Dane Springmeyer

Esri and the ArcGIS Living Atlas team are providing accessibility to this data in the form of a ready-to-use imagery layer and a web mapping application, the NLCD Land Cover Explorer. This blog article serves as a quick-start guide for context and guidance. https://ow.ly/ROqP50WHtN7

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In late January, the U.S. Census Bureau plans to release the latest 5-year estimates from its American Community Survey (ACS). Each year, a small team with ArcGIS Living Atlas brings that data in and releases it as free layers and maps. GIS users who want to use ACS simply have it available in Living Atlas. This saves people hours, days, even weeks of time. This year, the new data will be put into new layers. In the past, we updated the layers in place, live, which worked but carried certain risks and impacts to users of the layers. With this year's update, we will release new layers to carry the latest data, and we will keep the old layers around for at least a year. This gives people time to incorporate the new layers when they are ready. A side benefit: people can compare two vintages of ACS. There are several Instant Apps that use the Swipe tool, for example, letting you visually compare two vintages of the same topic and read their pop-ups. These ACS feature layers work in #ArcGISPro, #ArcGISOnline, Python notebooks etc. As always, these ACS layers in Living Atlas allow download for those times where you just have to have the data on a disk. #LivingAtlas #esri #ACS #Census #demographics https://lnkd.in/g4iv7aGw

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✨𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐠𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐈🐳 Tracking beluga whale populations is tough: they can disappear underwater for long periods of time, and when they do surface, they often blend in with the surrounding sea ice. But manually counting belugas using imagery from aerial surveys requires looking at thousands of images. Scientists at Fisheries and Oceans Canada / Pêches et Océans Canada collaborated with Esri Canada's Mohamed Ahmed to build a deep learning model that automatically detects beluga whales in imagery. They're now spending more time understanding Arctic marine mammals, and less time trying to find them. Find out how: https://ow.ly/5WTb50W4chN #AI #conservation #science #environment #GIS #ArcGIS #DeepLearning

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Interesting case study showing how the government of Norway built a platform for processing, managing, and sharing 700 terabites of aerial imagery. TLDR: they built a custom web client using ArcGIS Maps SDK for #JavaScript. https://ow.ly/xqyE30sPLhY

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This one is near and dear to my cold dev heart! The ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript, the 4.34 release adds some great enhancements to the map components. We now benefit from web components with Shadow DOM encapsulation and a new slots mechanism for UI layout. This means cleaner code, fewer styling conflicts, and a more efficient development workflow, without the need for manual CSS imports for components! In my latest video, I explore these enhancements and demonstrate how you can use them to build more robust and user-friendly mapping apps. Don't miss the beta pop-up component, this one is nice! Incredibly proud of the whole team that worked on all of this, they did a great job! Learn more and see it in action: https://lnkd.in/g8qDt9hT #geodev #ArcGIS #WebComponents #JavaScript #SoftwareEngineering #TechNews #MappingTechnology

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This post will help guide you through how to add your own parcel data that has valuation fields to be used the ArcGIS Damage Assessment Solution. https://lnkd.in/eVrX6AHf

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California's Air Resources Board just proposed removing remote sensing from the compliance offset program's alternate methods framework, stating the technology is "currently infeasible." They also said they'll re-open the pathway when they figure out how to implement it. Meanwhile, Verra, ACR, and the ICVCM all moved in the opposite direction in 2025 --- integrating remote sensing into forest carbon methodologies and approving them for Core Carbon Principles labeling. The same proposed amendments rely on remote sensing to establish the "date of discovery" for reversal events. So the technology is reliable enough to start a compliance clock, but "infeasible" for measuring carbon stocks? The practical consequences are significant. Traditional plot-based forest inventories are the most costly component of project development and maintenance. Remote sensing approaches with targeted field verification have demonstrated 40--60% cost reductions while maintaining or improving measurement precision through wall-to-wall coverage. Removing this pathway disproportionately shuts out small landowners, tribal nations, and community-based organizations who can't absorb those costs. I helped develop the only remote sensing-based forest carbon inventory to have passed site visit verification --- using the unpaired sequential sampling approach, which tests the population estimate, not just whether plots were measured correctly. When you have wall-to-wall data, unpaired verification tests the population estimate against independent field measurements --- a stronger validation than re-measuring the same plots the operator already installed. And it enables landowners to integrate carbon inventory directly into operational planning. I'm submitting formal comments to CARB --- full letter here: https://lnkd.in/gm8w-caj . The comment period closes March 9. If you work in forest carbon, this one matters. #ForestCarbon #CarbonMarkets #RemoteSensing #CaliforniaClimate #CARB

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Here's an informative update on the NE Ocean Data Portal and Fisheries/Climate Toolkit. Scientists from San Diego State University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution contributed this article to Dawn Wright's Scientific Currents column in ArcNews Magazine. https://ow.ly/1EQo30sMC7l

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🔧 The Oregon State University Open Source Lab (OSL), a backbone of open source infrastructure for over two decades, has secured $250K in emergency funding — buying it one more year to chart a sustainable path forward. OSL supports critical infrastructure for projects like Drupal, Debian, Apache, and Firefox, and its role in student training and community hosting is unparalleled. But the lab now faces two major challenges: 1️⃣ Finding a new, affordable data center as its 20+ year-old facility nears closure 2️⃣ Establishing recurring funding to replace one-time donations Despite the reprieve, the road ahead demands hardware support, financial partnerships, and strategic planning to ensure OSL’s vital work continues — powering over 500 projects worldwide, including Drupal's infrastructure. Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/gZu6DgDq #OpenSourceInfrastructure #DrupalCommunity #OSL #FOSS

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Regina Obe: PostGIS Patch Releases PostGIS fans listen up! Regina Obe and the amazing PostGIS development team have a public service announcement. They've churned out bug fix releases. Yes fixes for PostGIS versions 3.0 to 3.6. It's the curtain call for the PostGIS 3.0.12 and 3.1.13 series otherwise known as the End-Of-Life releases. Like that band you loved in college they've played their last gig and it's time to upgrade. If you're still clinging to the 3.0 or 3.1 series it's time to let go. Hasn't anyone told you that old versions are so yesterday? The download link for the new releases is live: [https://lnkd.in/dEAPHUV3]. Remember nothing good comes from outdated software except maybe chaos and a few grey hairs. So toast to Regina Obe and her ever-diligent team. They're making the world of geospatial PostgreSQL a little less buggy and a lot more fun even if that means bidding farewell to the oldies. Embrace change or at least fake it til you make it. Let's keep those databases running smoother than a greased-up penguin. So why wait? Go upgrade now and stay ahead of the curve! 🌐🦉 You can find the full article here: https://postgr.es/p/7ti

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I’m excited to share that version 200.7 of the ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Native Apps (.NET, Qt, Kotlin, Swift, and Flutter) is available! This release continues to build on support for feature editing, real-time data, and imagery within the SDKs. We enhanced the geometry editor for utility networks to honor connectivity rules when snapping, ensuring that assets being added or edited will connect to one another correctly. - Dynamic entities are designed to bring real-time data into your apps. This release enabled spatial and attribute query on dynamic entity layers to filter, and thus focus on, entities of interest, such as busses in motion or emergency units responding to an incident.  - Another key enhancement fills a gap we’ve had for a while.  Years ago we enabled image overlays in 3D to quickly render images that change frequently, such as those generated from real-time sensor data, like images captured from a drone.  In this release, we’ve enabled use of imagery overlays in 2D, on a map. - ArcGIS Maps SDK for Flutter continues to pursue parity with other Native Maps SDKs. Version 200.7 delivers support for raster data, credential persistence, location data sources, geotriggers, and the navigation API.  We’re continuing our quest for parity over the next few releases. Feel free to peruse the release plan on our parity page: https://lnkd.in/gQ5GbVDE Check out our blog post on the 200.7 release to read about these and other improvements and changes: https://lnkd.in/gwgMCjvE But wait, there’s more! Given our Developer Summit in Palm Springs was a month ago and the Plenary videos are available, I’d like to highlight a couple portions of the Plenary that featured the Native Map SDKs so you can see them in action…     During the utility network section of the Plenary, hosted by David Crawford, Rich Ruh showcased key enhancements delivered in 2024 to support offline edit, validate, trace, and sync workflows: https://lnkd.in/gaQB8jW8 In the dedicated Native Maps SDKs section of the Plenary, Divesh Goyal presented the state of the SDKs and introduced features available in 200.7; Jennifer Merritt showed navigation and geotriggers in Flutter SDK, Swagata Biswas demonstrated feature editing improvements such as a reticle tool, rule-based snapping, and haptic feedback; Zachary Kline walked through a new toolkit component for taking maps offline… and even working in a brief Vision Pro shoutout:  https://lnkd.in/gyvfmqwS     Videos for other sessions at Dev Summit 2025 are coming soon…  

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Geodemographic segmentation blends geography with demographics to paint a rich portrait of communities. This approach has evolved over decades, shaped by the growing need for precision in marketing, planning, and public service. ArcGIS Tapestry’s June 2025 update is the result of these efforts. https://ow.ly/qssX50WBqYt

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This ArcGIS Blog article has highlights from 2025 to help you keep discovering and connecting metadata workflows as you look ahead to spark some meatdata magic in 2026. https://ow.ly/Js4o50Yk4sI

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🌍 Geospatial data just got a major upgrade in Apache Iceberg. After years of debate, hundreds of PR comments, and a remarkable open source collaboration, Apache Iceberg now supports native geospatial types. With native geometry and geography types now part of the v3 Iceberg spec, spatial data is no longer a second-class citizen in the modern lakehouse architecture. Here are some ways you can use it: ✅ Filter pushdowns using real spatial predicates (like ST_Intersects and ST_Crosses) ✅ Bounding boxes stored and used natively for fast pruning ✅ Integration with Apache Sedona and Wherobots for full spatial query support ✅ Support for standard encodings like WKB and CRS metadata ✅ And time travel for your spatial tables This is the foundation for cloud-native, analytical-scale spatial data management. 👏 Huge kudos to Jia Y. (Wherobots + Apache Sedona) and Szehon Ho (Databricks + Apache Iceberg PMC) for leading the charge and to the contributors across so many companies and more for making this a reality. Check out the full video here: https://lnkd.in/ew2JHUK3 🌎 I'm Matt and I talk about modern GIS, geospatial data engineering, and how spatial thinking is changing. 📬 Want more like this? Join 5k+ others learning from my newsletter → forrest.nyc

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For this map I switched from Mapbox to a pure OpenStreetMap and #LeafletJS stack to show where major national parks and forests overlap with high and extreme fire risk. I originally pulled more than 65,000 protected areas from OSM through the Overpass API, but Leaflet started choking on anything above twenty thousand polygons (It remains a bit choppy). I filtered it down to just national parks and national forests, which brought it to a workable size and still covered the most important conservation lands. OSM is completely open source and free to use. Mapbox gives you 50k free map loads and handles performance better, but I wanted to show the difference in how these stacks behave when you push larger datasets. Leaflet with canvas rendering handles a few thousand polygons well, but it is slower than #WebGL when you scale up. I also copied over the small AI agent panel from the 2125 wildfire map. It can answer questions about fire patterns and OSM data quality. #OpenStreetMap #OSM #OpenData #FOSS4G #OpenSourceMapping #GeospatialDev #DataInfrastructure #30DayMapChallenge #NationalParks

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Great article from Ales Nezbeda and Lukas Javorsky! If you're working with geographic data, this is a must-read. #PostGIS lets you query, and analyze location-based data with geospatial capabilities in #PostgreSQL. Ales and Lukas share here a step by step guide for installing PostGIS on #RHEL 9 and 10. You'll also find practical examples of using the Geometry data type to work with shapes like points and polygons, and how to project data to different coordinate systems.

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Have you ever stopped to think about how the little blue dot 🔵 that appears on a map 🗺️ in a navigation app works when you're moving around? 🚗 🛵 🚴 Behind that simple dot lies: - A complex mix of GNSS signals 🛰️ . - Fused sensor data 📱. - Smart prediction algorithms ⚙️ such as Kalman filters. - And even techniques to "snap" 🧲 your location to roads or indoor maps. Trevor Draeseke's blog post from the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Kotlin team provides an in-depth analysis of this topic, ideal for anyone developing mobile applications with precise geolocation capabilities. I think you will enjoy reading it. I promise🤞😊

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I've been mapping out what a full disaster response timeline looks like in terms of digital tools (diagram below). The tools exist. DHIS2 for health surveillance, QGIS.org Association and QField for hazard mapping, ODK and ID PASS Data Collect for field data, RapidPro for messaging, OpenSPP for registries and distribution. Most are verified #DigitalPublicGoods, deployed in dozens of countries. But they're mostly silos. A country might run DHIS2 for health, Kobo for surveys, and manage disaster logistics on spreadsheets. Each works fine on its own. Some organizations have built their own integrations, but it's bespoke work — often proprietary, can't be handed over to the country government, and doesn't carry over to the next disaster. This is becoming a bigger problem. #SocialProtection and humanitarian response are converging — countries are investing in registries, targeting systems, and payment rails as part of their #DigitalPublicInfrastructure. That same infrastructure is what you need for #AnticipatoryAction when a cyclone is 72 hours out. But only if the systems talk to each other. I don't think we need another platform. What's missing is the wiring: data contracts, standard APIs (Digital Convergence Initiative - DCI, GovStack, Verifiable Credentials, GeoJSON...), and workflow engines like Open Function (OpenFn) to orchestrate the handoffs between tools that already work. Curious if anyone has seen open-source tools successfully connected in a humanitarian or disaster context. What worked? What got in the way? #DisasterResponse #OpenSource #Interoperability #ShockResponsiveSocialProtection

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