An interesting application released by ESRI – The Gulf Oil spill Map. This clever webservice enables users to toggle between a Streetmap, Imagery, or Topo map view. then, users having information about relevant media (like a photo, youtube video or a link to an article) can add a point on a map with a link to the relevant resource. Imagine a user having collected photos along the coast near Gulf Shores Alabama can quickly add an ion to the map and provide a link to his flickr stream for access my all – great stuff! More details on the ESRI Blog. See the Oil Spill Map HERE
Archives for May 3, 2010
Twitter Contest – Tweet or Retweet a blog post and win a fab GIS book!
I feel like giving something away today, so here’s a chance for you to pick up a copy of the Business Benefits of GIS – An ROI Approach (an amazing book!). Simply Tweet a link to a blog post from here (Blog.gisuser.com) or Tweet a news item from GISuser.com, mention either @gisuser or @gletham and we’ll select a winner… good luck.. there’s loads of good stuff to Tweet about today! You can even Tweet about this posting!
USCG Info on volunteering to assist the Deepwater Horizon clean-up for Gulf coast oil spill
From the US Coast Guard (Twitter @USCG) Information on volunteering to assist the Deepwater Horizon clean-up along the US Gulf Coast in response to the recent BP Oils Spill (MS Word DOC) this via Twitter
The U.S. Coast Guard leads the volunteer effort if shoreline cleanup is needed. Shoreline cleanup volunteers must have training including hazardous materials training required by OSHA and EPA. Only volunteers who have been trained and provide appropriate certification are allowed to assist.
Wildlife
To address potential wildlife impacts, BP has contracted with Tri-State Bird and Rescue. Tri-State works with trained and certified volunteers to help recover and clean impacted wildlife. A toll-free number 800-557-1401 has been established to report oiled or injured wildlife. People are urged not to attempt to help injured or oiled animals, but to report any sightings via the toll-free number.
More GIS tips, WMS, maps, data, apps related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill
The kind folks at the State of Arkansas GIS and the USDA have shared with us a vast collection of links to GIS data products (raster and vector data products, satellite imagery, LiDAR and more), WMS servers, raster and vector data collections and State emergency response resources that are useful for emergency responders working on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and efforts along the US Gulf Coast. See also details of the ESRI GeoViewer and the ArcGIS Online (BETA) ESRI Gulf Oil Spill Response – See the directory of resources HERE
GIS, Google Maps, Waze, DOT, and Verizon Broadband to Navigate Safely Around Tennessee Flooding
Mobile technologies and in particular, those services that take advantage of crowd-sourcing information are particularly valuable in times of crisis. Case in point, what happens when your area is subjected to torrential rains and flooding and you have no idea where to turn for up-to-the-minute reports and conditions of roads and infrastructure. Enter Waze, the free, crowd-sourced navigation service. Indeed one can get directions and routing from waze, however, what truly sets it apart from other similar services is the user community. Waze (waze.com or @waze on Twitter) depends on the users to act as sensors, providing drive time data and road segment updates to the service, enabling the waze street database to be constantly evolving and being updated. Then toss in the community element, that’s the real wow factor! Using waze, users can view and share real-time traffic conditions, details of obstacles, road closures and more… updates are also shared via various social media outlets like Twitter. I recently heard from some users in Tennessee about how Waze helped during the past week-end during some severe weather and massive flood conditions. Using mobile Geo technologies the user received data and reports of conditions that were more up to date and accurate than any other sources!
One user’s story of how GIS and mobile mapping technologies helped to navigate safely during the storms getting from Nashville, TN to Arkansas… [Read more…] about GIS, Google Maps, Waze, DOT, and Verizon Broadband to Navigate Safely Around Tennessee Flooding
gvSIG Mini open source project (GNU/GPL) for Android
Something for Android mobile enthusiasts… gvSIG Mini is a free viewer of free access tile-based maps (OpenStreetMap, YahooMaps, Microsoft Bing, …), with WMS client, address search, POIs search, routes, etc.
Main latest featrues of 0.2.0 version are the following ones:
* Support for WMS and WMTS layers
* Compass support
* GPS, Cell and Network GeoLocation positioning
* Precission of the position displayed on the map
* Navigation Mode
* Share your location: Twitter, SMS, Email, Facebook…
* Compatible with Low and High Screen Resolutions
* Speed download improvements
* Street View integration
* New layers added by default
* Layer configuration downloader
* QuickZoom: SlideBar or DoubleTap
* Enable/disable GPS