2020 Year in Review

This review highlights the efforts of the State of Vermont's Enterprise GIS Consortium, working across agencies and levels of government to improve the quality & lower cost of government services to Vermonters through coordinated investment, management, and application of geospatial data & systems.

The connections between this data and Vermonters every day lives can feel abstract at times. From tracking the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting the 2020 Census, to fighting emerald ash borer and food insecurity, 2020 brought many tangible examples of how GIS is applied to improve access to information and decision making across the state.

At the start of 2020, few would have guessed that the response to COVID-19 would become the core focus of so many of us in State government. What quickly became clear is that the knowledge, skills, and technology that enable us to quickly move, transform, analyze, and visualize large amounts of data are essential in responding to a global pandemic. 

Vermont's GIS Professionals emerged as key players leading and supporting response efforts to COVID-19. They worked late nights into early mornings, and weekends, going above and beyond to tackle whatever needed doing – from analyzing priority locations for testing sites to writing scripts that would help wrangle unemployment claims data for processing. 

One major initiative was the design and development of the Department of Heath's COVID-19 Dashboard, which found its way into almost every Vermont household.

With public needs and expectations for information high and tolerance for error low, the Department of Health (VDH) worked with VCGI to develop a process and dashboard that provides the public with official daily updates on case activity, testing, hospitalization, and contact tracing. On a daily basis there are over 80 individuals at VDH involved with inputting and reviewing data from a wide variety of sources and systems. Since April, the dashboard has been viewed 7.5 million times.

While the dashboard continues to be the most publically visible aspect of pandemic response, there has been no shortage of critical work happening behind the scenes on COVID-19 projects like:

• Specimen collection sites
• Test Submitting Provider Location Tracking
• Free Test Clinics Mapping
• Sewage testing
• Early detection metrics
• School staff testing
• Volunteer mapping and coordination
• Flu vaccine reporting and COVID vaccine prep reporting
• Lab & Outbreak metrics
• Case count and rate mapping at the town level
• Correctional Facility transmission tracking using cell maps
• Drive-time and case count analysis
• Travel/mobility data processing and visualization

Data visualizations developed by VT GIS professionals were frequently featured in Governor Phil Scott's weekly press conferences, bringing geospatial information into living rooms across Vermont.

Thank you to  ESRI ,  Safe Software , and  Safegraph  for making their products available to Governments and others at no cost during the pandemic.

Beyond the enormous numbers of individuals accessing COVID-19 related data in Vermont, 2020 saw a record number of people using the  Open Geodata Portal,  which provides a catalog of data layers and tools from State Agencies and Regional Planning Commissions into one centralized location.

The results of the decennial Census determine the allocation of $2.7 billion dollars in federal financial assistance to the State of Vermont and making sure everyone was counted in 2020 Census was critically important. VCGI's Director represented the Agency of Digital Services on the  Complete Count Committee  in the campaign to increase response rates and provided a single point of contact for getting Census geography officials the information needed to conduct the Census. Building on  previous work  to identify addresses missing in the Census master address file, ADS Staff automated the  daily reporting of response rates  helping to target outreach efforts and publicize the importance of responding. Staff continues to help the State prepare for upcoming results by assisting the  Legislative Apportionment Board .

While COVID-19 dominated a lot of our health related work - we did still manage to work on tackling a number of other important issues:

• Cyanobacteria Program. The VDH Cyanobacteria tracking public tracker and reporting applications have been given a new look, many new official reporters were trained, and a  public reporting application  has been created that allows anyone to report a bloom.
• Tick Tracking. The  Tick Tracker  program marched on, with a rather uneventful season. Despite restrictions, people still managed to get outside and collect ticks on their clothes!
• Mosquito Pools. This year there were zero positive detections of West Nile virus at the trap locations distributed throughout the state.  Mosquito Surveillance Map .
• Cooling Centers. Still in development, VDH has begun a program to establish cooling centers throughout the state to act as a refuge for citizens during heat waves in the summer. 
• Prescription Drug Disposal Sites. Seeing its first full year of use, the new  prescription drug disposal site locator  saw a large amount of traffic this year.

Mapping Channel Migration Zones. The Rivers Program of the Department of Environmental Conservation asked about the possibilities of creating Relative Elevation Models (REMs) using Vermont's LiDAR Digital Elevation Model (DEM) mosaics. ADS ANR GIS used a "Methodology for Delineating Planning-Level Channel Migration Zones" by the Department of Ecology from the State of Washington to create models that use our LiDAR elevation data to create REMs. Using a Kernel based interpolation of the LiDAR data, ADS ANR GIS created two models for assigning the elevations to the stream points as well as interpolating the relative elevations as well as an REM with associated elevation stretches for the Dog River and provided them to the Rivers Program to analyze new ways for identifying the channel migration zones for the purposes of delineating river corridors.

Mapping Municipal Wastewater Systems. ADS ANR GIS working with Clean Water Investment Program staff created a  web app (map)  showing the mapping status of municipal wastewater systems in Vermont. The status map is intended to inform State Agencies needing it for their business and show the wastewater data where its available. For the last decade ANR GIS has supported the developed of stormwater infrastructure, which included some wastewater system infrastructure, by Department of Environmental Conservation. Now the two systems (stormwater and wastewater) are available on the  Vermont Open Geodata Portal  so its explicit to interested groups and it encourages the continued GIS data development.

Contact Information Retrieved Spatially. ADS ANR GIS has developed a system for maintaining program contacts for various district boundaries within the Agency of Natural Resources. A new administrative boundary dataset, managed by ADS ANR GIS was created to manage the various contact information for each district of each of its programs. The dataset uses a live version of Active Directory to create a link for joining Active Directory information for that staff person. A new  web mapping application  was developed to easily click and assign staff to each program district, or to assign new staff for retirees, those that move on to new positions, or for those on leave. This application can be embedded within ANR's internal sites for division/program admin staff to maintain. This information will help inform boundary data for web mapping sites such as the Atlas, but will also be used for queries from other applications to help internal staff and the public find the appropriate staff person for specific program and permit inquiries. Future ANR applications will include functionality that will provide program contact information based on a user's location. 

Current Use Appraisal Parcel Mapping. ADS ANR GIS and the Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation have begun a new project to assist in the mapping of the Current Use Program. The beginning of this project is to map Current Use parcels in Vermont. Using Vermont's tax parcel map and Vermont's Property Valuation Review (PVR) database which contains the information of Current Use enrollments, ADS ANR GIS was able to join these databases together to create a parcel map displaying properties that have enrolled in the program, whether the enrollments were for forestry or agricultural purposes, and what the status of those enrollments are. ADS ANR GIS was able to successfully match 99% of the records within the PVR database with a corresponding parcel within the Vermont tax map! This is a monumental step for the private foresters of Vermont whom manage the forest management plans for these forested current use parcels and will be an incredibly valuable tool for determining what parcels are enrolled, which parcels are under review. The next step in the project is to use the parcels that are not currently enrolled and determine whether they are eligible to help Vermonter's with their property taxes and to also create forest management plans for those parcels to ensure a healthier and more productive forest.

Land Cover Analysis for Water Quality Monitoring. ADS ANR GIS completed the analysis of Land Cover within the lake basins of the State's Oligotrophic Lakes for the Department of Environmental Conservations Lakes Program. This project relies on detailed geoprocessing of 0.5m Land Cover Data developed by the UVM Spatial Analysis Lab released for the entire state. This project marks the first project in the state to use this new data for the purposes of water quality planning. DEC hopes to use this data with recently developed lake basin information, processed by ADS ANR GIS to summarize land cover within these basins to provide insight on water quality conditions of Vermont's Lakes and compare land cover data with other states to make comparisons and draw conclusions regarding trends in water quality parameters.

Finding Efficiencies for Vermonters through the Current Use Program. ADS ANR GIS is working with the Department of Forests Parks and recreation to identify parcels that would be eligible for the Current Use Program. This analysis uses two of the recent statewide deliveries of high resolution land cover and parcels information. The analysis included a selection of parcels >25 acres in size that have >20 acres forest land. A percentage of forest canopy was calculated for each parcel. Of these, parcels were removed if they weren't state or federally conserved. These parcels were linked to the PVR database to determine which parcels were already enrolled, which were enrolled in AG, or which were not currently enrolled. All parcels from the analysis that were not currently enrolled would be considered eligible. A report will be created to identify the potential impacts to landowners and towns, as well as give an idea to the legislature of how the program could expand.

The Vermont Geological Survey and partners from University of Vermont, Middlebury College, SUNY Plattsburgh and the VTrans UAS Drone Team used GIS to integrate geologic mapping (bedrock and surficial), water well borehole data and VCGI’s LiDAR DEM to model the subsurface beneath the Rutland Airport to examine how rock fractures (avenues of weakness) may control groundwater and contaminant flow in the bedrock aquifer. Examining these maps, along with 3D photogrammetry models created by UVM’s Dr. Keith Klepeis, helps geologists understand the fate and transport of chemical contaminants, such as PFAS, within rock fractures and other structures like beds. Learn more about this work from this  recent feature  in VTDigger. 

COVID-19 Response Business Development Grants. The goal of the  Working Lands Enterprise Initiative  and its governing board is to promote economic development in Vermont’s agricultural and forestry sectors through technical and financial assistance. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Working Lands Enterprise Board acted swiftly to launch the COVID-19 Response Business Development Grant in April 2020. In June 2020, over $250,000 in financial assistance was awarded to 16 businesses across the state.  

Local Food Resiliency in Vermont. The Local Food Resiliency in Vermont  story map  was made for the Agricultural Development division of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets in collaboration with the Department of Health and the Farm to Plate Network. This story map highlights the projects and initiatives taking place across Vermont that focus on community resiliency and sustainable food systems.  

This tool can help local government, local nonprofits and community members improve their local food systems in ways that intersect with indigenous sovereignty, land stewardship, rural planning and more. Tangible resources for assessment and planning help readers translate information into action. Issues around food access and production are inherently place-based, making GIS an effective tool for gaining a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the local food systems.

Water Quality. The Water Quality division of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets launched two separate online geospatial databases in 2019. The Partner Database and the Water Quality Mapping Database improve tracking, reporting, and mapping of agricultural conservation practices and farm inspections, respectively. The division continued to invest in improvements this year to make the databases more user-friendly, including new search features and measurement tools.

Currently, there are 22 GIS layers available for users to reference such as surface water, soils, parcels, E911 locations, and LiDAR-derived hillshade. These GIS layer attributes also inform phosphorus reduction modelling and reporting. The Water Quality division also trained 87 agricultural service providers or “partners” from multiple organizations to use the Partner Database to track agricultural conservation practices on farms across the state, which currently stores:

Vermont’s Transportation data layers consist of road centerlines, railroads, bridges and culverts, airports, and other transportation assets, as well as transportation related metrics including traffic volumes, crash locations, pavement condition, and others. GIS data layers are integral to the internal workflows of the Agency and are continuing to expand in mapping, right of way, asset management, project development and the visualization of the overall assessment of the transportation infrastructure. Many of the data layers created and maintained by VTrans are accessible through the  Vermont Open Geodata Portal  or through  VTransparency  and the  VTrans Open Data Portal  

There has been a significant amount of work within the Agency over the course of the last year that has leveraged GIS as a technology and below are some of the highlights. 

Interactive web-based sharing applications and Intro to Experience Builder  With Covid-19 restrictions limiting our ability to hold public meetings, Trans was challenged with innovating new methods of interaction to preserve the connection with our communities and hear their voices on projects across the state. VTrans staff in the Mapping and Policy and Planning sections along with support from the Agency of Digital Services (ADS), created new web-based applications using Esri’s ArcGIS online platform to share project information and to receive public comment from the community as well as state and local agencies. When compared to the less-efficient method of receiving comments via email or mark-ups on a paper map, we now receive comments digitally with precise map coordinates and have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to update our databases and generate new points on the map.  

Reducing Repeat Damage Tool. This web application was developed to help state and local agencies identify, analyze, and provide digital comments on roads and structures on the Federal Aid System that have sustained damage from multiple weather-related disasters as declared under the Federal Highway Administration Emergency Relief Program (FHWA ER). This web-app delivers a comprehensive deep-dive into repeat damage sites by integrating data from VTrans’ expansive digital catalog of damage records, bridge inspection reports, and flood vulnerability studies into a single, map-focused web browser window. 

Transportation Resilience Planning Tool. The second phase of work on the Transportation Resilience Planning Tool was completed by VTrans and Regional Planning Commissions. Statewide coverage of flood vulnerability analysis to roads and structures expanded to 20%. Updates to the web-app are in development are focused on improving the user experience - changing map symbol colors to account for color-blindness and to add more informative background layers. Phase 3 work has commenced and will provide 100% statewide coverage to our roads and structures.  Learn more. 

VTrans UAS Imagery Goes Public 

This year the VTrans UAS program, which resides in the Rail and Aviation Bureau, made public georeferenced ortho imagery it captures from around the state. The UAS program accepts flight requests from all state agencies. Some of those requests are for ortho imagery. We have developed a workflow to efficiently publish this ortho imagery to an ArcGIS REST service that can be consumed by the public. We also developed an ArcGIS Online web mapping application to locate UAS flights and provide descriptions and dates for each flight.  VCGI did a gracious write-up for us in their Aug 2020 new update.   

Emergency Preparedness 

VTrans has revamped an online ArcGIS mapping application and the background processes used for entering in road closure information during emergency events. It can be hectic when storm events occur and when disasters strike, so an application has been developed for the GIS technicians in four regional commands at VTrans to enter storm damage data and closures. The Traffic Management Center (TMC) uses this and other sources of information to verify and enter closure information that is communicated to the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) and the public. Processes were developed validate the data layers, updated information that can be calculated using location information, and generate summaries. This makes differences between the regional commands and TMC data easy to recognize and saves GIS technicians time with data entry. Closure information is mapped on a Common Operating Picture Dashboard that is accessible to VTrans, the SEOC and others to see closure status during emergency events. 

Village Center Wastewater and Drinking Water Mapping. Finding reliable Wastewater and Drinking water information is common hurdle in planning and development, so Vermont ACCD GIS worked to provide better public infrastructure information about Vermont's Village Centers. To provide improved data ACCD GIS worked with partners at the town-level, regional planning commissions and the Agency of Natural Resources to connect wastewater facilities with the Village Centers they serve. This provides planners with the ability to identify the wastewater facilities that serve village centers as well as tap into information about the facilities such as capacity and permitting information. In addition, ACCD GIS also leveraged detailed wastewater and drinking water system mapping from the Department of Environmental Conservation to show detailed mapping of wastewater lines, manholes, and other features in 80 of 98 towns with municipal systems. These datasets appear on the  Planning Atlas  and the Vermont Geodata Portal. 

Vermont Archaeology Inventory Map Updates. ACCD GIS and the Division for Historic Preservation (DHP) made several updates to Vermont Archaeology Inventory Map (VAI), a mapping application for practicing Archaeologists and Researchers in Vermont. The VAI now connects spatial datasets with records kept in the Online Resource Center, the web application for DHP Archives. In addition, the VAI now includes a number of new datasets including Glacial Lake Level and Champlain Sea data produced by the Vermont Geological Survey from LiDAR data and years of geologic mapping. Recent archaeological research shows Paleo-Indian settlement patterns were likely influenced by these shorelines, a relationship now observable on the VAI. 

Each year, the Vermont Regional Planning Commissions compile an annual report and brochure highlighting all of the work done. This year a University of Vermont student in the GIS Practicum class created this  Story Map  out of the material and maps used in the brochure to showcase work completed in 2020 by Vermont Regional Planning Commissions. 

Mapping Opportunities and Challenges to Access to Food Retailers. The Hunger Council of Washington County began this project in 2018 with the goal of developing a tool to identify gaps in food access through retailers to those with low-incomes. They wanted a way to explore what barriers there may be to food access - is it transportation; lack of a grocery store; lack of food variety? The Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission was asked to collaborate using GIS to help them visualize these barriers. 

The  Food Retailers Access Map  was created in partnership with the Hunger Council of Washington County and the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, with appreciation for the efforts of the Vermont Department of Health, Vermont 2-1-1, Downstreet Housing and Community Development, Green Mountain United Way, and Hunger Free Vermont.  

Ash Tree Inventory Shelburne, Vermont Dashboard The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission created the  Ash Tree Inventory Shelburne,  Vermont dashboard to assist the Shelburne Tree Committee in their efforts to prioritize ash tree removal by condition and diameter. With the Emerald Ash Borer infecting trees around the state, it is important to plan removal of trees in the road right of way. With this dashboard, the committee can view the number of trees by road, condition or diameter. This tool will help the committee to prioritize and communicate tree removal plans with the Shelburne Selectboard. 

To see what else the Regional Planning Commissions have been working on, check out the  VAPDA Annual Report .