California

In a Sacramento office building, university students carefully scan pieces of paper that underpin California’s most contentious and valuable water disputes. One by one, they’re bringing pieces of history into the digital era, some a century old and thin as onion skin. The massive undertaking will unmask the notoriously opaque world of California water. Right ...

The City of Paso Robles is trying to make it easier for residents to get information about road conditions and future repairs in their neighborhoods. The new interactive street maintenance map application was developed after damage from last year’s storms. Residents now have the opportunity to check a street’s pavement condition index rating, the last ...

A new analysis shows how much Chula Vista residents’ access to parkland depends on where they live. The analysis, conducted by geographic information systems (GIS) researcher and Chula Vista resident Jacob Helfman, visualizes how areas east of Interstate 805 have over three times more parkland per person than those west of the freeway. Helfman’s analysis ...

Cal Poly Humboldt students and faculty across various disciplines are embarking on an ambitious project to map out vegetation in the Klamath Mountains. This data will have many applications, including understanding how vegetation regenerates after fires, and how plant communities are being affected by a drying and warming climate. In the long term, this project ...

For millions of Los Angeles-area motorists, the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area flashes by in an instant — a tattered oasis of wetlands, sycamore and oak that punctuates the monotonous sprawl of industrial parks, cinder-block sound walls and residential cul-de-sacs along the 60 Freeway and Rosemead Boulevard. But to Andrew Salas, chairman of the Gabrieleño-Kizh tribe, ...

An interdisciplinary team from San Diego State University analyzed the accessibility of public restrooms along transit lines countywide and found a shortage of facilities, particularly in the busiest stations, and a lack of important features in existing restrooms. Their project, “Where Can You Go On the Go?” was an initiative of SDSU’s Project for Sanitation ...

This summer, a group of students are embarking on a groundbreaking project: mapping tree canopy cover in California. Tree canopies, which provide shade, can offset the heat island effect in cities. The effect is caused by buildings, roads and other human-made infrastructure absorbing and then re-emitting heat. In a warming climate, the heat island effect ...

Learn how to use the City’s Emergency Map to quickly see how neighborhoods, including your own, may be directed to evacuate, shelter in place, or take other protective action during a major emergency. When possible, the City would use the map to also identify evacuation routes, road closures, shelters, or other critical information to guide ...

Last Week, The California State Parks System (CSP) Announced The Addition Of Location Technology To Improve Rescue Operations And The Park Visitor Experience. In Recent Years, New Technologies Like Drones And Robots Are Being Used In Places Like Travis County, Texas, To Improve Search And Rescue Operations. The Location Technology From What3words Has Been Implemented ...

A new Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi initiative aims to foster the next generation of land surveyors and geospatial scientists. The initiative aims to develop a curriculum for high school students and develop training workshops for high school STEM educators, as well as geospatial camps for middle school teachers. “We’ve seen a decline in the number ...

In California, extreme heat and drought conditions now occur at regular intervals, drying out grassland, pine needles and other foliage, adding to the century-old tinderbox that stokes these enormous fires. However, the state is now harnessing a powerful tool to dampen the effects of these fires, namely artificial intelligence, and specifically machine learning. The abundance ...

Hosted by California URISA and the California Geographic Information Association, CalGIS 2023 features important education and training, along with ample opportunities to build your professional network and find solutions. Chairwoman Louise Miranda Ramirez of the Ohlone Costanoan-Esselen Nation will present the opening land acknowledgement and then we’ll hear from our featured keynote speaker, Joy Bonaguro, ...

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal FIRE) has granted stakeholders an additional 60 days to comment on the state’s draft Fire Hazard Severity Zone Map for rural, unincorporated areas (State Responsibility Area). The move was made in response to a request for more time and clarity from the League of California Cities ...

In response to recent disaster declarations throughout California, Topcon Positioning Systems is offering free access to its global navigation satellite system (GNSS) correction services network to essential emergency response agencies and personnel in designated disaster areas. “The challenge for a lot of these companies, services and agencies that come into disaster areas is they don’t ...

Just four days after heavy rain hit California, the state was drenched with another atmospheric river on January 4 and 5, 2023. A plume of moisture from the tropical Pacific interacted with a low-pressure system that rapidly strengthened over the northeast Pacific, producing a storm that caused flooding, toppled trees, and downed power lines. This ...

You probably didn’t notice a twin-engine prop plane loaded with high-tech equipment circling 23,000 feet over the San Joaquin Valley’s upper watersheds this fall. But it was there, gathering information about those watersheds in their “snow off” condition. That detailed information will be vital to multiple follow up flights of Airborne Snow Observatories, Inc. (ASO) ...

The map of Metro’s Draft Prioritized Active Transportation Network was revealed last week during community stakeholder briefings. In its default view, it shows where bikeways, pedestrian districts, and first-last-mile station improvements are prioritized by the agency. SBLA is calling this the Default Map here, and it’s the cover image above. But the interactive map allows ...

NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will map portions of the southwest United States for critical minerals using advanced airborne imaging. Hyperspectral data from hundreds of wavelengths of reflected light can provide new information about Earth’s surface and atmosphere to help scientists understand Earth’s geology and biology, as well as the effects of climate ...

Environmental managers will have a powerful new resource for helping our forests survive and recover from wildfire, drought and disease. UC Davis ecologist Derek Young is leading a team to develop the Open Forest Observatory, a pioneering project combining drone photography and forest mapping with machine learning, remote sensing, big-data crunching and open information sourcing. ...

Today, Orange County Government launches an interactive map where residents can navigate and gather information relating to the proposed Transportation Initiative projects list. Residents can navigate the dashboard by scrolling through the site or using the navigation bar for direct links. The interactive map has a zoom feature and projects can be filtered by address, ...

Hexagon’s Geosystems division announced today that the HxGN Content Program will refresh data for eight U.S. states during this year’s collection season. All states — California, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, and West Virginia — will be updated at a 6-inch (15-centimeter) resolution statewide, marking the program’s shift from a 12-inch to ...

The authors say this study provides the first evidence supporting the hypothesis that residential pesticide exposure from agricultural use is associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer. The authors performed a case-controlled study using thyroid cancer cases from the California Cancer Registry (1999-2012) and controls sampled in a population-based manner. Study participants were diagnosed ...

A new web-based tool developed by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) will allow the public to explore thousands of groundwater projects across California to get a better understanding of one of the state’s most critical water supply resources. The California Groundwater Projects Tool is an interactive mapping tool that allows users to explore ...

The US government is working on building a climate resilience portal that seeks to bring together all valuable information on climate change and its impacts under one umbrella. David J. Hayes, Special Assistant to the US President for Climate Policy, revealed this at Esri User Conference 2022 underway at San Diego.

Nine of the 20 largest wildfires in California in the last 110 years were started by lightning strikes, including the devastating Lightning Complex fires in August 2020 that burned more than 750,000 acres in and around the Bay Area. Between 2017 and 2021, Northern California has witnessed 2,093 lightning-induced wildfires. And research now suggests that ...