The document describes the creation of an integrated GIS tool to evaluate the needs of disadvantaged communities in California. A contract was awarded to Provost and Pritchard Consulting to develop the tool in partnership with Houston Engineering. They retrieved and aggregated publicly available data on disadvantaged communities and incorporated it into an Esri-based application using Story Maps and Web AppBuilder. The application included tabs displaying an overview, IRWM dashboard, community water quality, private well communities, and community needs ranking. An automated process was developed to retrieve, prepare, and publish the data to the application. The beta application underwent internal and stakeholder testing before being finalized.

1. CREATING AN INTEGRATED GIS TOOL TO
EVALUATE THE NEEDS OF
DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES

2. BACKGROUND (HOW IT STARTED)
▪ CA Dept of Water Resources
▪ Created DAC involvement program
▪ DWR used Prop 1 2018 IRWM guidelines to implement DAC program
▪DAC program designed to ensure involvement of:
▪ DAC Communities
▪ Economically Distressed Areas
▪ Underrepresented Communities in IRWM Planning Efforts
▪Tulare/Kern funding area awarded 3.4 Million dollars
▪ Grant award agreement executed on 2/13/2018
▪ Grantee was Tulare County

3. BACKGROUND (CONTRACT AWARDED)
▪Provost and Pritchard Consulting awarded contract
▪ Sub-contract technical/GIS work to Houston Engineering
▪Houston Engineering subcontracted to assist with
the following:
▪Develop framework for database and web portal
▪Develop database and web portal
▪Automate process to retrieve and coalesce data
▪Deploy system at Tulare County

4. BACKGROUND (CONTRACT AWARDED)
▪ Project was focused on Community health as it relates to WATER
….and More

5. BACKGROUND (FUNDING AREA)

6. BACKGROUND (FUNDING AREA)

7. DATA USED

8. DATA USED (WHERE DID IT ORIGINATE?)
▪Publicly available data - in the form of
geodatabases, related tables, map services, and
numerous paper maps and reports for reference
▪Most data originated from phase 1 project work
done in 2012

9. DATA USED (WHAT DID HEI & P&P DO WITH IT?)
▪Used data still valid from 2012
▪Modified and enhanced data with a focus on
comprehensive community layer characteristics
▪Retrieved, Aggregated, and Coalesced data
▪Incorporated data into integrated application

10. TECHNOLOGIES

11. TECHNOLOGIES (WHICH TO USE?)
Open Source…..
Or….
Esri…..

12. TECHNOLOGIES (AND THE DECISION?)
Esri was selected
Why?
- Tulare County was to host finished application
- Tulare County had an Esri ELA
- Tulare County wanted to leverage Esri analytic
components/software such as ArcGIS Insights

13. TECHNOLOGIES (WHAT SPECIFIC ESRI TECHNOLOGIES?)
Esri was selected

14. THE PROCESS

15. THE PROCESS (OVERVIEW)
▪Challenging
▪Stakeholders → P&P →HEI
▪HEI → P&P → Stakeholders
▪Stakeholders didn’t know what they wanted for
end product so the project was constantly
evolving

16. THE PROCESS (DATA)
▪Needed Data is all over the place
▪FTP sites, URL downloads, remote GIS repositories, etc
▪So do we write instructions to manual retrieve data
or create an automated process
▪THE DECISION: Automate

17. THE PROCESS (WORKFLOW)
▪Create workflow for automation

18. THE PROCESS (AUTOMATE DATA GRAB)
Decide to use Python along with ArcPy site package for automation

19. THE PROCESS (DATA IN HAND)
▪Now that we have the data in hand, how will it be
used in the end product/app?
▪How will the end product interact with the data?
▪Do we need to integrate software/functionality to
create a satisfactory end user experience?
▪What application functionality is needed to make
sense of the data?

20. THE PROCESS (APPLICATION DESIGN)
▪What will the end product be?
▪DECISION: IIS Server deployed
Storymap app with tab Integrated
Web AppBuilder developer edition
applications

21. THE PROCESS (PREPARE DATA FOR APP)
▪Add additional attributes to needed datasets
▪Format data
▪Merge data
▪Join and Relate data
▪Delete unneeded records
▪Reproject Spatial Data
▪Create data
▪Optimize data for app performance

22. THE PROCESS (AUTOMATE DATA PREP)
▪Decision made to not only automate data retrieval
but also Data prep
▪So we add automate data prep code to existing
Python Script

23. THE PROCESS (BUILD BETA APP)
▪The Storymap app w/ integrated WAB apps is
created, configured, and deployed
▪Prepared data is published and integrated into App

24. THE PROCESS (AUTOMATE PUBLISHING)
▪Decision made to automate data publishing but not
until app is redeployed in Tulare County,CA
production environment

25. APPLICATION TESTING

26. TESTING (BETA APP)
▪Internal testing – performed by HEI and P&P
▪In Progress – testing by stakeholders
▪The State (CA DWR)
▪Counties in Funding Area
▪IRWMs in Funding Area

27. APPLICATION SCREENSHOTS

28. OVERVIEW TAB

29. IRWM DAC DASHBOARD TAB

30. COMMUNITY WATER QUALITY TAB

31. PRIVATE WELL COMMUNITIES TAB

32. COMMUNITY NEEDS RANKING TAB

33. October 23, 2019
North Dakota GeoSpatial Summit
Questions?

34. SHOW THE APPLICATION
(TIME PERMITTING)