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The Netherlands is currently in the midst of the corona crisis. As Esri Nederland, we want to contribute to the information provision around this crisis. The ArcGIS platform is excellently suited to create various information products that inform citizens about the developments of the coronavirus in the Netherlands. In addition, we hope to support decision-making with good information provision using current and reliable data so that we can get out of this crisis faster. In recent weeks, Esri Nederland has been busy realizing these products. The data we use mainly comes from the RIVM, which provides new data daily about the number of infections, deaths, and patients admitted to hospitals. Additionally, we use data on the number of patients admitted to ICUs. This comes from Stichting NICE. We process this data in our products, which present it in various ways. This blog discusses the different types of digital information products and their update process.<\/P>
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The product to which Esri Nederland has devoted the most time is the NL COVID-19 Hub<\/A>. This is the site where all information products and other data around the coronavirus come together. One of the most important information products of the hub is the COVID19-Dashboard<\/A>. This dashboard was the first information product and provides a general overview of the situation in the Netherlands. See the previous blog<\/A> for more background on this dashboard. Besides this, we have been busy creating other information products and maps.<\/P>Below is an overview of the apps and maps currently available on the hub.<\/P>
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Dashboards and apps<\/STRONG><\/P>
Dashboard<\/A> with the number of infections with filter options for GGD region, Safety region, and Provinces.<\/LI>Dashboard<\/A> showing the progression of infections per municipality.<\/LI>Dashboard<\/A> with epidemiological data, such as insight into infections per age category or comorbidity (chronic condition).<\/LI>Timeslider application<\/A> showing the progression of infections per municipality.*<\/LI>Self-reliance application<\/A> with locations of buildings and grounds where people with reduced self-reliance may be present.<\/LI>Cyclomedia street view.<\/A> This interactive map shows high-quality 360 street photos from CycloMedia based on the Street Smart plugin for Esri's ArcGIS platform. This makes it possible to bring outside inside, especially in these times with the coronavirus. Cyclomedia makes these photos available free of charge for organizations that want to use these images in their work against the coronavirus. The images are freely available from Cyclomedia until July 1, 2020<\/STRONG>. If you are interested in continuing to use these images, you can contact Cyclomedia.<\/LI>Locations of supermarkets, pharmacies, and drugstores<\/A>. Through this map, you can search for locations of supermarkets, pharmacies, and drugstores within a certain radius. This data is provided by Locatus for corona support. These store locations remain open even during the extension of measures announced on March 31 by the government. This app is available until <\/SPAN>September 1, 2020<\/STRONG>. If you are interested in continuing to use this data, you can contact Locatus.<\/SPAN><\/LI><\/UL><\/P>Besides dashboards and apps, there are also various maps such as a map with vulnerable locations<\/A> such as nursing homes or hospitals or a map with the number of 65-plus individuals<\/A> in the Netherlands per neighborhood. Moreover, there are more supporting maps. See here<\/A>.<\/P>
Two products are further highlighted:
Dashboard with filters
This dashboard was created to give users more control over the information presented in the dashboard. We have noticed that the dashboard showing data for all of the Netherlands is viewed per province but also per safety region and GGD region in the country. These organizations have through different filters in the dashboard the possibility to highlight their own region. Additionally, this is useful for comparing regions with each other. We have not changed much in the source data. We only added three fields now linking to their corresponding region or province. Using the standard filter function in Operations Dashboard made this easy to implement this way. The data in charts adjusts based on selection on the map. There are two dashboards with filter functions: the
first<\/_A> contains filters within the dashboard itself and the second<\/_A> is configured so that after the URL you can enter region or province parameters. For example ?provincie=p_zuid-holland or ?veiligheidsregio=v_Groningen. This is useful so regional organizations can open the dashboard immediately with their correct region or province selected.
Timeslider application*
Certain map layers are time-dependent: they contain spatial datasets with different information for the same location but from different points in time. Geographic phenomena combined with this time information enable users to analyze what happened at a certain moment or what might happen in future. Because new numbers about coronavirus spread are provided daily, there is a timespan of data available. To map out situation over time all data has been collected and merged into one dataset. The number of infections is visualized starting from March 2, 2020 and expanded daily based on latest RIVM data. A date field is assigned to RIVM dataset after which extra options become automatically available in ArcGIS. For example a timeslider appears allowing viewing different time layers within dataset and time properties can be set such as timespan and interval steps. Using Time Aware template you can easily create a web application from time-dependent map layer. Whether time layer is enabled depends on your personal goal and application along with which time-related parameters are used. The progression of corona infections per municipality is visualized using proportional points in web application. Because map builds up day by day it clearly shows spread and increase of coronavirus across Netherlands from start of outbreak until now.
How do we update all these different products daily efficiently?
RIVM releases new figures every day around 2 PM. We monitor their site and start working as soon as data goes live. We aim for updates with minimal error risk and minimal user impact. Also update duration matters because data updates daily and update process involves many different products. For these reasons we have chosen to working with hosted views. These views are a derived layer of the source feature services or table. The advantage of views is that the data can be presented in different ways, for example through visualizations or filters, but is still based on the same source data. This means that the source only needs to be updated once after which all the different views are automatically adjusted. In ArcGIS Online, "enable editing" is turned on for the source data, allowing this layer to be edited by the owner. The hosted view of this is not editable. This view layer is included in the various dashboards, maps, and applications. This prevents users from modifying this data themselves. We perform the editing and updating of the source data in ArcGIS Pro. We use the editable feature service for this, i.e., the source data. When new data becomes available from the RIVM, these new numbers are processed in the feature service. Because we edit this directly on the editable feature service, it is automatically adjusted in the derived dashboards, maps, and applications with the views. Because we work with services, you always have access to the same data regardless of where you view it, for example embedded on a site or in ArcGIS Pro.<\/P>
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See many more other interesting information on the NL COVID-19 Hub<\/A> and especially get started with the services that are publicly available. It is special that these services also contain built-up history. Besides being a collection place for information products, we hope that this hub is also a tool and source of inspiration for your own applications in the fight against the coronavirus. <\/P><\/P>
* This data has not been provided since 31-03-2020. Currently, time animations are provided about the number of hospital admissions per municipality.<\/SPAN><\/P><\/BODY><\/HTML>
