ArcGIS - Enterprise GIS
Chris Attridge, ESRI-Boston, 100 Conifer Hill Drive, Suite 305, Danvers, MA 01923 [Phone: (978) 777-4543 x8420   Fax: (978) 777-8476   Email: caatridge@esri.com]

ArcGIS is a scalable system of software for geographic data creation, management, integration, analysis, and dissemination for every organization, from an individual to a globally distributed network of people. As GIS expands into new applications and user communities, ArcGIS meets the challenge of providing the data and services to a geographically literate world. Strong editing, analysis, and modeling, along with cutting-edge data models and management, continue to distinguish the ArcGIS software family as the leading GIS software. Users can deploy multiple ArcGIS clients (ArcView, ArcEditor, ArcInfo) seats and ArcGIS servers (ArcSDE and ArcIMS) to meet their needs for scalable GIS solutions.

Developing a GIS Program: The CCC Experience
Abu Badruddin, Assistant Professor of GIS, Cayuga Community College, Auburn, NY 13021-3099 [Phone: (315)255-1743 Fax: (315)255-3117 Email: badruddin@cayuga-cc.edu]

GIS education is getting popular at two-year colleges and Cayuga Community College (CCC) is the 1^st community college in New York State to jump-start its GIS degree program in 2000. The Associate of Science degree in GIS at CCC is designed to train students with skills required to pursue career opportunities in the fields of GIS, GPS, and remote sensing or to transfer directly to a four-year program at participating universities. Cayuga’s GIS program is supported by the NASA and closely associated with the Institute for the Application of GeoSpatial Technology established at the college. Currently GIS students are working as student interns on various GIS projects at the Institute. This presentation will discuss some of the issues and challenges in curriculum development, articulation with 4-year schools, and implementing technical courses. Expectations and challenges of running GIS programs at two-year colleges and the impact of ever-changing technology in shaping GIS curriculum will be discussed.

"Where am I" - Wireless GIS
Barry M. Blanchard, Sales Representative - GIS Solutions, Intergraph Corporation, 243 Cooper Rd., Northbridge, MA 01534 [Phone: (508)234-3608 eFax: (360)838-0605 Fax: (508)234-3678 Email: bmblanch@ingr.com]

Wireless technology has penetrated GIS and now proves to be the next explosion in the industry. Imagine being able to receive an instant trouble report, generate driving directions and maps, see a schematic of the repair job, and update the status report in the database - all from your cell phone. Imagine finding your ultimate home site and with the press of a button on your PDA be able to see all the property fore sale within 1/2 mile of your location. Imagine driving in an unfamiliar city and say the words "where am I" and automatically have a map appear on your car dashboard. This paper explores some of the technology, terminology, limitations, and uses of this latest explosion in GIS. Wireless GIS is here and expanding. The time is ripe to learn about the innovations in handheld mapping.

Developing a GIS Landbase Westchester County, NY – Technical Issues and Lesson’s Learned
James Cannistra, Sr. Vice President Strategic Accounts, Sanborn Map Company, Suite 306, 2 Pidgeon Hill Drive, Sterling, VA 20165 [Email: Jcannistra@sanmap.com]

Westchester County, NY is nearly complete with the development of its large-scale base map. This base map consists of highly accurate color digital orthophotography, planimetric data, and topographic information. This presentation will provide an overview of the project, focusing on unique aspects of the project (particularly the use of LIDAR technology) technical and management issues encountered, and lessons learned throughout the production process. The presentation will be done from the perspective of the mapping company responsible for developing the base map.

Using Compound Topographic Attribute Data Derived from DEMs to Identify Potential Wetland Areas
Nick Colas, Cayuga County Department of Planning and Economic Development and
Mark Bowersox, Cayuga County Department of Information Technologies

Combinations of primary topographic attributes derived from digital elevation data can be used to characterize terrain features that cannot be described by primary attributes alone. One example of such a combination is the Compound Topographic Index, or CTI, sometimes also referred to as the Steady State Wetness Index. A function of slope gradient and specific catchment area, CTI is useful in quantifying the effects of topography on the location and size of saturated areas.

Cayuga County staff have performed a GIS-based analysis of 10-meter DEMs to calculate and map CTI values for Cayuga County and the Owasco Lake Watershed. These data, when analyzed with NYS DEC wetland data, National Wetland Inventory data, satellite imagery and aerial orthoimagery provide a means of identifying potential, previously unmapped wetland areas. GIS Investigations incorporating the Compound Topographic Index have assisted in land use planning, environmental management, development review, and planning to prevent threats to public health.

NYS DEC Environmental Navigator: A Web-based Mapping Application
Gerry Colborn, Lois Klatt, and Eric Shyer, DIS GIS Unit, NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway, 3rd Floor, Albany NY 12233-2751 [Phone: (518)402-9863 Fax: (518)402-9031 Email: ebshyer@gw.dec.state.ny.us]

The NYS DEC Environmental Navigator is an ArcIMS application that currently maps the following locations of environmental facilities or sites regulated by the DEC: superfund sites, significant SPDES discharge facilities, air emission sources, active solid waste management facilities, facilities discharging certain types of wastes and major electric generation facilities, both existing and proposed. As new datasets are developed they will be added to provide additional information to the public and industry.

ESRI’s ArcIMS is currently being run in a Unix environment on a Sun E250 with two Gig of ram. We have configured ArcIMS using two spatial servers, gis0_1 and gis0_2 with a total of eight instances for the virtual image server, four for gis0_1 and four for gis0_2; four instances for the virtual query server, two for gis0_1 and two for gis0_2; and four instances for the virtual geocode server, two for gis0_1 and two for gis0_2. This present configuration was settled on after several rounds of testing the response times of the servers to large control groups within the DEC which made simultaneous requests to the image, query and geocoding servers.

Customization of the "front end" application which involved much javascript coding was accomplished with assistance by Applied GIS of Schenectady, New York..

Siting Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Facilities Using GIS
Austin Fisher, Applied GIS, Inc., 137 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY 12305 [Phone: (518)346-0942 x201 Fax: (518)346-5322 Email: afisher@appliedgis.com Website: www.appliedgis.com] and
Tom Bourgeois, Pace University and/or Dana L. Levy, NYS Energy Research and Development Authority

This presentation will focus on how GIS technology can be used in locating CHP facilities. It will include an overview of CHP, describing this type of energy production and its relative benefits. Also included will be a discussion of the geographic and non-geographic factors that are considered in the CHP siting process. The remainder of the presentation will address how GIS can be used to identify prime locations for CHP, and evaluate candidate CHP sites as well as problems and issues encountered with this approach.

Modeling In-Stream Temperature of the Beaverkill Watershed
Beth Gardner, Cornell University, 204 Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853   [Phone: (607) 255-2149   Email: bgg43@cornell.edu]

Stream temperature is an important component in fish community dynamics, as temperature directly affects trout growth, mortality, production, and population structure. Trout health is threatened when stream temperatures reach 22 degrees C. The stream temperatures of the lower Beaver Kill, a watershed in the Catskill Mountains of New York, commonly reach levels over 23 degrees C during summer months.

This project examined the fine scale spatial and temporal stream temperatures throughout the Beaver Kill watershed to identify areas of thermal stress and/or thermal refugia for fish. For this project, 72 temperature loggers were placed throughout the watershed during the summer of 2000. Three separate kriging models for predicting temperature across the watershed were created using ArcView and SPlus. The models were then evaluated and compared to determine the most appropriate kriging method for interpolating temperatures along a linear network.

Imagery and Geographic Information System Tools for Residential Real Estate: A Project Conducted at the NASA Affiliated Research Center
Trevis Gigliotti, Chen Shan, Kevin Riordan, Lindi Quackenbush, Paul Hopkins, NASA Affiliated Research Center SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210 and
Cynthia Dietz, Geofocus, Skaneateles, NY 13152

GeoFocus was established in 1995 to pursue business opportunities relating to geographic information systems (GISs). GeoFocus worked with the NASA Affiliated Research Center at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) to investigate the utilization of imagery and GIS techniques for applications in the residential real-estate market. Specifically, the project aimed to evaluate the benefits of combining high resolution digital orthophotography and various other spatial data with digitized tax maps, property, and multiple listing service (MLS) databases. The impetus behind the project was a belief that linking such data would enhance business and profits of residential real estate professionals and improve the service provided to their clients. The project explored two concepts that had high potential for aiding a realtor. The first involved creating an enhanced competitive market analysis by using a merged dataset that incorporated MLS, tax map, and spatially derived data layers, and then visualizing the property and neighborhood. The results of the analysis uncovered more properties at a faster rate, when compared to traditional analysis, while providing a visual display. The infusion of spatial data allows real estate agents and their clients to characterize a property by slope, aspect, and land cover without leaving the office. In addition, image drapes over digital elevation models display neighborhood topography and a property’s viewshed. The second component of the study examined and developed three-dimensional fly-throughs for visualization of a residential subdivision plan. Incorporating the proposed subdivision plan into the visualization will benefit buyers by reducing their search time for a property that will suit their needs. Creating a three-dimensional visualization will also promote the effective and efficient use of the existing natural topography and ground cover during the planning and development stages.

The Affiliated Research Center at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry was established in 1998. The ARC program is sponsored by NASA’s Geospace Applications and Development Directorate (GADD). The mission of GADD is to enhance and improve the commercial use of remote sensing and spatial information. The ARC at ESF provides companies with a unique opportunity to participate in research projects that explore commercially viable uses of geo-spatial data.

GIS for Cultural Resource Management
Benjamin K. Haavik, Property Manager/GIS Coordinator, Historic House Trust of New York City, The Arsenal, Room 203, Central Park, New York, NY 10021 [Phone: (212)360-8279 Email: parliament@parks.nyc.gov]

The Historic House Trust of New York City (the Trust), a non-profit organization, was created in 1989 to preserve and promote the historic houses owned by the City of New York / Department of Parks & Recreation. With twenty sites and a number of possible acquisitions, the Trust is responsible for over 70 structures. These sites, spread throughout all five boroughs of the city, range from the Wyckoff House, the earliest remaining built structure in New York State, to the Little Red Lighthouse, a late nineteenth-century lighthouse located near the George Washington Bridge. In addition to the historic houses, there are a number of other resources at each site including auxiliary structures, walls, stairs, plaques, signs, public art, archeological remains, and gardens.

In an effort to better manage these diverse cultural resources, the Trust is utilizing an extensive database that stores over 400 unique pieces of information for each site. This data includes a wide array of information ranging from historical information to building maintenance information to a room by room, facade by facade survey of physical conditions. Linked to a GIS, the system allows for the instantaneous analysis of information. Site and condition photos taken with a digital camera on site are accessible with a click of the mouse.

The Trust is using GIS for all facets of facility management. Tracking furnaces and boilers, monitoring alarms and documenting building conditions are just the beginning. The system can be applied to many more uses including map creation, natural resource analysis, analysis of building conditions, acquisition analysis, community demographics, visitation demographics, historical and archeological analysis, and much more.

Using GIS to Marry Ecology and Economy – The OIK/OS Experience
Mark Haberle, GIS Project Manager, Applied GIS, Inc., 137 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY 12305 [Phone: (518)346-0942 Email: mhaberle@appliedgis.com Websites: www.appliedgis.com www.maphost.com]

Applied GIS, Inc. and The Wilderness Society have teamed up to develop an on-line spatially enabled data examination tool called OIK/OS. "Oikos," Greek for house, is the root of the "eco" in economics and ecology. The intent of the application is to enable users to explore the Census’ Regional Economic Indicator Series (REIS) data in an intuitive and spatial manner. The user can use a spatially enabled GIS front end to define a region of interest at the county or state level. After defining the region, the user can then examine the REIS data through a suite of dynamically generated charts based on the selected region. In addition to this functionality the user can generate PDF reports and thematic maps. Having assembled the data in these ways the user is able to better make sustainable decisions based on the latest economic indicator data.

The core theme for this presentation is discovery of the appropriate roles for the technology within the framework of your end product. The OIK/OS experience clearly defines the need to look beyond simple deployment of a GIS to find effective solutions. Alone a GIS is a very useful tool yet combined with other development tools (dynamic charting and report generation) it becomes an extremely powerful means of creating knowledge and facilitating decision making.

This presentation will review the technical solutions deployed to enable the OIK/OS application. Discussion will cover the migration from the Phase 1 architecture (MOIMS, ColdFusion, and CFXGraphicsServer) to the present architecture (ArcIMS, ASP, GraphicsServer, and PDFWriter). Time allowing we can have Q&A discussions covering lessons learned and tricks of the trade.

The 2001 Conference on Remote Sensing Education, Auburn, NY
Lee Herrington, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 320 Bray Hall, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210 [Email: lpherrin@syr.edu]

One June 27-30, 2001 Cayuga Community College and the Resources Application Center for the Northeast hosted 90 K-14 teachers for the 2001 CORSE ( Conference on Remote Sensing Education) in Auburn, NY. The conference was designed to teach the teachers how to use GIS (ArcView), GPS, and Remote Sensing software (MultiSpec) through hands-on laboratory training. This paper will describe the structure of the conference and report the evaluations of the attendees. Since there is some opinion that teachers don't really want to know how to use the software but only want to be able to run canned exercises or have their students learn the technology the evaluations of the components of this conference could be interesting.

Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to Determine the Suitability for Wetland Restoration, Agriculture, and Development within the Cowaselon Creek Watershed Area (CCWA), Madison, New York
Scott Ingmire, Madison County Planning Department, P.O. Box 606, Wampsville, NY 13163 [Phone: (315)366-2376]

Land use activities in the Cowaselon Creek Watershed Area (CCWA) have moved forward without a well defined set of goals. Using GIS, three activities receiving recent attention: development; agriculture; and wetland restoration, were intensively examined and modeled with the ultimate goal of prioritizing the most suitable uses. A simple modeling approach was used to mathematically combine GIS layers relevant to each of the three land use categories. In addition, GIS was used to show the plethora of factors effecting the area including: hydrology, soils, topography, land cover, sites of wetland restoration, agricultural areas, and much more. Five hundred and twenty one soil cores were taken on over 6,000 acres and were used in an agricultural suitability model which showed that 1,694 acres of the muck remain most viable. A cumulative suitability model created for wetland restoration showed that 11,214 acres of the CCWA are best suited for wetland restoration.

A Real-time Immersive Virtual Traffic Environment Simulation
Youngseok Kim and T. Kesavadas, Virtual Reality Laboratory, State University of New York at Buffalo, Department.of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, 809 Furnas Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 [Phone: (716)645-2593 x2260]

Traffic Terrain generation has been used recently for driving simulators and as a navigation aid for the vehicles in a virtual environment. Using C and OpenGL,the standard graphic language, at the Virtual Reality Laboratory of SUNY at Buffalo we have implemented a complex traffic simulation with Real-time immersive stereo-view. This paper discusses the techniques of traffic generation, Real-time optimal path finding, traffic simulation and visualization. We also discuss the role of GIS in developing such Virtual simulators for training drivers in various hazardous driving situations.

Broome County Traffic Signal Pre-emption
Steve Lange, McFarland-Johnson, Inc., 49 Court Street, P.O. Box 1980, Binghamton, NY 13902-1980 [Phone: (607) 723-9421 Fax: (607) 723-4979]

Currently the metropolitan areas of Broome County have approximately sixty signalized intersections that contain signal pre-emption detectors. As part of this Phase II project another one hundred are being planned for other signalized intersections. A signal pre-emption is a device linked to traffic signals that will detect approaching fire and ambulance emergency vehicles. This detection will then pre-empt or interrupt the signal phasing allowing the emergency vehicle to have a green signal phase for added safety. The County's goal is to implement emergency vehicle signal pre-emption at every signalized intersection in Broome County.

This presentation will demonstrate how ArcView was used to create an interactive map of Broome County combining visualization and database management for every signalized intersection. A variety of ArcView applications were used such as; inputting and displaying graphical data by definition, linking inventory databases and linking photos. The map displays arrows pointing in the direction of each signal pre-emption detector. With a simple click on the detector arrow, ArcView will display an up-to-date linked database with any important or desired information along with photos of each intersection approach and a sketch of the intersection signal layout and lane-use.

This map will be used for future projects that will implement signal pre-emption until the inventory database for Broome County is complete. The map will then be used for continuous monitoring allowing quick and easy data updates, querying of any desired information and also displaying maps accordingly.

Copyrights and Government Data: The Suffolk County Case
Penny Wells LaValle, Suffolk County and Darlene Van Sickle, NYS Office for Technology

Upon becoming Director of Real Property in 1996, I pursued what I believed to be the right of the people of Suffolk to protect their investment and the integrity of the information that they could access. REDI, now First American Title Insurance, was clearly violating the rights of the County. My focus on this issue convinced the County Attorney's office to take action to define our rights and seek damages. The County assigned one of its best trial attorneys to challenge the international giant.

Jeltje deJong, now the Chief of the General Litigation Bureau, commenced action in the form of a Complaint on August 5, 1999, against Experian, and all it's aliases, for declaratory and injunctive relief and for monetary damages for violation of the copyright laws of the United States.

Use of Internet Mapping Application in a Secure Network Environment
Linh H. Le, New York State Department of Health [Phone: 518-473-1809    Email: lhl02@health.state.ny.us]

The New York State Department of Health has recently been able to deploy a secure Internet Mapping Application using ArcIMS 3.1 technology of ESRI. The project was funded by a grant of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to design an Internet Mapping Application that can meet the new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards of transferring electronic medical information. This application was developed for SUN/Solaris Operating System using Native Servlet Engine of IPlanet Webserver. In order to meet the HIPAA security standards, the application was designed to run on SSL 3.1 and behind a reverse proxy. Instead of using ArcSDE to be the data gateway, we developed a Java application to connect the Internet Mapping Application with our existing Sybase database.

GIS Challenges in New York City
Allan Leidner, GIS Manager, NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and
Rich Goodden, VP PlanGraphics Eastern Region

This half-day panel session will explore the many facets of GIS in New York City. The City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications is currently contracted with PlanGraphics for several GIS related tasks. Staff from the City and PlanGraphics will present and discuss the creation of the City’s GIS Utility and the integration of its varied GIS databases. The overall project involves numerous city departments.

New York City presents many challenges for contemporary GIS’s as well as for traditional approaches to GIS implementation planning. The panel will present and discuss many of these challenges. The panel will also discuss the unique solutions that New York City requires to fully implement a Citywide GIS.

As part of the panel discussions, and preceding the open discussions, several PlanGraphics and New York City staff will present key updates and progress reports on specific projects that are underway. Currently, 27 GIS projects have been identified, are planned or are underway. Presentations and open discussion will cover the development of a City GIS Utility and address database design, implementation, system design, application development, and training, data loading and data creation efforts, several GIS Needs Assessments GIS Studies and pilot programs, the Federal I-Team and the development of NYC department GIS web sites.

Project SCORECARD: A GIS Based Decision Support System for Maintaining Street Cleanliness in New York City
Anthony Longo, Deputy Director, New York City Mayor's Office of Operations, 100 Church St - 20th Floor, New York, NY 10007   [Phone: (212) 788-1677] and
Evan Gorin, Director of Programming, Bowne Management Systems, 235 E. Jericho Turnpike., Mineola, NY 11501   [Phone: (516) 746-2350   Email: egorin@bownemgmt.com]

Project Scorecard is the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations computerized rating system that, by performing daily inspections of selected streets and sidewalks, provides cleanliness ratings for sanitation districts and Business Improvement districts in all five boroughs. Project Scorecard has been in use by the Mayor’s Office for 27 years, and was recently upgraded to a GIS platform.

The system integrates field inspection data collected using hand-held computers, with the City's geographic information system (GIS). The GIS, developed using ESRI's ArcView/Avenue, can be used to display and edit daily routes and sanitation sections, and has the capability to provide thematic mapping for daily, monthly, quarterly, and year-to-date rating maps. The decision support system (DSS), based on Microsoft SQL Server and Visual Basic, generates reports of areas and individual block faces, schedules inspections for geographic areas, and provides customized management level queries for better decision-making.

The use of GIS and DSS technology within the Mayor's Office of Operations has enabled New York City to better manage its street cleaning operations, and be more proactive in identifying problem areas requiring additional service. This presentation will describe the system design, implementation, and demonstrate the system use.

Application of GIS in Studying the Energy, Economic, and Environmental Benefits of Using Dairy Manure as Renewable Energy Source and Designing Distributed Energy System in New York State
Jianguo Ma, Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Cornell University, 58 Riley-Robb Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853

Energy conservation and renewable energy resources, such as biomass, are widely recognized as a means of reducing the Nation’s dependence on non-renewable fossil fuel and meanwhile, improve environmental quality. This study focuses on the case of dairy farm industry in New York State and evaluates the potential of using dairy manure as renewable energy source in terms of energy, economic, and environmental benefits. The reasons for choosing dairy manure as the subject are: (1) Today, because of the use of milking parlors, cooling and storage facilities, animal comfort systems, the average dairy farm in upstate New York consumes approximately 750 kWh annually for each cow, which increase energy consumption at the expense of economic cost and environmental cost; (2) Dairy manure is not only odorous but also emits greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide into the air as it decomposes; and (3) It is also the leading cause of non-point source water pollution in the United States.

There is already an on-going research studying the economic and environmental benefits of using dairy manure to generate electricity with diesel engine at farm level. However, this proposed research will employ geographic information system (GIS) as a tool to build a spatial database and investigate the whole issue at state level. We will look at the spatial distribution and pattern of dairy farms in New York State, associating other information such as population density, household or house unit distribution and energy demands, land use, environmental regulations, etc. GIS will be useful on regional and local energy planning to identify available resources, end use applications and barriers to implementation.

Finally, distributed small-scale electricity system has been strongly pushed in the United States to replace the conventional centralized electricity system. Empirical data has showed that certain size dairy farm has great potential of playing a role by using its manure as biomass to build small-scale power generation station to supply electricity and heat to surrounding communities. This study will employ GIS to study how to design a distributed energy system in New York State, particularly in rural areas. GIS can be very useful to select the best site of building power facilities such as digesters based on multi-criteria (land use, population density, electricity demands, etc.)

Real-time 3D Urban Visualization and Simulation
Dave McKeown, TerraSim, Inc., One Gateway Center, Suite 2050 , 420 Fort Duquesne Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA 15222 [Phone: (412) 232-3646 Fax: (412) 232-3649 Email: dmm@terrasim.com Web: http://www.terrasim.com/]

Modern development and urban planning are increasingly concerned with accurately understanding and depicting the relationships between a development and its surroundings. The ability to interactively inspect a 3D urban model enables a number of high-value applications, including marketing and evaluation of development sites, city asset marketing via information kiosks, and infrastructure analysis and planning.

Recent advances in real-time 3D visualization provide the ability to generate high-fidelity urban models automatically, from existing GIS and CAD data. By utilizing existing investments in GIS and geospatial infrastructure, city planners can exploit modern visualization tools to produce accurate interactive simulations, and rapidly update these 3D simulations without manual intervention as updates are made to the GIS source base.

Real-time interactive environments often lead to tradeoffs between the level of detail depicted in the simulation and the real-time performance of that simulation as the number of polygons increases. Case studies for a number of complex urban environments will be presented, highlighting these tradeoffs and illustrating the level of performance that can be achieved from typical GIS databases.

About TerraSim: TerraSim is a high-technology company that provides software solutions and services for advanced visual simulation database construction using cartographic data. TerraToolsŪ, their primary product, is available for both SGI IRIX and Windows NT/2000 workstations, and has been used in the fully automated construction of dense urban environments incorporating land use information, detailed building models and transportation infrastructure, and site-specific cartographic detail. TerraSim also provides database construction services and advanced technology development for a wide range of customers.

GIS Archaeological Predictive Modeling in Greene County, New York
Sheri M. Norton, Applied GIS, Inc., 137 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY 12305 [Phone: (518)346-0942 x 208 Email: snorton@appliedgis.com]

GIS is a powerful analytical tool that can be implemented to improve our understanding of the past. An archaeological predictive model was developed for Greene County using this technology. This endeavor was undertaken to create a practical guide for cultural resource investigations.

Digital data sets were developed, modified, and/or acquired to represent ten variables. These layers were then integrated into a logistic regression model using ESRI’s ArcInfo GRID and ArcView Spatial Analyst extensions. The final product was a "sensitivity" map partitioning the County into three zones – low, medium, and high probability of finding prehistoric sites.

A Phased Approach to GIS-based Highway Infrastructure Management
Laura Lynn Palmer, Principal Planner (Transportation), Highway Planning & Permits Section, Suffolk County Department of Public Works, 335 Yaphank Avenue, Yaphank, NY 11980  [Phone: (631)852-4090 Fax: (631)852-4079 Email: laura.palmer@co.suffolk.ny.us]

The Suffolk County Department of Public Works maintains approximately 432 centerline miles of road, which provide access to the regional arterial highway and expressway network. These roadways traverse the length and breadth of the County’s 1,377 square miles, interlinking ten townships and fifteen villages. With the advent of GASB 34 and an ongoing emphasis on fiscal restraint, the Department has experienced an increasing need to maintain current and accurate data relative to the physical and operational conditions of its extensive highway system in order to accurately forecast future travel demands and identify the most critical highway improvement needs and costs.

While the Department currently maintains data relative to the physical and operation condition of its road network, it has never been able to efficiently use that data or insure its currency. The principal reasons for this are the lack of a central repository for highway related data as well as the paucity of tools for users to easily interact with that data. Subsequently, the Department has fragmented data residing in numerous ad-hoc databases and spreadsheets throughout the Department, many of which contain duplicate data. In an effort to remedy this situation, the Department has begun to build a system that will unite the disparate sources of data that currently exist into a single RDBMS and provide users with a GIS-enabled desktop application through which they can interact with the data.

The new system is being built in phases and will eventually comprise a complete highway infrastructure management solution. The first (current) phase of development includes the creation of a linear-referenced model of the County road network; the creation of a central database for highway attribute data; the conversion, for import, of existing data; and the development of a desktop GIS-enabled application to query, view, edit and add attribute data.

Subsequent phases will address: 1) The integration of existing budgetary data and processes associated with Capital Budget and Program development; 2) The integration of imaged plans, drawings, and maps created with our existing document imaging system; 3) Complaint tracking; 4) Freedom of Information (FOIL) request preparation and tracking; and finally, 5) Work order generation and tracking.

Spatial Simulation of the Dynamics of Establishment of Secondary Forest in Abandoned Pastures in the Central Amazon
Karin T. Rebel, Susan J. Riha, Marco A. Rondon, Ted R. Feldpausch, and Erick C.M. Fernandes, Cornell University, 1106 Bradfield Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 [Phone: (607)255-2281]

In the Amazon, approximately 35 million hectares of primary forest that was converted to pasture is now being abandoned. This represents about 70% of all pastureland that was previously established. The dynamics of re-conversion of this land to secondary forest is of interest because the length of time required for pasture to convert to secondary forest will impact net primary productivity and the amount of carbon being stored on abandoned pastures. In addition, the length of time required for pasture to convert to secondary forest may depend on pasture productivity at the time of abandonment. Pasture productivity at the time of abandonment will depend primarily on the age structure of the pasture grasses and on weediness, which are influenced by grazing and fire history. Also, an understanding of the dynamics of conversion of pastureland to forest can serve as the basis for management strategies to inhibit pasture conversion. A spatial, dynamic model of the conversion of pasture to secondary forest was developed using the PCRaster Dynamic Modeling Package. This software provides a computer language specially developed for modeling temporal and spatial processes in a GIS, and is well suited for the development of ecological, dynamic models. The model of pasture conversion is implemented for the central Amazon. We assume that succession involves only three plant types: pasture grass, weeds and woody plants. The pasture grass is parameterized for Brachiaria (brizantha, humidicola), the weeds for Borreria and Rolandra, and the woody plants for Vismia spp.

The model uses a 1m x 1m grid and 2-month time step. Each initial plant and each surviving propagule is referred to as a plant and only occupies one grid cell. A number of values are calculated for each grid cell for each time-step. These include whether vegetation is present and, if so, which species, the age of the species, the current standing biomass of the cell, the productivity of the cell for the current time step, and, in the case of woody plants, the height of the plant. The spatial distribution of these variables is available for every time step, as well as values that are integrated over the entire area of the simulation.

In this simulation study, low grazing resulted in rapid decline of NPP of Brachiaria and rapid weed invasion resulting in an acceleration of dominance by Vismia. This led to higher standing biomass at the end of 20 years relative to other management scenarios. With high grazing, weeds are never as dominant as in low grazing systems because more Brachiaria remain vigorous. With frequent burning (2, 3 and 4 years) and high grazing, Brachiaria covers 50% of the pasture even after 8 years. But by 12 years, there is only a small amount of grass and weed coverage in any of the systems.

Census Data and Access to It; Developing Generic Census Reports of Value to the NYS GIS Community; Developing a NY TIGER Users Group
Bob Scardamalia, Empire State Development State Data Center [Phone: (518) 292-5300 Fax: (518) 292-5806 Email: rscardamalia@empire.state.ny.us Website: http://www.empire.state.ny.us/data_home.html]

My presentation will focus on three topics: a brief review of Census 2000 products and availability, discussion of access to Census data, and the need for a statewide TIGER user group. The discussion of access to Census data will request input from the audience regarding the type of data extracts and geographic summary levels that are useful to the GIS community. We'd like to reduce duplication of effort and provide the most useful data to users.

The final item will address various issues related to TIGER data and updating and again seek input regarding the need for a group of users to monitor changes and provide input to the Census Bureau.

CommunityViz - Visualizing Change in Ontario County New York
Kevin J. Schultz, Ontario County Planning & Research Department

In April of 2000 the Ontario County Planning & Research Department became a beta test community for a new ArcView extension known as CommunityViz. CommunityViz is a suite of software tools being developed by The Orton Family Foundation designed to assist communities with spatial decision-making and analysis of land-use scenarios.

This suite of integrated ArcView extensions helps users view, project, analyze and understand potential changes to their community by offering three-dimensional exploration, alternative scenario-building and analysis, as well as regional forecasting for community land-use planning.

Planers in Ontario County studied the potential impacts of a sewer extension into the Town of Seneca. This extension can have a profound impact on the historically significant Rt. 5 and 20 regional transportation corridor. CommunityViz is allowing Ontario County, the towns of Seneca and Geneva to model alternative land use development scenarios and their varying demands for sewage transmission and treatment facilities.

Land Cover Classification Using Satellite-Sensed Imagery and Its Texture Values
Tilak B. Shrestha, PAR Government Systems Corporation

Computer-automated classification of remotely sensed imagery from satellites has proven useful for applications in land cover evaluation and land use planning. However, the lack of accuracy in land cover recognition hinders the usual spectral differentiation method. One technique to enhance accuracy of land cover recognition is the use of texture images, defined as a set of local statistics or other local properties of an image, which are constant, slowly varying, or approximately periodic.

In this study, two test sites near Tampa, Florida, were used to test whether the incorporation of the texture measures within the computer automated classification techniques increases classification accuracy. LANDSAT-TM and SPOT-Panchromatic images were merged to optimize spatial and spectral resolution. Reference land covers were taken from existing classifications according to a) the Florida Land Use and Cover Classification System (FLUCCS) and b) the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (FGFWFC) – land cover classification system. Error matrices and the Kappa coefficients of agreement were used to describe classification accuracy. Twenty-seven different texture measures (three non-directional and six directional, using 3x3 window size for each of the spectral bands) were computed and used along with the spectral bands as variables for supervised, unsupervised, and hybrid methods of land cover classifications. In subsequent analyses highly correlated bands were merged using principal component transformation, land cover classes with close proximity (as measured by the Jefferies-Matushita distances) were combined, and a Bayesian maximum-likelihood classifier was also added to enhance classification accuracies. Finally, a new mixed classification method was developed and applied, allowing separate band combinations for each of the land cover classes. The classification accuracies obtained by the Gaussian maximum-likelihood method using only the spectral bands were taken as reference, and accuracies of other methods were compared with them.

Use of all the spectral and texture bands together produced lower land cover classification accuracies as compared to the reference values. The Bayesian method resulted in better classification. The methods with highest accuracy differed between the sites. The hybrid technique of classification yielded poor results, while the mixed combination classification method improved land cover classification results. In most cases, texture variables added only marginal information towards differentiating land cover classes.

The results show a modest increase in accuracies of the classifications. The increased accuracies indicate the marginal usefulness of the texture measures under the present constraints. However, the study indicates enough merit in texture measures to warrant further research of its potential.

CommunityViz - Visualizing Change in Ontario County New York
Kevin J. Schultz, Ontario County Planning & Research Department

In April of 2000 the Ontario County Planning & Research Department became a beta test community for a new ArcView extension known as CommunityViz. CommunityViz is a suite of software tools being developed by The Orton Family Foundation designed to assist communities with spatial decision-making and analysis of land-use scenarios.

This suite of integrated ArcView extensions helps users view, project, analyze and understand potential changes to their community by offering three-dimensional exploration, alternative scenario-building and analysis, as well as regional forecasting for community land-use planning.

Planners in Ontario County studied the potential impacts of a sewer extension into the Town of Seneca. This extension can have a profound impact on the historically significant Rt. 5 and 20 regional transportation corridor. CommunityViz is allowing Ontario County, the towns of Seneca and Geneva to model alternative land use development scenarios and their varying demands for sewage transmission and treatment facilities.

 Sea Surface Temperature from AVHRR as a Predictor of Crustacean Zooplankton Density
David Warner, Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Fernow Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 [Phone: (607)256-2649 Email: dmw33@cornell.edu] and
Art Lembo, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Cornell University, Rice Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 [Email: ajl53@cornell.edu]

In Lake Ontario and other lakes, crustacean zooplankton play a major role in the transfer of energy from primary producers to fish and humans. Abundance, distribution, and production of zooplankton are all strongly influenced by water temperature. Accurate estimates of zooplankton abundance or production are valuable to managers of sport fish because the abundance of alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus), the primary Lake Ontario forage fish is in part regulated by the abundance and production of zooplankton. Because zooplankton distribution can be patchy, expensive and time-consuming large-scale surveys of abundance are necessary. The current sampling regime allows lake-wide sampling twice per year. Because of the linkage between temperature and zooplankton distribution, abundance, and production, I hypothesized that prediction of zooplankton abundance from satellite AVHRR data should be possible for any cloudless day. Use of remote sensing data would greatly improve the temporal range of sampling without the added expense of lake-wide cruises. In this study, predictions from a zooplankton abundance (measured) and sea surface temperature (SST) regression equation were compared to predictions from ordinary kriging. The range of predictions from SST was smaller than the observed range, while the range of predictions from kriging was quite similar to the observed range. Additionally, predictions from SST were much more variable than those from kriging. These results indicate that crustacean zooplankton density cannot be accurately predicted from satellite-derived SST.

QA/QC for New York Counties: Techniques and Lessons from Parcel and Land Base Projects
David Weaver, Vice President, Applied Geographics, Inc, 255 Congress St., Boston, MA 02210

AGI has performed basemap QA/QC and related services for Oswego and Westchester Counties. Oswego County’s Parcel database follows the NY ORPS Watershed Digitizing specifications (ArcInfo Regions). Westchester County’s new 100-scale land base includes color orthophotos, planimetric features and topography. The presentation will give an overview of what good QA/QC inspects for, the techniques and software tools, and the important lessons that would be of use to other counties planning similar base mapping projects.

Brownfield Inventories and Assessments
Mark Wheeler, Applied GIS, Schenectady, NY

Recent changes in federal and state regulations have created numerous funding opportunities for municipal agencies seeking to redevelop brownfields. In an effort to obtain federal dollars for remediation, municipalities must first identity their brownfields and select those with the greatest need for remediation. Since brownfield redevelopment is also an attempt by a community to spur economic growth, environmental needs must be balanced with economic and cultural factors. According to brownfield advocates, redevelopment can obtain multiple goals including remediation, health and safety hazards, generation of new jobs, and contribution to the tax base.

There are a number of obstacles to preparing brownfield inventories and assessments. First, adequate data on contaminated sites may not exist at the local level. Even if local officials are aware of a number of brownfield sites, they may not know the extent of the contamination or how to evaluate this data in combination with other real estate fundamentals. Secondly, federal funding for site investigations and remediation are limited to publicly owned property. This creates a situation where communities may only consider an inventory of public sites worthwhile. As a result, privately owned brownfields with strong real estate fundamentals may be overlooked when local officials plan for economic redevelopment and investments in favor of public sites with lesser location-based attributes. Third, the term "brownfield" is a contentious label. Some communities may not want a list of brownfields compiled for fear that public knowledge of the list will promote a negative view of the city or town.

The use of a GIS does not by itself resolve any one of the fore mentioned problems. Combined with clear objectives and a rational approach to assessment, a GIS can provide for efficient data development and analysis. A GIS may be used to evaluate multiple real estate values, inclusive of contamination and ownership, and permit users to quantify locational advantages of brownfields based on site and proximity attributes. In this presentation, examples of municipal inventory programs using a GIS will be discussed including New York City and Buffalo. Special attention will be given to a discussion of Bridgeport, Connecticut's brownfields program which employed a concise method for scoring and ranking sites for redevelopment potential.

Development of a County-wide Slope Map
Lucius Willis, GIS Analyst, Geography Department, Binghamton University

As Geographic Information Systems become widely used for economic development and environmental planning, an interest in and a need for detailed slope maps that can be used as an active layer in such systems has been growing. In this presentation the development of a detailed slope map for Broome County, NY, starting from USGS digital elevation models, is followed and each step is carefully explained.

NYSDOT Photolog Viewer and Route System
Frank Winters, GIS Manager, New York State Department of Transportation

NYSDOT collects photolog imagery for every state highway. The "driver's eye" view this imagery offers is valuable for a wide range of applications. Scanning of the film is underway, which will make photolog imagery available to even more users in the Department. The GIS Unit has developed a prototype ArcView extension to retrieve and display the digital photolog images. Creating the route systems to support this tool will progress as scanned images become available.