Latest Contributions by Lo-RuhamaWestbrook

The Esri User Conference (Esri UC) has many presentations and events with hundreds of topics covered. To help you find your way to the renewables sessions and events, we have prepared a more focused agenda. Please note, this document will be updated periodically as more information becomes available. Thank you. ... View more

The Esri User Conference (Esri UC) has many presentations and events with hundreds of topics covered. To help you find your way to the forestry sessions and events, we have prepared a more focused agenda. Please note, this document will be updated periodically as more information becomes available. Thank you. ... View more

The Esri User Conference (Esri UC) has many presentations and events with hundreds of topics covered. To help you find your way to the agriculture sessions and events, we have prepared a more focused agenda. Please note, this document will be updated periodically as more information becomes available. Thank you. ... View more

 The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) represents a significant shift in US energy policy. The IRA will help the US pursue energy transition away from fossil energy and toward renewable energy. In addition to extending and expanding existing tax incentives for renewable energy production, the IRA establishes new incentives for development in areas that have been hard-hit by the decline of fossil energy due to the pace of the ongoing energy transition. The IRA describes these areas as energy communities and defines them using specific geographic and demographic criteria.  Join our upcoming webinar that will focus on the Inflation Reduction Act and how to use ArcGIS to identify areas that are eligible for some of the tax incentives that are included in the bill. We will show how to integrate these areas into land prospecting and site suitability workflows. Help guide the conversation by answering a few questions. REGISTER TODAY Using ArcGIS to Identify America's Energy Communities Thursday, October 27 9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m. (PT) ... View more

It was a great pleasure at the 2022 User Conference to hear first-hand the about the exciting work being done to solve unique business challenges, and to exchange ideas, knowledge and common workflows within the community. There was much to see and do and it would have been impossible to do it all so we put together a highlighted summary of the activities specific to the Agriculture community.   For members of our communities who could not be present at the conference hopefully you were able to join us digitally for the plenary and some of the technical sessions. If you didn’t get a chance to watch the plenary, check out this section where Abigail Fitzgibbon shares her research to demonstrate what could happen to agriculture production because of climate change, using the raster analysis functions in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online.  Special Achievement in GIS Award  Congratulations to Iowa Select Farms the winner of the Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award in Agriculture.     Iowa Select Farms completed a custom application called the Pumper Portal that leverages ArcGIS for approximately 100 or so contractors to apply the animal waste in an effective and environmentally responsible way.  The app allows the applicator and the Iowa Select team to access data on recent soil analysis, which determines exactly how much fertilizer should be applied to specific sections of the field. The app is aware of topographical features that require special care to ensure that material does not wash into rivers or streams.   Other improvements have been made to improving team efficiency with redesigned workflows for mapping and creating regulatory map products using ArcGIS Pro, increased communication within the Nutrient Management team and management with the implementation of Operation Dashboards and eliminated the need for paper reports for site inspections with Survey123 surveys.  International Winners:  IGAD Regional Secretariat on Forced Displacement and Mixed Migration, Djibouti  Sime Darby Plantation Research Sdn Bhd, Malaysia The Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs (DAERA), United Kingdom  SUL Secretariado Uruguayo de la Lana, Uruguay    Map Gallery Awards  Taking Root: An Analysis of Shifting Wheat Yield in Russia Due to Climate Change authored by Elizabeth Frieden from Tufts University – Second Place in Student Map (Post-secondary school)  User Presentations  Esri would like to thank all the presentations that freely shared their work and enthusiasm with the GIS community.   Trinchero Family Estates was represented by Douglass Wood on how democratizing access to the mapping and collection of geospatial viticultural data beyond internal departmental use improves communications, operational efficiency, crop estimation and regulatory requirements in GIS and Wine – An Integrated Approach to Geospatial Viticulture Data Management.  The County of Napa with Andre Napolitano and Louie Rowley focused on the Enhanced Protection of Napa Wine and Agriculture from the pests, specifically the Glassywinged Sharpshooter, by integrating Esri technology into their plant inspection workflows allowing a shift into an efficient, geo-referenced and timely response program.  USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is responsible for producing the most objective and accurate assessments of global agricultural production. FAS monitors multiple environmental datasets for critical crop conditions that affect food security around the world. In Monitoring Agriculture With Satellite Imagery and GIS, Lisa Colson discussed how regional analysts monitor near real-time agrometeorological data and satellite imagery with ArcGIS Pro and online applications, such as Crop Explorer and the Global Agricultural & Disaster Assessment System (GADAS).   Traveling all the way from Malaysia, Mohammad Zafrullah Salim from Sime Darby Plantation Research introduced us to SMART: Reimagining Plantations towards Agriculture 4.0. Spatial Data Management and Rapid Analytics (SMART) an interconnected web and mobile-based GIS platform that is being used to address critical business challenges and how the technology is facilitating better collaboration across the entire value chain of the palm oil production.    Agriculture Special Interest Group Meeting  Members of the Agriculture community across the federal, state and commercial spheres, including international, discussed the application of spatial technologies and their value regarding climate change and smart agriculture. Each panelists took the time to define what climate solutions meant to them, what their organization is doing about climate solutions and what we at Esri and the GIS community could do to help facilitate these solutions.   Panelists included   James Hipple, USDA  Sue Klingaman, Organic Valley  Nicholas Johansen, Iowa Select Farms  Christina Finlayson, Balance Agri-Nutrients  Lorenzo DeSimone, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations    Stay connected with the Esri Agriculture Community beyond the UC  Twitter: @EsriAgriculture  LinkedIn: Esri Agriculture Group  Esri’s Agriculture Community  ... View more

First, thank you all so much for a fantastic week in San Diego at the 2022 Esri User Conference! Much can be said about meeting together as a GIS community in one place and at one time, but every minute lived up to the conference theme of Mapping Common Ground and how the geographic approach can help create better understanding and agreed-upon solutions.  This year’s User Conference had many offerings available which included user presentation sessions, special interest group meetings and socials.  It was a pleasure to hear first-hand about the exciting work being done to solve unique business challenges, and to exchange ideas, knowledge, and common workflows within the renewable energy community. For those who could not attend this year, hopefully you were able to join us digitally for the plenary and for some of the technical sessions. Below is a quick summary of some of the highlights specific to Renewable Energy: Special Achievement in GIS Award Congratulations to EDF Renewables Inc the winner of the Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award in Renewables! EDF Renewables transformed their GIS practices to develop a company-wide mapping and data solution to better-deliver authoritative geospatial information across departments. The GIS team developed a stable platform based on ArcGIS Enterprise & Desktop, by gathering needs from business users, customizing the structure and content to meet their needs, and creating a support, training, and regular follow up workflow system. This solved many of the data access issues that were previously part of their GIS system. Additional efforts included centralizing servers for ArcGIS use, creating a GIS library for data access, integrating proprietary and subscription data, collaborating with ESRI to develop customized tools, and automating workflows. Custom-scripted geoprocessing services and widgets, and Web App-Builder are regularly used to deploy custom mapping applications for a variety of teams and uses. The EDF Renewables team is truly an inspiration for the Renewable Energy Community and we are thrilled to see your hard work be recognized as it deserves. Map Gallery Awards Atlas of Energy Transition authored by Ginny Mason, Josephine Sajbel, Andrew Critchlow, Henry Edwardes-Evans, S&P Global Commodity Insights – First Place in Map Series or Atlas & Winner for Best Cartography User Presentations Esri would like to thank all the presentations that freely shared their work and enthusiasm with the GIS community. Grazia Pannarale from Enel Green Power developed a semi-automatic GIS enabled Environmental Analysis tool aimed at establishing a standardized quantitative & qualitative approach to carry out spatial risk analysis pertaining to the environmental key performance factors. Titled: Enel GIS Tool for Environmental Analysis in Renewable Project Assessment Sean Ireland from Ramboll focused on the Spatial Data Analysis to Inform Offshore Wind Infrastructure Development. During project design, GIS is used to visualize geophysical and geotechnical data to inform decision support models. All GIS data are published to our enterprise portal environment for a single source of truth that ensures accurate and dynamic collaboration within project team Ross O’Connell from MaREI at University College Cork: presented A Techno-Economic Web-GIS for Assessing Site Viability of Ocean Energy Projects introducing GIS to Techno-Economics addressed the issue of limited geospatial information as a factor for both site selection and feasibility of Ocean Energy projects Dan Meehan from Horizon Geospatial and Juan Tori-Killion from Prospect 14 came together and built tasks to streamline and automate workflows into simple user interfaces. The geospatially enabled tools would cut down search and site evaluation time, and allowed potential project sites to be sorted easily. Presented as A Geospatial Platform for Renewable Development and Asset Management Dr. Ahmed Alzahrani from Claremont Graduate University shared his study that investigated the solar-energy adoption at the residential level by operationalizing spatial and nonspatial factors related to homeowners. The study's output is an interactive GIS-based web application that supports the decision-making process of stakeholders (e.g., policymakers, solar firms, utility companies and nonprofit organizations)   Renewables Special Interest Group Meeting Members of the renewable energy community were invited to get together to discuss opportunities, trends, and business challenges facing the community today.  The Esri Renewable Energy team discussed resources available to the community, such as: licensing help, professional services, change management, community networking, and GIS support with specific project initiatives. Craig Weber of EDF Renewables accepted the SAG Award for Renewable Energy on behalf of his team and gave a speech about their work in GIS throughout the previous years to deliver authoritative geospatial information across departments. Two leaders of the community (Lisa Tunnell of Clearway Energy and Michelle Pruse of Pattern Energy) served on a renewable energy panel to share how their career in renewable energy began, how they are currently using GIS at their respective companies, what business challenges they address using GIS, and shared exciting GIS use cases emerging in the renewable energy industry. Finally, Andrew Norris of Nextera Energy shared his experience on the PUG (Petroleum User Group) steering committee and discussed next steps on creating a formal Esri Renewable Energy group starting with the formation of a voluntary steering committee. Panelists included: Lisa Tunnell, Clearway Energy Michelle Pruse, Pattern Energy Renewables SIG Energy Social Members of the petroleum, pipeline, and renewables community convened at the Marriot Coronado Terrace. With food, drinks, and music provided by a live band, it was a perfect opportunity to network with industry peers across the energy sector and share stories, ask questions, or simply catch up. Special thanks to our sponsors!   Stay connected with the Esri Renewables Community beyond the UC: Esri’s Renewables Community For anyone interested in joining the Renewables Steering Community please contact Alessandra Millican at amillican@esri.com ... View more

It was great to see everyone in San Diego and meet personally with members of the Mining Community.  A summary of activities at the conference can be found c/o the Mining Industry UC Guide  Throughout the week it was fantastic to hear and see the work being done by our customers to solve a wide variety of business challenges and experience the fluid exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge.  We are confident this will filter back to enhance their respective geospatial approaches and/or strategies, as it applies to their business requirements and specific workflows.  Here’s a quick summary of some of the Mining Track highlights:  Natural Resources Expo User Presentations  Freeport’s Grasberg Mine The Indonesia based team (Prayoga Sagita and Arif Susanto) presented a remarkable mapping project of noise monitoring inside the (copper) ore processing mill, complete with sophisticated real-time dashboards to monitor and improve worker safety.  Liberty/Pilot Gold USA - Gerald Heston described the extensive program of operational and reclamation work activities monitored at the Goldstrike project in SW Utah and the data sharing environment with the BLM and Utah DOGM from whom they have been given the Environmental Excellence Award in April of this year.   Luck Stone – Patrick Hess described the GIS journey at Luckstone from initially the faxing of physical paper maps with notes and sharpie markups through a lightweight ArcGIS desktop (ArcMap) deployment, to the enhanced power of ArcGIS Pro and leverage of ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Server capabilities, Patrick is looking forward to an enterprise scale deployment for the future.  Integrated Precision Systems – Janaki Gattu (and Hari Yeruva) described the careful balancing act between the growing need for construction sand in the face of increasing environment protection in India.    Wyoming DEQ’s (Mila Brown) and Brierly Associates (Harry Plendl) – discussed the effort to mitigate subsidence from WY’s Abandoned Mine Lands project using a digital enterprise approach, resulting in considerably improved data, logistics and reporting.  SAG Awards  Congratulations to the Mining related recipients of the 2022 Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Awards.   Martin Marietta Materials, US SAG Award  Vale S.A., Brazil – Brazilian SAG Award  Antofagasta Minerals - Chile SAG Award   Geological Survey of Ethiopia – Ethiopean SAG Award  Special Interest Group (SIG) Meeting   Trends and Technology in Mining:  A Community-Based Discussion  For this year’s SIG we started with high level ‘lightning talks’ from three of Esri’s partners; Mike Baumgartner of Trimble Land, Anthony Walker of Cyient, and John Shippick of Datamine.  They touched on key updates in their respective technologies and services, then took questions from the audience.    Following this we tabled the current state and desire to re-invigorate the Mining User Group (MUG) and took the opportunity to have Brian Boulmay share his experience (~20 years) of working and chairing the Petroleum User Group (PUG) and what could we maybe leverage across to the MUG.  This included and emphasized the critical need for volunteers from our industry customers… and I am really pleased to say that I have had four people reach out since to express their interest in potentially getting involved and/or assisting with a local ‘chapter’ or meeting in their respective cities which is fantastic.    Socials  The mining community had the opportunity to convene socially twice, once in an early bird mining social at the Rocking Baja Lobster in the downtown Gaslamp district and another at an Energy and Mining Social held on the Marriot Coronado Terrace. There was great food and music, and an opportunity to network with industry peers on a personal level to share stories, ask questions, or simply catch up.  Esri Mining Communities  Stay connected with the Esri Mining Community all year long!  Twitter:  @EsriMining  LinkedIn:  Esri Mining User Group  Esri’s Mining Community  Esri Mining Website  Sponsors  With special thanks to our sponsors who contributed to our socials and SIG and for those users that stepped up to provide insightful presentations. Your contributions enhanced the quality of our mining track and was received with gratitude and appreciation.    Map Gallery Winners  See the beautiful and innovative maps submitted by our Mining community to the User Conference.  Geological Survey of Ethiopa (GSE) *Award Winner  Geological map of Madagascar  ... View more

This year, San Diego was once again taken over by GIS users from around the world as we congregated at the 2022 Esri User Conference. Enthusiasm was shining brightly as we all enjoyed reconnecting.  This was apparent in the restaurants of the Gaslamp District, across train cars and congregating at the convention center lobbies. We delighted in witnessing great camaraderie as veteran UC attendees provided insight on how to navigate the conference to the 8,000 first time conference attendees looking for advice on forestry sessions, socials, and booths to visit.  We would like to share a quick summary of the forestry specific events and for those who were not able to attend we invite you to watch the plenary online.  Special Achievement in GIS Award  Congratulations to Starker Forest, the winner of the Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award in Forestry.     Rick Allen (Reforestation Forester) and Greg Wyatt (IT Manager) had a vision for a workflow to allow foresters to collect information in a disconnected field environment into a spray app that held their stand boundaries, roads, and forest stand data. Their forestry team wanted internal staff and contractors working on chemical treatment activities to have access to this app in the field and the office.  Through the Esri Advantage Program, Starker worked with Esri Professional Services and Training to gain the skills to build apps and manage their data for reporting and silviculture management. Starker’s  goal, to create a platform for the field collection of tabular data associated with herbicide application activity on forest ownership was able to replace older paper-based workflows but also improved staff and worker safety with more efficient communication of activities as they happen.   Natural Resources Expo Map Gallery Awards  Coffee Landscapes Reforestation in Huila Columbia authored by Kellee Koenig from Conservation International – First Place in ArcGIS Analytic Methods and Results  San Juan National Forest Visitor Map [2022] authored by Jesse Nett, Mark Roper, and the San Juan National Forest from the USDA Forest Service – Second Place in Reference Map  Deep Learning for Biodiversity Imagery Analysis authored by Emilia Stepinski, Mike Rawitch, Brittni Engels, and Margaret Lindman from Ramboll – Fourth Place in ArcGIS Analytic Methods and Results  California Wildfires: 1901-2020 authored by Barbara Kent from the State of California – Second Place in Thematic Map  User Presentations  Esri would like to thank all the presentations that freely shared their work and enthusiasm with the GIS community.   Humboldt Medocino was represented by Joshua Petitmermet and Miki Beavis in Unlocked the Potential of ArcGIS Pro for Forestry Users focusing how their Pro-based systems improved the accuracy of harvest reporting while reducing labor requirements compared to paper-driven processes.  Forsite Consultants - Sarah Eshpeter and Stephen Smyrl focused on Cultural Western Red Cedar Recruitment, examining the current distribution of redcedar across the land base and identify which sites are best suited for redcedar management.  USDA Forest Service gave us an update on The USFS BIGMAP Project, highlighting how the project has leveraged satellite imagery and advances in high-performance computing to link multiple broad-scale datasets to create a new way of using FIA data.  Chris Oswalt, James Garner and Ty Wilson presenting.  Forestry Stewardship Council showcased the use of remote sensing and GIS analysis techniques including time-series satellite imagery to better understand the dynamics of the forest management practices of the certified companies and monitor performance with reliable data at the forest and landscape level. Measuring Impact of Forest Certification Using GIS and Remote Sensing - Andres Felipe Ramirez Mejia and Scot McQueen.  Michael Breetzke from Swift Geospatial demonstrated how a near real-time processing chain assist organizations around the world in providing actional insights and decision support focusing on the importance of displaying results in the form that non-GIS experts can understand while still providing in-depth analytics. You Can’t Monitor What You Can’t See: Tackling Forestry Monitoring from Space  Visualizing Data from RPAS and Smartphones to Support Park Management Decisions was shared by Angela Route from the University of British Columbia. Presenting how using interactive data visualizations built using Esri tools, ease the exploration of combining two data resources: the occupation counts of urban parks collected from mobile applications and aerial imager collected using Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS) including RGB and multispectral data.   Street Tree Mapping to Mitigate Emerald Ash Borer Risk presented by Mitchell Berg of the University of Minnesota Crookston.  Forestry Special Interest Group Meeting  Members of the Forestry community across the federal, state and commercial spheres, including international, discussed the application of spatial technologies and their value in natural climate solutions.  The audience learned what these organization were doing to support natural climate solutions, what natural climate solutions meant to each presenter and represented organization, and what we as a forestry GIS community can do to support natural climate solutions.     Panelists included   Scot McQueen, Forest Stewardship Council  Chris Oswalt, USDA Forest Service   Jose Luis Garcinuno, Green Diamond Resource Company, CA Division  2022 UC Forestry SIG Panel Forestry Social  Overlooking the beautiful San Diego bay with the cool breeze across the Aqua Terrace of the Hilton Bayfront, the Forestry community enjoyed drinks and fresh fish tacos along with a cheese plate and cereal-themed mini whoopie pies for dessert. Members spoke on the next steps of reinvigorating the Forestry user group, name still pending (FUG has been vetoed). Many focused on reconnecting with old colleagues or new acquaintances and enjoying each other’s company in a less structured environment. Our sponsors who made the wonderful experience a possibility spoke a few words and a merry time was had by all.    Thank you once again to our sponsors  For anyone interested in joining the Forestry Steering Community please contact Adam Pittman at apittman@esri.com.  Stay connected with the Esri Forestry Community beyond the UC  Facebook: Esri Forestry Group   Twitter: @EsriForestry   LinkedIn: Esri Forestry Group   Esri’s Forestry Community   ... View more

  Achieving the operational benefits of precision and smart farming relies on a successful adoption of new technologies and mindsets. In this series, experts will share key insights on the challenges and opportunities that change creates. Learn about the framework that organizations are using to drive ArcGIS adoption and establish new workflows, and discover how a geographic approach enhances sustainability and benefits your organization. This series is comprised of six video tutorials and includes an Action Plan Guide to help you navigate through the lessons. Register for the series to receive weekly notification emails when videos go live and to be a part of the concluding live webinar on June 15, 2022.  Learn More and Register  ... View more

Showcasing how an effective geospatial strategy defines how your organization connects its business needs with the right data, processes, technology, and people to overcome business challenges and improve the results of workflows using GIS. By utilizing a step-by-step guide to create a geospatial strategy, your renewable energy organization will be able to unlock the power of location intelligence and clearly articulate the value of GIS throughout your entire organization.  Prioritize solutions that deliver real value by giving staff new knowledge and capabilities Make better business decisions and achieve efficiency by improving workflows and processes Clearly articulate the business value of GIS to key stakeholders and maximize the value of your GIS investment Creating a Geospatial Strategy for Renewable Energy Operations Thursday, April 21, 2022 | 9 - 10 a.m. (PT) Register Now Ask questions/discussion points you would like addressed prior to webinar in a comment. ... View more

Renewable energy organizations use imagery daily for visualization and reference purposes, but visualization is only one of the many ways that imagery can deliver value throughout a project’s life cycle. Our latest webinar focused on how imagery can provide greater insight and influence better decision-making. Featured Questions and Answers Is it possible to use the Living Atlas to derive products for other uses in ArcGIS Pro?  Specifically, downloading DEM data from the Living Atlas clipped to a specific extent or area for further analysis in Pro.  Or does it need to be processed in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online?     Living Atlas layers can be accessed in Pro and used for visualization and analysis. The raster functions and imagery geoprocessing tools in Pro can be used with any web service that is configured properly for export and analysis. Alternatively, hosted image services in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online can also be accessed and used in Pro for visualization and analysis. Do you think that using aerial imagery to determine what is on the ground of your site of interest, is just as good as working with communities to see what is really out there?            In a full site suitability analysis, aerial imagery would just be one source of data that we would leverage to assess the condition and viability of the proposed site. This can often help save time and resources offering an initial "glance" at the site before sending anyone out there. This could be followed up with a "boots on the ground" assessment coupled with local knowledge to verify remote observations. A major challenge for siting projects is identifying power infrastructure, transmission or distribution lines, as well as understanding competitive planned or existing power plants. Do you have any resources to address those challenges?                The imagery and remote sensing capabilities in ArcGIS can be used to detect objects and classify features from satellite, aerial, and drone imagery. With high enough resolution, it may be possible to detect transmission towers, substations, and new project sites. GeoAI and Deep Learning models can be used to automate this analysis but require training datasets. Change detection can also be performed at scale to identify changes in imagery over time. This can be useful in identifying new project sites and doesn't require as detailed resolution. The Suitability modeler has be to published as gp service from ArcGIS Pro?              The suitability modeler widget in Web AppBuilder uses a weighted raster overlay service. The widget can be configured to use a pre-built WRO from ArcGIS Online or a custom WRO. Custom WRO services must be published to an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment with Image Server from ArcGIS Pro. To do all these raster analysis on portal, do we need Image Server ext? We have a new product called ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online which is basically raster and imagery hosting and analysis completely in the cloud. There is no infrastructure needed, simply an add on extension associated to a user type. To perform the same analysis in ArcGIS Enterprise, you would need Image Server. Stay connected and lookout for upcoming renewables webinars. Thank you, The Renewables Team ... View more

Imagery and remotely sensed data are increasingly important assets in the renewable energy industry. Learn how to utilize imagery from a variety of different sources seamlessly within your ArcGIS implementations. Explore the ways imagery in ArcGIS can support better decision making throughout the project life cycle. Streamline site viability assessments with ready-to-use content in the Living Atlas Enhance project planning and construction monitoring with satellite and drone imagery Transform operations and maintenance activities with drones and field data collection tools Integrating Imagery and Remote Sensing into the ArcGIS Platform Thursday, October 14, 2021 | 9:00 a.m.-10:00a.m. (PT) Register Online Thank you, Renewables Team   ... View more

Organizations use imagery daily for visualization and reference purposes, but visualization is only one of the many ways that imagery can deliver value. Watch our latest agriculture and forestry joint webinar focusing on how imagery can provide greater insight and influence better decision-making. Featured Questions and Answers What's the difference between imagery categorized as "basemap" vs others? I've always thought of all imagery as basemap. Basemaps typically serve as a reference map on which you overlay data from layers and visualize geographic information. An individual basemap can be made of multiple features, raster, or web layers. Basemaps are the foundation for your maps and provide context for your work. Other types of remotely sensed products may be product of analysis and could be used as overlay data to enhance your "Basemaps". What is the path to snag the satellite imagery? Currently go to the ESA and download sentinel2 data from them...nice that it is already into ESRI...what is the link within ArcGIS desktop? You can browse to Living Atlas content from directly in ArcGIS Pro. From the Catalog pane in ArcGIS Pro you can select Living Atlas connecting you directly. Alternatively, you can go directly to the Living Atlas of the World website and search for say for example ‘sentinel-2’. Is ArcGIS Online services available with single advance desktop license? If your license is current on software maintenance, you will have access to ArcGIS Online and the ArcGIS Living Atlas! How do I get access to the analysis tools you showed in the map viewer during the imagery analysis?Before members of your organization can create and analyze imagery layers, they must be granted the necessary user type, role, and license. An ArcGIS Online administrator can manage the user types and roles and assign licenses for organization. Once these protocols are in place the user will have access to the analysis tools. Does the use of all of these online tools incur credit usage? Image hosting and analysis in ArcGIS Online does consume credits. The usage rate will depend on a number of factors like the amount of data, the extent, and the type of analysis being performed. For image analysis tools, there is an option to estimate the number of credits used in the operation. Please refer to this help documentation on credit consumption in ArcGIS Online. https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/administer/credits.htm. Can we download the Esri landcover 2020 for selected ( small) areas? Yes, you can download individual GeoTiffs for select areas. Use the Esri 2020 Land Cover Downloader to get started. Can you access the Living Atlas and do analysis with ArcPy? (in ArcPro) You sure can. All Living Atlas layers can be accessed programmatically through unique REST URL found on each item’s overview page. ArcGIS Notebooks can also be used through your Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, or ArcGIS Online to access and work with content in the Living Atlas. Stay connected and lookout for upcoming agriculture and forestry webinars. Thank you, The Agriculture and Forestry Teams ... View more

Learn how imagery improves visualization, field analysis & information sharing with workflow demonstrations in agriculture and forestry. Consume a multitude of imagery resources Create information products and provide field tools for analysis Sharing analysis within the organization Focusing In: Using Imagery and Analytics Across Agriculture and Forestry Tuesday, August 3 | 9:00 a.m.­ to 10:00 a.m. (PT)   Register Online Thank you, Forestry and Agriculture Team ... View more

  We had a great MUG meeting the other day in concert with the virtual Esri 2021 UC, where we held a Panel discussion between some experienced MUG participants. Opening Chris Franks (MUG Chairman) reviewed the MUG Mission statement, which is essentially to facilitate the development and implementation of business centric functionality and content between the MUG community, Esri and related Partners. Chris highlighted the value of community collaboration and spoke to the many initiatives used to facilitate those interactions, from webinars and social media, to hopefully social gatherings at conferences and educational exchange meetings in the near future. Chris then reflected on the UC theme of sustainability from a mining perspective e.g. in relation to sustainable mining practices, carbon and water, while recognizing there are indeed great challenges – there are also terrific opportunities to collaborate through the MUG, in order to find appropriate and effective solutions to those challenges. Looking forward to MUG Development plans for the next year, Chris invited new MUG members and active participation in the development of MUG Regional Chapters in Latin America, Africa, Australia, North America & Europe, etc. He also pointed to opportunities for cross-collaboration with other relevant industries and provided links to online information resources like the Mining community page on GeoNet a public forum for Q&A, the Ideas Site for product enhancement requests, and the MUG Hub Site for comprehensive resources related to MUG activities e.g. webinars, community contacts, social media links, etc. Special Interest Group (SIG) Panelist Discussion – Each person on the panel introduced themselves and picked up just one topic that they see as important to the community and that they are personally involved with at present – this served extremely well to intro the panel members and bring some common challenges to the fore straight away. Roger Bannister (Covia) – Roger emphasized the importance of authoritative content sharing across the enterprise from a single/consistent system of record. As an example Roger described a large data migration project he’s been working to move Covia’s land maps and legal documents to Trimble’s Landfolio and leverage AGOL. Pieter Mostert (Anglo American) – Took Roger’s point a little further and said he’s been working a lot on Data/Systems Integration & moving to the cloud. He mentioned a few large corporate systems in use at AA & stressed the importance of strong API’s and the ability to share common data sources. Pieter also mentioned how spatial data provides somewhat of a ‘glue’ for data integration and the importance of appropriate data access standards & protocols. He strongly encourages others in the industry to get involved in the discussion around such standards. Michael Kelly (Teck) – Focused on discussing how his team are consolidating siloed ArcGIS Enterprise instances at mine sites into a single, scalable cloud experience using ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes. Michael stressed that building a similar architecture using the traditional Windows and Linux deployment options would have been much more complicated. There is indeed a learning curve, but initial indications are very promising. He added that global performance, stability and scalability are key factors going forward – so he’s looking very carefully at that and doing a lot of testing. Chris Franks (Freeport) – Chris discussed the importance of mobility to the modern sustainable development of mine sites, the extensive work that Freeport has been doing in this area and referenced the importance of the sustainability principals outlined by both ICMM and The Copper Mark eg in Tailings management. Karl Warschaw (BHP) – Karl for his intro discussed the importance of drone imagery and its processing pipeline: capture – store – process – analyze – serve and additional steps like automating extraction for integration purposes, etc.  Karl mentioned the challenges of data volumes and remote upload times, storage formats, geoAI, etc. Andrew McCulloch (OZ Minerals) – Pointed to the many new features & functionality in the ArcGIS platform demonstrated during the UC and how he sees many of those developments aiding with industry challenges and workflows. Andrew picked up on 3D GIS, AR/VR as a particularly interesting aspects for him, also the links to engineering data, GeoBIM, lidar & gaming engines – and how they may help better design & improve operations in the future.   Open, Moderated Q&A Discussion Q1. What are some of the key trends that you see as important going forward? In discussion it was clear from several panel members that Information sharing, Hub Sites and AGOL developments are huge to achieve enterprise deployment and create greater value from geospatial data. Hence, cloud capabilities are seen as incredibly important to achieving this and for data & systems integration. Michael stated that at Teck he feels Covid has actually speeded cloud technology adoption at many mine sites and even on-premise implementations are now being moved to dedicated cloud tenants. Karl (BHP) and Andrew (OZ Minerals) both reinforced cloud importance to many of the other initiatives that companies are working on also – imagery, mobility, IoT, AI/ML and spatial analytics, compute, etc – and made the observation that “a solid cloud strategy is going to help you deliver on all of them”. Andrew (OZ Minerals) also reinforced the importance of 5G, local LTE networks & upcoming technologies like LoRaWAN for supporting mobile application deployment and IoT. With respect to Exploration, he also pointed to innovation needed to meet new ESG standards for exploration efforts e.g. in fuel cell technologies – and that there are many development paths worth watching, which is a challenge in itself... Q2. What’s happening with the MUG Regional Chapters? The MUG would like to encourage and facilitate the more formal creation of Regional MUG Chapters with the help of Esri in regions that warrant such development – perhaps on a continental scale to begin with – Latin America, North America, Africa, Europe/Middle East, Australia/SE Asia. The MUG Steering Committee and Esri will begin to create this infrastructure, connect with local Esri Distributors in region to help with logistics and be back in touch shortly to initiate. Q3. How have you managed the Cloud migration to date and what are your plans/next steps forward? Roger (Covia) pointed to the ‘age of Covid’ necessity to work from home and still be able to ‘get at everything’ – he suggested that the cloud has helped streamline and accelerate this trend of ‘remote connection’. Pieter agreed and added that power users at AA have been used to using remote machines for many years – so the move to the cloud did not feel alien to them at all. He added that AA is quickly moving to an environment of federated enterprise cloud servers across the globe and in-country machines where required, and he expects that configurable Azure deployed desktops will provide the power and flexibility needed to deliver benefits like moving compute close to the data, whenever & wherever required. Karl (BHP) brought up a challenge that he perceives and was echoed by Andrew & others – in moving data to and from the cloud, especially in remote locations. Andrew (OZ Minerals) mentioned promising Edge compute options and different styles of comms channels coming. Andrew also mentioned new methodologies in Image processing of taking processing power to the data and pondered if that methodology may become more common w.r.t. other datatypes. Pieter added that for heavy data uploads AA is experimenting with loading big Azure Server machines locally and then shipping them to the cloud-based data center – where ‘light interaction’ from anywhere is required.   Q4. Covid related trends/surprises – things that worked or didn’t... Roger commented that his Covia’s move to AGOL was extremely timely, because it allowed them to ramp their remote operations data sharing and deploy new applications with ease as they flexed to accommodate the new circumstances. Peter (AA) remarked that there was a sharp rise in productivity and innovation, as people focused on work from home, he agreed with Roger about the flexibility of being able to deploy apps remotely and collaborate using apps like Teams on joint projects was really good. Michael (Teck) agreed that on the whole Covid related disruption was minimized due to the tech that was already in place, this would not have been the case in the past and probably saved many companies. Q5. Does the panel have comments & advice around geology and high-wall mapping, perhaps using drones? Andrew (OZ Minerals) commented on new developments coming in drone based structural, geological and engineering mapping both in surface and underground mining e.g. from Emesent and Maptek – and that we should be expecting lots of developments in this area as it’s expanding rapidly. Q6. What tools/tricks do you use when communicating to senior management? Roger said he has found that gravitating to focus on business value is the most important, while Pieter said that ‘ease of use’ through a simple web-based app is also important.   Audience Polls Results Darin reported briefly on the audience poll results which highlighted the following: Most exciting technology of the week – Field Maps and Pro – which the panel thought reflected the number of people still migrating to Pro and deploying apps to facilitate field-based operations. MUG focus going forward – the clear winner was web-based educational meetings – perhaps in the form of continued webinars and short how-to videos... Big projects for the next 12 months – Pro Migration, Image Management & Mobility, then Cloud/Kubernetes, AL/ML, etc Round-Up Chris and Darin rounded out the meeting by thanking everyone for their attendance and interest, encouraged active participation in the MUG going forward, and promised to get this note out to the MUG Channel on LinkedIn asap.   ... View more