The document discusses how geographic information system (GIS) technology helps community leaders make more informed decisions and take real-time action. It provides four key ways GIS does this: 1) Real-time dashboards visualize real-time data to help allocate resources efficiently during emergencies; 2) Story maps improve communication and understanding with stakeholders; 3) Map analysis helps communities understand and combat issues like the opioid epidemic; 4) Field accessibility allows workers to make better remote decisions and assign help without delay.

1. T he value of geographic information system (GIS)
technology for managers and executives in the
civic sphere has been clear for decades. In a very
broad sense, GIS gives stakeholders a holistic picture
of a community’s assets, resources, and problems by
contextualizing them with location. In the simplest
terms, GIS enables understanding of every aspect of
community data as it relates to geography. Today’s
expectations of GIS as a government solution are driven
by the principle of taking more prescriptive action.
Much money and effort is spent by public agencies
like utilities and emergency responders reacting
to events. Esri®
GIS technology now gives decision
makers the tools they need to get ahead of problems.
Over the past few years, governments have been
increasingly expected to deliver services in real-time
and make information more accessible, not only within
departments but with stakeholders such as other
governments and the tax-paying public. At the very
least, problem identification to action must now
occur in real-time.
Here are four ways GIS provides community leaders
with the ability to make informed decisions and
actualize real progress:
Real-time dashboards provide a way to absorb and derive
meaning from real-time data. Dashboards allow government
organizations to visualize information on a large scale and
allocate resources where they’re needed. During weather
emergencies, for instance, dashboards enable more efficient
ways to respond to flurries of endless snow.
In the city of Boston, Massachusetts, public works staff
now use dashboards and real-time data feeds to monitor and
respond to ice storms. During one of the largest blizzards in
U.S. history, that helped the city make decisions in real time,
saving money and protecting the lives of Boston commuters
and pedestrians.
Part of the decision-making process is communicating with
stakeholders. Esri®
story maps are an effective tool to improve
communication and understanding, not just with key members
of government but with citizens as well. They make data
accessible so that people who need critical information can
get the intelligence they need and take immediate action.
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The Kids First Allen Story Map Journal was used effectively
to spur the eventual passage of a $272 million school bond
measure for Allen Independent School District (AISD) in
the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas. It helped educate voters
about why a school bond was needed and included school
plans and potential tax implications.
The Celebrating Lost Loved Ones map was created to show
both prescription drug and heroin deaths to show that the
prescription drug and heroin addiction epidemics are bound
together, jointly causing massive impact. States are putting
together resources to display and analyze data such as
mortality trends within a community, prescription drug
dropbox locations, and prescription drug access points.
Each of these resources helps communities become better
informed about the effects of opioid addiction and enables
them to more intelligently fight it. Removing the stigma
attached to both legal and illegal drug addiction using
authoritative data will better inform future response to
opioid addiction in the U.S.
Learn more at
esri.com/DataDrivenDecisions
Real-Time Dashboards
Storytelling
FOUR WAYSto Move from Decision to Action
How GIS Actualizes Smart Communities

2. Map analysis is also used to combat the national opioid
epidemic. Individual states are putting together resources to
geospatially analyze demographic, health, and pharmacy
data in GIS. This analysis helps communities become better
informed about the patters, trends, and effects of
opioid addiction.
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esri.com/DataDrivenDecisions
Nowhere is the challenge of empowering stakeholders to
make real-time decisions more evident than in the field.
Field accessibility allows workers to make better decisions
remotely and to assign help without delay.
DeKalb County, Georgia’s Community Development
Department used a custom mobile GIS application to quickly
enter data from the homeless and pinpoint the exact location
of each surveyed person. The GIS platform helped volunteers
collect reliable information faster and locate approximately
200 unsheltered homeless people down to the street level.
The data was instantly available online and enabled the
speedy distribution of shelter to those who needed it.
Additionally, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, California, used
field data collection to immediately respond to a single
engine plane crash. Normally, an event like this might catch
even the most prepared emergency responders off guard,
but access to the city’s online GIS data from mobile devices
allowed those in the field to make better decisions, as well as
become real-time sensors themselves. Deployed firemen,
police, and other city employees transmitted information to
the GIS team, who would then compile these data streams
into a common portal.
Get Started
The future of public resource management is the ability
to go from decision to action in no more than the time it
takes to point and click. Real-time GIS-based decision
making meets the demands of today’s stringent
government and public expectations.
To learn more about the four ways Esri’s ArcGIS®
platform can help kick start your decisions into
action, visit esri.com/DataDrivenDecisions.
The large amounts of data that public agencies possess
must be shared and analyzed to give that data meaning and
utility. Mapping analysis allows departments to make sense
of large collections of information to turn policy into
substantive action on the ground.
Pinellas County, Florida, transformed its fragmented data
into a hub of apps and maps that drive operational
efficiency, such as a mobile data collection app for
gathering critical data after storms. Staff can easily find
and analyze data for future maintenance and management
needs. Pinellas County took advantage of mapping analysis
to easily integrate with other enterprise systems and
enable access to data by anyone on any device.
Mapping Analysis Field Accessibility
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