U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District employees, Christy Cox, operations division geographic information system technical lead, and Lance Filiatreau, engineering division GIS coordinator, hosted a lunch and learn event to celebrate GIS Day and introduce new geospatial resources to the workforce, Nov. 15, 2023.
“The GeoPortal Site Page is where [the district’s] GIS Community of Practice is able to create and share GIS content, such as web maps, scenes, apps and other geographic information with other team members in our organization,” said Lance Filiatreau.. “The site improves access to quality data and powerful, but user-friendly GIS tools that everyone in the district should know.”
The platform benefits a wide variety of groups throughout the district, such as emergency management, engineering, operations (including park rangers), planning and real estate, according to Christy Cox.
“GIS technology enables us to capture, analyze, and visualize complex data, helping us make more informed decisions and improving our operations,” Cox said. “The goal is to make data trusted and accessible to all levels of users to make more educated decisions.”
The portal has already proved to be an invaluable resource for the Louisville District. By making dredging vessel data easily accessible via ArcPortal, district employees can readily show leadership and headquarters where low water dredges are, what current low water restrictions are in place and stream gauge statuses happening in real time that allow leadership to get a more accurate picture of what is happening on the waterways.
“Posting the dredge location and the low water restrictions on the GeoPortal dashboard has helped keep other USACE stakeholders informed during our extreme low water event this year,” said Shawn Kenney, operations division technical support branch chief. “This has saved our team time in reporting and answering questions, and likely helped other members of the USACE team keep track of USACE resources to have a better big picture understanding of the event.”
“Sharing is caring,” said Cox. “If you care about your data, the more you share it, the more valuable it becomes.”