31 March – 5 May 2020 - All sessions to start at 11:00 AM
In partnership with the New Zealand Esri User Group, we are proud to present the 2020 Virtual User Conference Series (VUC) – this year's replacement for the Regional User Conference.
Delivered through a 9-part series of live and interactive webinars, this year's program will include user presentations, technical updates and the latest innovations in ArcGIS. Draw inspiration from your peers and join us by registering today.
Eagle Technology Technical Update
31 March - now available OnDemand
Thursday 9 April - 11:00 am
Title: Making the hardest island in the world pest-free
Presenter: Scott Sambell - Ethos Environmental Presentation
What is the biggest challenge in creating the world's first predator-free urban island? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. Despite eradicating invasive mammalian pests from islands far more isolated and many times larger, Waiheke Island is our biggest challenge yet. Basically we have uninhabited island eradications down to a fine art now - and Kiwis are, without doubt, the best in the world at it. But what happens when you include a suburban population within your target area? How do we do "everything right" so that we set the precedent we need for - not only every other inhabited island - but the entire country. Looking towards the greater goal of a Predator Free New Zealand by 2050, this operation will be a critical precursor, one way or the other, as to whether we can achieve this ambitious goal. So this is pretty important and we need to be working with the best tools in the world to make sure we get it right. This presentation is the story of those tools.
Wednesday 15 April - 11:00 am
Title: FENZ GIS response to the Tangoio Fire
Presenter: Michael Werrey - Hastings District Council
The Tangoio Fire started on the 6th of January and burned around 400 hectares of forests north of Napier. The FENZ Incident Management Team was deployed that afternoon and ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online played a key role in the GIS response within the IMT. There were plenty of learnings from the event which I will detail here.
Title: Keeping the public informed of sea-level rise and river flood risks
Presenter: John Gibson - Greater Wellington Regional Council
The Wellington Region is known for its natural hazards, especially earthquakes. However, the region is also very susceptible to risks from river flooding and sea-level rise (SLR) hazards. Up to 2017, there were no full regional compilations of flood hazards or SLR hazards. Recent IPCC reports have highlighted the threats of worsening impacts of flooding and SLR. This presentation describes what GWRC is doing about this, and how we are trying to better inform the public.
Analyses based off LIDAR terrain models have been used to compile region-wide datasets of flood, SLR and storm surge hazards. The results are provided to the public using interactive web applications. This is now a fast-moving space in terms of hazard model development, and the latest developmentss are summarised.
Fri 17 Apr- 11:00 am
Title: Building a national tracks and trails database through collaboration
Presenter: Julian Hitchman - New Zealand Access Commission
Is building high quality, user-focused national tracks and trails web database doable? Yes. Is it easy? Not exactly. The New Zealand Walking Access Commission has been working with trail groups, trusts, councils and national agencies to do just that. Its called Find My Adventure. Through this, we've tackled a range of spatial and technical challenges that can only occur by taking on such an audacious project, especially for a small team. Such challenges include interfacing with non-Esri systems, rebuilding the database entirely, managing the risk of out-of-date information and the occasional video producing. But the experience of working with so many helpful organisations and partners and the resulting website usage continue to make those challenges worthwhile. We would like to share some of the things we've learned in this journey and how using GIS has helped make our vision a reality.
Tue 21 April - 11:00 am
Title: How walking times between workplace and parking affect commuter modes
Presenter: Omid Khazaeian - Victoria University of Wellington
Parking location is rarely studied compared to parking supply and pricing. A car trip to work is considered a direct trip from home to the workplace. However, this is a two-step journey; driving from home to parking, then walking from parking to work. We focus on the second part of this journey and use a sample of commuters from the New Zealand Household Travel Survey working in Wellington City. This multidisciplinary research models commuting based on a spatial multimodal transport network in ArcGIS and calculates travel times. Then, we use a Conditional Logit model to estimate the impact of parking features on commuting choices. Parking policies are dominated by parking costs and supply. The results of this study will provide a new understanding of the role of parking location in the regional commute. This new vision of parking may help planners to revise parking and transport regulations to improve regional mobility.
Sponsor: AllTerra
Thursday 23 April - 11:00 am
Title: Is public space public if you don't know where it is? / Simple starting points for complex solutions (combined)
Presenter: Rachael Pull & Logan Ashmore - Far North District Council & Vision Consulting Engineers
Councils have many obligations in regard to providing open space for the public – and the spaces are often linked to other sites provided by DOC, Ministries and even private developers. By taking a GIS view of the wider network Council can provide a rational framework for assessing where the needs are for the community. For the Open Space Programme, GIS is the foundation tool that will provide the source of truth that all the other strategies and decision-making tools will be referring to. This presentation looks at this foundation and the wellbeing benefits that are coming out of this programme thanks to the GIS information.
The presentation will use work performed by Vision Consulting Engineers for the FNDC Reserves Audit to demonstrate helpful starting points for using various ArcPro tools to track and complete large analysis projects. This will include basic tips for data preparation, using geoprocessing tools and ArcPy, and calculating 'helper columns' for analysis.
Tue 28 April - 11:00 am
Title: 'GIS in Schools' improving New Zealand waterways
Presenter: Kirsty Brennan & Elizabeth Butcher - EOS Ecology
Nature Agents is an EOS Ecology educational science program for school students to collect long-term data on waterway health. The program connects students with their local natural environment while providing science monitoring skills and data collection. We will demonstrate how GIS is integrated into the program, using ArcGIS Online, Survey123 and dashboards to enter, visualise and share data, whilst explaining how we are bridging the knowledge gap between GIS and schools. Utilising GIS has enhanced students' understanding of their local waterway, allowing them to take action on the issues.
Thu 30 April - 11:00 am
Title: Identifying coastal erosion change rates using DSAS
Presenter: Michael Perry - Jacobs (lightning talk)
Problem solved by GIS: Quantifying coastal erosion using GIS. Type of geospatial analysis used: Spatial Data Analysis, Spatial Interpolation, and Spatial Regression What are the benefits of the project? Coastlines are currently eroding worldwide – a problem that is only going to amplify as the effects of climate change worsen. Being able to use GIS to calculate the rate-of-change statistics of coastal erosion will give decision-makers a clearer overview of such threats and the ability to enforce the most timely and appropriate measures to mitigate the effects of coastal erosion on not only infrastructure but our livelihoods.
Title: Monitoring key ArcGIS services statistics using Operations Dashboard
Presenter: Keith Miller - Kāpiti Coast District Council (lightning talk)
Do you maintain an ArcGIS Enterprise Server? Would you like to have a wall-mounted TV* displaying a dashboard showing ArcGIS services that are down, how many services have been requested, which layers are most requested and what the average layer draw time is, plus a list of recent warnings and errors? Get a head start on solving ArcGIS Server problems before your users contact you about them by setting up an ArcGIS Operations Dashboard showing these stats, refreshing automatically every 5 minutes. This talk will run through the principles behind setting up a monitoring dashboard, how it works and how it could be adapted to monitor other key ArcGIS server stats.
* Wall mounted TV sadly not included in the presentation
NZEUG update
Tuesday 5 May - 11:00 am
Title: Managing Risk: The 'known unknowns' - and what we are doing about it
Presenter: Abigail Walsh - Department of Conservation
ArcGIS Online (AGOL) is used by DOC to share geospatial information, internally and externally. In 2019 there were few guidelines around the appropriate use of AGOL. To reduce risk, a small cross-functional team created a set of clear procedures. Since then, other known risks have been identified. Key to the growth of the team is capturing knowledge in ways that are practical, meaningful and understandable.
For over 30 years DOC has been conserving New Zealand's natural and historic heritage. It has about 2,000 employees and is responsible for about 30% of New Zealand's land area. The GIS team is made up of 36 people distributed across the country. They provide support to other teams, in offices, and in the field - internally and externally.
Although the team has a relatively young demographic, their knowledge bank is extensive and goes back decades. However, an issue for the team is the absence of 'known knowledge' - due to secondments, upcoming retirements, staff leave, and the development of knowledge silos (silos that involve increased workloads and specialist knowledge).
ArcGIS Online (AGOL) is used by DOC to share geospatial information, internally and externally. As the team documented the requirements of their large organisation, it became clear that to continue growing, the team needed to keep knowing.
How do you get things done in an organisation this size? Who do you ask? Who do you need to ask? Where is that document? What is the process? Is there a process? How do you know you have asked the right person, the right thing at the right time?
Historic and Modern Day Aerial Imagery
Presenter: Maurice Wills & Michaela Bould - Environment Canterbury
Environment Canterbury is the custodian of large historic and modern-day aerial imagery collections covering the Canterbury Region. Find out how we manage these collections and make them available to the community via the Canterbury Maps platform. Learn how they are used to inform Environment Canterbury's present-day activities, such as our response to the recent Rangitata River Floods, and what we are doing to ensure they remain a valuable resource into the future.
The VUC series is free to attend. Each session will start at 11:00 am and will range from 30 – 60 minutes. Where you can, we encourage you to attend the live sessions however, all sessions will be recorded and sent to those who are unable to join.