, and partners to discuss and learn about local and national issues related to smart growth. The Conference is considered to be the premier smart growth conference on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. By coordinating efforts and promoting partnerships, the Coast derives significant benefits by providing a forum to bring people together to address topics ranging from conservation to ecotourism to economic development.

The focus of this year’s conference was to balance the conservation efforts and economic development while proceeding with planning, designing and building safe, healthy and livable communities for Southern Mississippi. The event drew around 400 attendees committed to building the Gulf Coast, from elected officials to city and county staff, contractors, developers, bankers, and planners, just to name a few.

During breakout sessions throughout the day attendees had the opportunity to hear from a panel of bankers on a number of different topics, including: creative financing techniques for their development projects, tools to develop in ways that minimize the loss of life and property, and how to harness the Coast's cultural heritage and natural area for economic benefit.

Keynote speaker, Don Chen, Executive Director of Smart Growth America (SGA), talked about SGA. SGA is a national advocacy coalition which promotes a better way to grow- one that preserves open space and farmland, reinvests in existing communities, keeps housing affordable and offers more transportation choices.

During the second day of the conference, speakers focused on the potential of south Mississippi's natural and cultural resources to bring tourists to the area while at the same time increasing the quality of life for residents.

Guest speaker, Gov. Haley Barbour encouraged local leaders to embrace recommendations made by the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. He asked for the creation of community plans beyond their terms in office and for future generations. He said smart-growth principles would not always be politically popular to enact. "We have an unprecedented opportunity on the Mississippi Gulf Coast," Barbour said. "Our goal is not to get it like it was, our goal is to get it how it can be."

EIGS In the News

Local Communities benefit from High School GIS projects
GIS Development -- May 16, 2007

The Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) and the Geospatial Council of the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) have announced the results of Mississippi Area Remapping Strategies (MARS), the geospatial high school adoption program with schools. MARS was funded through EIGS in cooperation with the IHL Geospatial Council. Northwest Mississippi Community College served as the statewide coordinator for the MARS pilot program.

“When we started the process of establishing this program, we had no idea how great the results would be,” stated Lisa Stone, Acting Director for EIGS. “We knew we had the resources and manpower to jumpstart activities at the secondary level, but it was really the response and enthusiasm we got from the participating high schools that has made this endeavor such a success.” Read more.

 GIS Applications during Response to Hurricane Katrina: Small, Local
Government and State Government Experiences
by Kelly A. Boyd and Jacqueline W. Mills, Ph.D
Directions Magazine -- May 17, 2007

In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, Hancock County tapped NVision Solutions to supply area maps to the influx of federal, state and other relief assistance personnel. The company developed an informal relationship with the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) as they set up a lab in their Emergency Operations Center (EOC). A representative from the GIS Lab attended EOC status meetings each day offering GIS solutions to problems that would arise. The solutions were often not complex, but rather simple paper maps and atlases. The EMA
officials learned what GIS software could accomplish and quickly devised
potential applications on their own... Read more.

 Mission opens pipeline for flow of geospatial technologies
The Stennis News -- May 22, 2007
The Conference partnered Mississippi geospatial companies affiliated with MsET with those from Canada in hopes of fostering international relationships and business ventures. Organizations from all over Canada traveled to South Mississippi to give and view presentations, attend a trade show, and to explore partnering opportunities with Mississippi-based geospatial companies. The event was a follow-up to a similar meeting held in February 2005. As a result of these two trade missions, Steve Flamm, Trade Commissioner for the Canadian Consulate in Atlanta, said he believes that Canada and Mississippi have a two-way pipeline for the flow of Geomatics technologies.

County E-911 contracts for high tech address locator
Bolivar Commercial -- April 17, 2007
Bolivar County's E-911 system will soon be updated using GIS through Delta State University in Cleveland. EOC Director Bill Quinton said, "We've just contracted with Talbot Brooks to do the addressing for the county. It will benefit the county and every municipality. It is a mapping system for exact locations that will be made available for the dispatchers." The new system will provide better response times and location-finding to people who call in via cell phone, according to Quinton.

Industry Briefs: 3001 Named ESRI New Business Partner of the Year
Earth Imaging Journal -- May/June 2007
3001 was named ESRI's New Business Partner of the Year for the San Antonio Region. ESRI recognized 3001 for its emergency response efforts in the state of Louisiana following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Congratulations

MAPPS, the national association of private geospatial mapping and photogrammetry firms, recently announced the panel of judges who will select the winners of the 2007 Geospatial Products and Services Excellence Awards. EIGS would like to congratulate Pamela Lawhead for being selected as a judge.

Dr. Pamela Lawhead – Pamela is Director of the Institute for Advanced Education in Geospatial Sciences (IAEGS) at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS. (IAEGS) is Ole Miss’s on-line education program in the remote sensing and geospatial field, responsible for soliciting course materials from principal remote sensing specialists internationally, developing this material into a state-of-the-art, interactive learning environment and delivering it to interested community colleges and universities.

Learn more about MAPPS.

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Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions - 125 Old Chemistry - University, MS 38677
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