{"id":58209,"date":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/30th-anniversary-of-uris-environmental-data-center-proves-place-matters\/"},"modified":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T00:00:00","slug":"30th-anniversary-of-uris-environmental-data-center-proves-place-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2016\/03\/30th-anniversary-of-uris-environmental-data-center-proves-place-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"30th anniversary of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Environmental Data Center proves \u2018place matters\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tR.I. Geographic Information System vital to government, industry, environment<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 31, 2016 \u2013 Do you need to know what\u2019s adjacent to a particular Rhode Island property? Or the location of a wetland where a rare species lives? Or how to find a certain building, roadway, Superfund site or public drinking water well? Maybe you just want to know what your neighborhood looked like 50 or 75 years ago.<\/p>\n


\n\tAll of this information and much more can be found in the Rhode Island Geographic Information System, which is managed and maintained at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Environmental Data Center. And it is all available free online at RIGIS<\/a> with no restrictions on its use.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Center, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, has proven again and again that geographic information \u2013 or what 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Peter August calls \u201cplace-based data\u201d \u2013 is vital to state and municipal government, environmental conservation, emergency management, business operations and the daily activities of just about everyone in the state.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cPlace matters,\u201d said August, the founder of the Environmental Data Center. \u201cThe location of things, whatever those things may be, is an important piece of information. And GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is the technology to manage it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen GIS technology was in its infancy in the mid-1980s, 溏心vlog免费B站 became one of its first users. The early data was initially used to help the state better understand ground water resources and monitor the health of Narragansett Bay. It was also crucial when a new location for the state landfill was being sought. And it became especially helpful when municipalities were required to create comprehensive master plans.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe list of data is massive now, and new data sets are constantly being added and updated,\u201d August said. \u201cWe just received updated road data from the Department of Transportation, and new information about the state\u2019s soils is always being provided to make it more useful.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tScores of institutions use the system nearly every month. These include every town and city and almost every state agency in Rhode Island, as well as every federal agency working in the state. Engineering firms and survey companies use the data daily, as do many environmental organizations like Save the Bay and the Nature Conservancy, which uses the data to make decisions about what properties to protect as open space.<\/p>\n


\n One of the most important users is the Rhode Island E-911 system.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cEmergencies are place-based,\u201d said August. \u201cIf you call 911 and first responders don\u2019t know where you are, there\u2019s little they can do to help.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAccording to Greg Bonynge, the technology manager for the system, a new website will be launched by the end of March for users who aren\u2019t seeking the complex data that many institutional users need. The new site will offer pointers to a wide variety of maps that curious residents will enjoy perusing, including statewide aerial maps dating back to 1939.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s one of our most popular offerings,\u201d Bonynge said. \u201cPeople really enjoy seeing how their neighborhood changed through time. We\u2019re also planning a new program to encourage people to use our remote sensing data, which will include teacher workshops so kids can create custom maps in school.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tDuring the last five years, the Rhode Island Geographic Information System website has had nearly 100,000 unique visitors and more than 20 terabytes of data were downloaded. In 2015 alone, the Environmental Data Center\u2019s online map services handled more than 1.5 million requests.<\/p>\n


\n\tChuck LaBash, who directs the Center\u2019s day-to-day operations, said the data system has undergone significant changes through the years as computer platforms have evolved. It started out running on a minicomputer system, then switched to a refrigerator-sized Unix server. After several additional iterations, it is now in the process of migrating to server banks in the University\u2019s central computing center. <\/p>\n


\n\tRegardless of the platform, however, the system software remains the same, ArcGIS. The 溏心vlog免费B站 Environmental Data Center was one of the first customers of the mapping software developer, and the company honored the Center\u2019s 30th anniversary last fall with an award of excellence as a pioneer in the use of its technology.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve been at the forefront of this technology since 1985, and I think we\u2019re still in that position today,\u201d said LaBash. \u201cThe use of this geospatial data is becoming ubiquitous in a lot of different disciplines, and many professionals want to use the data in very specialized web-based applications. The trend is being able to access the data in real time wherever you are. So we\u2019re staying ahead of the curve and putting the data into a format that\u2019s consumable by whatever applications are being developed.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Center is even investigating the use of drones to collect images and detailed elevation data that conservation groups and others may use to document changes to their properties.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s great about the Environmental Data Center is that we have a critical mass of people who have been working at the lab since its inception,\u201d LaBash concluded. \u201cThat means this critical mass of knowledge is a great think tank and learning environment that has enabled us to keep tabs on what\u2019s going on with the technology. It means we can integrate new information on a daily basis so our users can access the data they need.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above: Map of Newport showing one potential coastal inundation scenario resulting from storm surge and sea level rise. It is one example of the maps that can be created using data from the Rhode Island Geographic Information System, which is managed by 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Environmental Data Center.\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R.I. Geographic Information System vital to government, industry, environment KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 31, 2016 \u2013 Do you need to know what\u2019s adjacent to a particular Rhode Island property? Or the location of a wetland where a rare species lives? Or how to find a certain building, roadway, Superfund site or public drinking water well? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}