MAPPING THE NATION Data-Powered Decision-Making
Esri Press, 380 New York Street, Redlands, California 92373-8100 Copyright © 2026 Esri All rights reserved. The information contained in this document is the exclusive property of Esri or its licensors. This work is protected under United States copyright law and other international copyright treaties and conventions. No part of this work may be used, used to train, or used to prepare derivative works, copied, reproduced, redistributed, publicly displayed or performed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, digital scanning, and recording, or by any machine learning, artificial intelligence, information storage, or retrieval systems, except as expressly permitted in writing by Esri. Any unauthorized use of this work to train artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. All requests should be sent to Attention: Director, Contracts and Legal Department, Esri, 380 New York Street, Redlands, California 92373-8 100, USA. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. US Government Restricted/Limited Rights: Any software, documentation, and/or data delivered hereunder is subject to the terms of the License Agreement. The commercial license rights in the License Agreement strictly govern Licensee’s use, reproduction, or disclosure of the software, data, and documentation. In no event shall the US Government acquire greater than RESTRICTED/ LIMITED RIGHTS. At a minimum, use, duplication, or disclosure by the US Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in FAR §52.227-14 Alternates I, II, and III (DEC 2007); FAR §52.227-19(b) (DEC 2007) and/or FAR §12.211/12.212 (Commercial Technical Data/Computer Software); and DFARS §252.227-7015 (DEC 2011) (Technical Data–Commercial Items) and/or DFARS §227.7202 (Commercial Computer Software and Commercial Computer Software Documentation), as applicable. Contractor/Manufacturer is Esri, 380 New York Street, Redlands, California 92373-8100, USA. Esri products or services referenced in this publication are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. To learn more about Esri marks, go to: links.esri.com/ EsriProductNamingGuide. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners. For purchasing and distribution options (both domestic and international), please visit esripress.esri.com. Cover illustration by David Lauruhn.
MAPPING THE NATION Data-Powered Decision-Making Esri Press Redlands, California
Contents Foreword | vi Introduction | ix Chapter 1 Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure 1 Tennessee Is in a Building Boom, and the State’s Permitting Systems Must Keep Pace | 4 How Construction of a 500-Mile Energy Transmission Line Is Guided by Location Intelligence | 8 From Crisis to Recovery: How JXN Water’s GIS-First Approach Rebuilt the Water System | 13 Houston, Texas: A Study in Modernizing Public Works with GIS | 19 Tracing Critical Infrastructure Connections in Hawaii to Address Threats and Ensure Continuity of Service | 24 Chapter 2 Planning and Designing Better Communities 29 Maps Reveal Hidden Housing Realities in Massachusetts to Address an Affordability Crisis | 32 A Digital Twin of Buildings and People Guided Adelaide’s Future Growth Plan | 37 How a Texas Town Is Building the City of the Future by Going Vertical | 42 A Historic Downtown, Favored on Film, Gets a Digital Twin to Promote Revitalization | 48 Welsh Football Club’s New Stadium Invited GIS and BIM to Play | 53 Chapter 3 Keeping Communities Safe 59 How Rural Illinois Pioneers Mapped Schoolrooms and School Grounds to Shave Seconds Off Response Times | 62 How a Firefighter and a GIS Analyst Transformed DC Responsiveness | 69 Behind Seattle’s Event Security: Mapping Threats and Measuring Success | 74 Testing Lifesaving Skills in an Exercise Where Every Rescuer Sees the Same Map | 79 When Maps Became Lifelines During Brazil’s Historic Floods | 84 Chapter 4 Protecting and Securing the Nation 91 Germany’s Networked Soldiers Gain a Collaborative Edge with Shared Maps | 94 Inside FireGuard: Military Intelligence Meets Wildfire Response | 98 MITRE Maps America’s Hidden Infrastructure Vulnerabilities to Prevent Cascading Failures | 104 Butterflies and Bombs: How the National Guard Plays a Role in Safeguarding an Endangered Species | 109 Virtual Reality Meets Real Policing: How Hawaii’s Newest State Agency Is Protecting Paradise | 112
Chapter 5 Managing Natural Resources More Efficiently 119 A Geographic Approach Helps the USDA Stay One Step Ahead of the Cattle Tick | 122 Federal Crop Insurance Program Gains a Game- Changing Geospatial Awareness | 126 Trinchero Family Estates Maps 9,000 Vineyard Acres with Boutique Precision | 130 The Best Wine in the World’s Care and Correction Guided by Smart Maps | 135 RoyOMartin’s High-Tech Forestry Approach Poised to Meet America’s Housing Crisis | 140 Chapter 6 Overseeing Parks, Habitats, and Wildlife 145 National Park Service Streamlines Fossil Data Collection with GIS | 148 Drones, New Sensors, and Geospatial AI Fill In Crucial Species Gaps in the Global Map of Life | 151 Managing Pennsylvania’s Wildlife for Hunters and Healthy Habitats | 158 Geospatial AI: Transforming How We Monitor Beluga Whales | 164 Conservationists Use Satellites and Geospatial AI to Guide Caribbean Coral Protections | 169 Chapter 7 Mitigating Risk and Increasing Resilience 177 Seeing— More Clearly— Where Stormwater Floods Denver | 180 Rain and Rescue: Fort Lauderdale’s Battle Against a Record-Breaking Downpour | 185 Restoration Protects San Francisco Bay from Sea Level Rise | 190 As Waters Rise, Maps Guide Louisiana in Restoring a Crumbling Coastline | 195 Permafrost: The Vanishing Ground That’s Wreaking Havoc on People and the Planet | 201 Chapter 8 Helping People Survive and Thrive 209 Tech Skills Open New Doors for Women in Humanitarian Aid | 212 Investigating the Human Toll of Boko Haram with Maps and Satellite Images | 216 For Doctors Without Borders, GIS Is Invaluable | 221 Copenhagen Climate Centre Uses Advanced Geospatial Analysis to Prevent Disasters Before They Strike | 229 Nature-Based Solutions Aim to Fortify Point Hope | 235 Contributors | 238 Explore this book online at link.esri.com/MTN/2026
Foreword The Geographic Foundation of Human Progress On Christmas Eve 1968, as Apollo 8 circled the moon, astronaut William Anders captured an image that would forever change how we see our world. Earthrise revealed our planet as it truly is—a beautiful, fragile, interconnected system floating in the vastness of space. The astronauts described being overwhelmed by this perspective, seeing beyond map boundaries and prejudices, feeling as though someone had flipped the light on in a room where they had lived their whole lives in darkness. Today, we are experiencing another moment of illumination. Through geographic information systems (GIS) technology, we are collectively building what I call a nervous system for the planet—a framework of shared geographic knowledge that reveals the connections between everything, everywhere. The stories in this collection demonstrate how this nervous system operates, showing how communities worldwide are creating, sharing, and using location intelligence to understand complex challenges and create solutions that serve both human needs and environmental sustainability. The Integration of Everything Geography and mapping have historically played an important role in the evolution of human civilization. They have provided a scientific lens for understanding our world. From 4,000-year-old maps chiseled into stone in ancient France—still 88 percent accurate when overlaid with modern GIS data—to today’s sophisticated digital twins, humankind has consistently relied on spatial understanding to navigate complexity. What’s different now is the rapid innovation of the geospatial technologies that have transformed the scale and sophistication of this integration. The eight chapters in this book follow a logical progression that mirrors how societies develop and sustain themselves: building essential infrastructure, designing thoughtful communities, protecting what we’ve built, securing our nations, managing natural resources sustainably, safeguarding biodiversity, building resilience against change, and ultimately enabling human flourishing. Each chapter demonstrates how GIS serves as the common platform that integrates knowledge across disciplines, organizations, and scales. When Tennessee modernizes its permitting systems to handle explosive growth, when Adelaide, Australia, creates digital twins for comprehensive planning, when Brazil builds 17 emergency applications in 30 days to respond to historic floods—these aren’t isolated technical achievements. They represent the emergence of Earthrise.
vii integrative thinking and collaborative problem-solving that our interconnected world requires. Beyond Technology: A Framework for Collaboration The power of the geographic approach lies not in the technology itself but in how it enables new patterns of data sharing and collaborative decision-making. “Technology is not just a tool, it’s a force multiplier that helps us do our job better,” said firefighter Jeffrey Lenard, reflecting on how GIS transformed his team’s emergency response capabilities. This shift from siloed information to shared intelligence appears throughout these stories. When fire departments in Illinois standardize indoor school mapping, when international humanitarian organizations coordinate aid through shared platforms, and when climate scientists combine satellite monitoring with community knowledge, they demonstrate how geographic integration transforms not just efficiency but the very nature of collaboration. The progression reveals a fundamental truth: Data-powered decision-making starts with geography. When we understand that all issues happen somewhere, we can apply location as the common denominator that connects diverse expertise, enables evidence-based decisions, and creates solutions that work in real places for real people. The Dawn of Intelligent Geography We stand at the threshold of what may be the most significant advancement in geographic technology since the field’s inception. Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to enhance the tools and platforms that GIS professionals use daily—automatically creating data layers through computer vision, providing natural language interfaces to complex analysis, and enabling what I call agentic ecosystems, where virtual assistants can perform geographic tasks and communicate with one another. This technological evolution promises to democratize access to geographic intelligence, opening sophisticated spatial analysis to new audiences while amplifying the capabilities of experienced practitioners. The stories in this collection show us what becomes possible when communities can see patterns clearly, test scenarios rapidly, and coordinate responses effectively. The Critical Role of GIS Professionals Our world needs more than technology. It needs the work of GIS professionals playing a vital role in what comes next—helping to create a culture of collaboration, transforming how we understand and solve problems, and enabling the holistic approaches that address the complex challenges our world is facing. From the water utility managers in Jackson, Mississippi, who transformed a failing system by making the invisible visible to the forestry professionals at RoyOMartin, who balance sustainable harvesting with long-term forest health, from the humanitarian workers opening new pathways for women in crisis zones to the Arctic communities adapting to permafrost thaw while preserving cultural traditions—these stories reveal GIS professionals as critical participants in the evolution of our planet. Their work is helping to maintain, manage, and integrate knowledge about everything, everywhere: mapping conditions, planning improvements, measuring impact, and enabling coordination across scales. Together, they are building the foundation for a more sustainable and resilient future. The geographic approach helps us understand our world and enables data- and science-driven decisionmaking. The stories in this book provide the evidence of how the future is emerging—one map, one analysis, one collaborative solution at a time. Jack Dangermond Cofounder and President, Esri®
viii Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making
Introduction Mapping the Future to Build It Together The most profound innovations happen when sophisticated tools are applied to solve real-world problems. Mapping the Nation tells many stories of how GIS technology is quietly being used to create and manage the essential infrastructure for how communities understand, plan, and protect the places where people live, work, and thrive. The stories in these pages span from Tennessee’s building boom to Arctic permafrost monitoring, from wine production in Portugal to coral reef restoration in the Caribbean. Yet they have a common thread: Each demonstrates how location intelligence—the ability to see patterns, understand relationships, and coordinate responses across space and time—has become fundamental to addressing the challenges that define our time. The Architecture of Understanding This collection follows a deliberate progression that mirrors how communities actually develop and sustain themselves. Like constructing a building, we begin with foundations and work systematically toward the environments where people flourish. Chapters 1 (“Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure”) and 2 (“Planning and Designing Better Communities”) start with the essential infrastructure that makes modern life possible. Tennessee’s transformation from paper-based permitting to real-time digital coordination shows how geographic technology enables the explosive growth reshaping America. Pattern Energy’s massive SunZia transmission line demonstrates coordination across states and how stakeholders use GIS as the language to share plans, review impacts, reach consensus, and speed environmentally sensitive construction. The water crisis recovery in Jackson, Mississippi, proves that you truly can’t fix what you can’t see—until GIS makes the invisible visible. Houston’s sophisticated public works operations reveal how mature cities optimize infrastructure for both daily efficiency and disaster resilience. Hawaii’s comprehensive vulnerability analysis shows how location intelligence transforms infrastructure protection from reactive repair to strategic anticipation. Planning and designing better communities builds on this infrastructure foundation to explore how places can evolve thoughtfully rather than haphazardly. Massachusetts housing policy reveals patterns invisible to casual observation, transforming fear-based reactions into informed discussions about growth. Adelaide’s digital twin enables comprehensive citywide planning, where residents explore trade-offs to voice their wishes rather than accepting expert options. Dickinson, Texas, pioneers vertical development guided by interactive planning tools that make complex zoning requirements accessible. Magna, Utah, uses digital twins for targeted downtown revitalization that honors both preservation and progress. The Wrexham football club’s stadium project in Wales demonstrates precision implementation that maintains community context for the world’s oldest football stadium. Chapters 3 (“Keeping Communities Safe”) and 4 (“Protecting and Securing the Nation”) expand the focus from individual projects to comprehensive security. Rural Illinois transforms school safety through indoor mapping that makes every room dispatchable as a street address. The integrated emergency response platform in Washington, DC, breaks down departmental silos to enable coordinated intelligence. Seattle’s event
x Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making security system evolves from sticky notes on paper maps to comprehensive digital coordination for events such as World Cup 2026. Missouri’s disaster response training shows how shared situational awareness prevents the chaos that marked earlier disasters. Brazil’s flood response demonstrates real-time innovation under extreme pressure, building 17 applications in 30 days when traditional systems collapsed. National security applications reveal similar transformations. German networked soldiers gain collaborative advantages through shared digital maps that eliminate radio confusion. FireGuard applies military intelligence to civilian wildfire detection with 24/7 monitoring impossible through traditional aircraft. MITRE’s infrastructure vulnerability analysis reveals the hidden connections that determine systemic resilience. Even military training grounds pioneer conservation through digital coordination that protects endangered butterflies while maintaining operational readiness. Hawaii’s law enforcement creates virtual reality training environments that prepare officers across multiple islands without revealing security protocols. Chapters 5 (“Managing Natural Resources More Efficiently”) and 6 (“Overseeing Parks, Habitats, and Wildlife”) demonstrate how location intelligence enables sustainable management of natural resources and biodiversity. The USDA’s cattle tick eradication program shows real-time surveillance preventing agricultural catastrophe. Federal crop insurance oversight uses geographic context to detect patterns invisible in tabular data. Trinchero Family Estates delivers boutique precision across 9,000 vineyard acres through integrated workflow systems. Symington’s port wine production optimizes quality rather than quantity through patient, data-driven decisions. RoyOMartin’s forestry operations achieve sustainable harvesting that enhances rather than degrades long-term productivity. Conservation efforts demonstrate similar geographic approaches. The National Park Service (NPS) streamlines fossil documentation while protecting both specimens and critical location data. Yale University’s Map of Life project accelerates biodiversity assessment through autonomous drones and AI, though still requiring expert validation. Pennsylvania’s wildlife management balances recreational hunting with ecosystem health through sophisticated population monitoring. Canada’s beluga whale tracking combines AI detection with traditional Indigenous knowledge. The Caribbean’s environmental digital twin guides coral protection across 12 countries committed to protecting 30 percent of their marine territory. Chapter 7 (“Mitigating Risk and Increasing Resilience”) addresses the extreme weather adaptation challenges that increasingly define community success. Denver transforms stormwater management from unwieldy printed plans to interactive digital systems enabling geodesign approaches. Fort Lauderdale’s battle against record rainfall shows how GIS enables rapid innovation when traditional systems fail. San Francisco Bay’s salt pond restoration demonstrates ecosystem restoration as climate infrastructure. Louisiana’s coastal protection coordinates hundreds of potential projects using evidence-based decision-making amid enormous uncertainty. Arctic permafrost monitoring reveals global climate feedback loops while supporting local community adaptation. Chapter 8 (“Helping People Survive and Thrive”) culminates in stories of how geographic technology serves humanitarian goals. Women gain new opportunities in humanitarian aid through GIS training that opens doors in traditionally male-dominated fields. Nigerian journalism uses investigative mapping to expose human rights violations and demand accountability. Doctors Without Borders relies on GIS as the backbone for coordinating
xi medical care across 70 countries. The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre prevents disasters through anticipatory mapping that triggers evacuations before floods peak. Point Hope, Alaska, combines traditional knowledge with advanced technology to address coastal erosion threatening one of North America’s oldest continuously inhabited settlements. The Geographic Thread Throughout this progression, a fundamental principle emerges: Effective solutions require both technological sophistication and deep understanding of local conditions, needs, and values. Whether we’re managing urban stormwater, tracking permafrost thaw, or coordinating humanitarian aid, success comes from systems that combine the best of human knowledge with the power of GIS to see patterns, test scenarios, and adapt rapidly to changing conditions. The stories reveal how GIS functions not just as a mapping tool but as a platform for collaboration, analysis, and communication that makes thoughtful development possible. From revealing housing patterns to facilitating comprehensive planning, from enabling innovative solutions to supporting targeted interventions, these technologies create the spatial framework for understanding complex challenges and designing interventions that address root causes rather than just symptoms. Each chapter builds capabilities that enable the next, creating cumulative effects where location intelligence becomes a force multiplier for communities tackling everything from infrastructure development to resilience to extreme weather. The progression shows how success depends less on individual technical achievements than on an organization’s ability to see challenges clearly, coordinate responses quickly, and learn from every interaction. The Promise of Geographic Intelligence These stories point toward a future where resilience emerges from systems that integrate technical capability with community wisdom. The most effective solutions combine sophisticated spatial analysis with deep respect for local knowledge, creating approaches that are both scientifically sound and deeply rooted in place. As the challenges we face become increasingly complex—from extreme weather to urbanization, from resource scarcity to social inequality—GIS provides the common framework that connects different disciplines, scales, and stakeholders. Through GIS, we can finally see the big picture while maintaining focus on local details that determine success or failure on the ground. The promise lies not in perfect prediction or control but in better preparation for change grounded in shared understanding and guided by the intersection of technological capability and human wisdom. The result: stronger, more resilient communities ready for whatever challenges lie ahead, built on the foundation of knowing not just what needs to be done but precisely where, when, and how to do it most effectively. Matt Ball, Esri Blog editor
xii Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making
1 Chapter 1 Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure The Digital Foundation of America’s Growth In an era of unprecedented infrastructure investment and extreme weather mitigation, success increasingly depends not on physical assets alone but on how well communities can see, understand, and coordinate complex systems. From explosive growth in Tennessee to hurricane-battered coastlines in Texas and Hawaii, infrastructure professionals are discovering that digital intelligence with GIS and related tools has become as essential as concrete and steel. This chapter traces the complete infrastructure life cycle through five interconnected stories that reveal how modern communities build, maintain, and protect essential systems. The progression moves deliberately from initial permission to final protection, demonstrating how each phase builds on digital capabilities established in the previous one. Foundation: Tennessee’s Permitting Revolution Infrastructure begins with permission—the often- overlooked foundation determining whether growth happens thoughtfully or chaotically. Tennessee’s explosive development, growing at double the rate of the rest of the United States, illustrates this perfectly. When permit requests jumped 18 percent in a single year, the state faced a monumental, staggering rate to grow, requiring coordination of nearly 100 inspectors across remote areas experiencing the fastest development. The transformation from Flintstones to Jetsons demonstrates how digital foundations enable everything that follows. Where inspectors once spent up to two hours each day planning their routes and logging what they had done—totaling 34,000 hours a calendar year just figuring out where we’re going—GIS-powered systems now automate workflows and eliminate coordination bottlenecks. This efficiency establishes the template for modern infrastructure management: real-time data, automated workflows, and collaborative platforms that make complex coordination effortless.
2 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making Construction: SunZia’s 550-Mile Coordination Challenge Pattern Energy’s $11 billion SunZia transmission line demonstrates how digital coordination enables massive construction projects. The 550-mile project spanning two states required orchestrating relationships between government agencies, Tribal Nations, and private landowners while managing more than 1,000 construction workers across three teams. GIS influences what everyone is doing in the field, creating an evidence-based construction evolution that goes well beyond traditional project management. Drones constantly record work and conditions, and about a tenth of the crew use a tablet, phone, or laptop to record data, take photos, create production reports, or look up data. This constant flow of information turns construction sites into data-generating networks where insights occur instantly between field and office. The project’s complexity—requiring detailed environmental impact statements and precision placement of 2,100 custom-designed transmission towers—illustrates how modern construction depends on shared intelligence. Most significantly, SunZia’s 15-year development timeline highlights infrastructure’s greatest challenge: regulatory coordination across jurisdictions. Modernization: Jackson’s Crisis-Driven Transformation In Mississippi, Jackson’s water crisis represents the third phase: modernizing failing infrastructure through digital transformation. When 153,000 residents lost access to safe drinking water, the challenge wasn’t building new systems but understanding and fixing what existed. The ability to visualize all the hidden underground pipes in GIS helped guide infrastructure modernization. Jackson’s situation exemplified the hidden costs of analog management. With thousands of infrastructure drawings stored in filing cabinets and on portable hard drives, and water plants that did not talk to the distribution system, the city operated as disconnected components rather than an integrated network. The result: nine citywide “boil water” notices lasting a combined 129 days between 2018 and 2022. Digital transformation enabled dramatic improvements: only two citywide boil-w ater notices lasting just two days since February 2023—a 98 percent reduction. The shift from smudged 1970s drawings to tablets with real-time system data didn’t just improve efficiency, it enabled collaboration that had been impossible under the old system. Innovation: Houston’s Operational Excellence Houston’s public works operations demonstrate using digital intelligence to optimize large-scale infrastructure management. As the nation’s fourth- largest city, with 4,000 public works employees managing 6,000 miles of pipeline for wastewater and more than 7,000 miles for water distribution, Houston shows how mature digital infrastructure enables proactive rather than reactive management. The city’s response to Hurricane Beryl illustrates sophisticated operational intelligence. With GPS- equipped vehicles streaming real-time location data and strategic staging of emergency resources, Houston coordinates complex responses across massive geographic areas. Flood modeling capabilities that predict how water will move through the city during heavy rains enable proactive resource allocation to vulnerable populations affected by floods. Houston’s AI-powered asset assessment partnership—completing more than 10 years of condition surveys in months—illustrates how digital tools scale human capabilities exponentially, enabling crews to focus on fixes rather than documentation.
3 Chapter 1: Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure Protection: Hawaii’s Vulnerability Analysis The final story examines infrastructure protection through Hawaii’s comprehensive vulnerability analysis. Geographic isolation makes infrastructure interdependence starkly visible. When petroleum has a single path into Hawaii through a floating terminal and sole refinery, infrastructure becomes a life-or-death calculation. The Geospatial Decision Support System represents infrastructure planning’s most sophisticated evolution—a fully integrated mapping, risk assessment, and mitigation generator. By quantifying relationships between energy infrastructure and community lifelines, Hawaii assigns numeric risk scores to every component: Knowing whether this substation serves five lifelines and that one serves 10, you can quantify the consequences and determine which node is more critical. This approach transforms infrastructure from reactive repair to strategic protection, identifying critical nodes before they fail and investing in resilience where it matters most. The Digital Infrastructure Thread Throughout this progression, GIS functions as infrastructure’s nervous system, enabling networks to function as integrated wholes rather than isolated components. From Tennessee’s permit coordination through SunZia’s construction management to Jackson’s system integration, Houston’s operational optimization, and Hawaii’s vulnerability analysis, each story demonstrates increasing sophistication in how communities understand and manage infrastructure. The progression reveals infrastructure management’s fundamental transformation: from reactive maintenance to proactive stewardship, from isolated systems to integrated networks, from local coordination to regional collaboration. Each phase builds capabilities that enable the next, creating cumulative effects where location intelligence becomes infrastructure’s force multiplier. Modern infrastructure success depends less on individual technical achievements than on communities’ ability to see, understand, and coordinate complex systems. The promise lies not in perfect systems but in resilient ones—infrastructure networks that adapt to changing conditions while maintaining essential services. When communities can see their infrastructure clearly, coordinate responses quickly, and learn from every interaction, they build not just better infrastructure but stronger, more capable communities ready for whatever challenges lie ahead.
4 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making Tennessee Is in a Building Boom, and the State’s Permitting Systems Must Keep Pace Throw a dart at a map of Tennessee. You will probably hit somewhere that is growing. Nashville’s outskirts are projected to add a quarter to their population in the next 15 years. The Ford Motor Company has begun construction on the BlueOval City manufacturing plant outside Memphis. A multibillion-dollar uranium enrichment facility has broken ground in the Knoxville exurbs. That Tennessee is growing at double the rate of the rest of the United States does not surprise anyone who issues residential building permits in the state. Inspectors at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) saw requests for subsurface sewage disposal system services jump 18 percent in one year. “It’s a monumental, staggering rate to grow,” said Steve Owens, the TDEC environmental consultant tasked with expediting service delivery across the state. Owens, a meteorologist by training, hydrologist by profession, and self-taught GIS engineer by practice, streamlined the work of TDEC inspectors with The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has revolutionized septic permit processing in Tennessee’s rapidly growing rural areas by implementing an advanced GIS system, cutting down the average permit issuance time to under 13 days.
5 Chapter 1: Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure enterprise GIS technology. With it, a team of fewer than 100 inspectors processed more than 23,000 requests last year in Tennessee’s rural fringe communities. Designing a System Around How Inspectors Work About one in five Americans lives in a home that relies on a septic system. They are built in remote areas too far to connect to municipal sewage systems, which happen to be the places where Tennessee is growing the fastest. High demand for housing created a sense of urgency to issue permits as swiftly—and safely—as possible. Owens spent his early career in a truck as a septic permit inspector. “It’s hard work,” he said from his Memphis office. “You’re dealing with outdoor conditions all day and you’re never working fast enough.” Inspectors often eat lunch in their trucks while driving to their next site. The septic systems that they design, permit, and inspect treat wastewater from homes and businesses. These systems must be well suited to the specific soil conditions of the land to work properly. When evaluating proposed subdivisions, inspectors conduct a range of fieldwork assessments—including soil profiles, percolation data, and absorption rates—all while answering calls from the public. A malfunctioning or ill-fitted septic system can pollute wells of drinking water and springs. Foul-smelling sewage can pool on the surface, creating a breeding ground for parasites, mosquitoes, and other vectors that can spread pathogens to neighbors and pets. A June 2024 TDEC audit of drip dispersal systems documented more than 400 site visits in a short time frame. Inspectors used an ArcGIS® enterprise program to compare standard observations and record site-specific notes and photographs at each site. Results are filtered and displayed on an interactive map. The audit represents a fraction of the work that TDEC permit inspectors do. Complaint investigations, repair designs, and expansion assessments are among the 13 types of services that inspectors deliver each day. To modernize, Owens configured an enterprise GIS to manage the full scope of operational data for those services—from how residents make requests, to how inspectors do the work and get documentation to the customer, to how management reports progress. “It’s different from the typical mapping and analysis you might associate with GIS,” Owens said. “We’re utilizing ArcGIS Survey123 and ArcGIS Dashboards to create an efficient ecosystem for what we do with our work and how to get that work out to the public.” A Flintstones to Jetsons Digital Transformation As recently as seven years ago, Tennessee’s septic permit data existed entirely on paper. Pulling a permit meant driving to a state office in the county seat and making photocopies. Digitization came with an announcement from the governor that made headlines across the state. Trucks hauled away filing cabinets full of septic records, and technicians scanned their contents to create a FileNet public document system of record. “We have gone from Flintstones to Jetsons in the last decade,” Owens said. In the past, permit requests came to TDEC inspectors as a list of addresses and contact information. Inspectors started each day punching addresses into online Inspectors must assess whether a new septic drain field meets state regulations before the property can be occupied. Image courtesy of TDEC.
6 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making mapping sites, guessing at an efficient route. Their days ended back at the office to log their time, update templates, and input data into various spreadsheets. In high-growth counties, where multiple inspectors collaborate to tackle a significant workload, they often duplicated efforts. “It would not be uncommon for someone to go out to a site on Wednesday, and the next guy would go out there on Friday and not know the work had already been done,” Owens said. Owens considered the extensive manual processes involved in permit inspections. Having used GIS technology for environmental impact assessments for other TDEC projects, he knew the work could be automated. “We had already been using mobile GIS tools for some time at that point, so staff were used to it,” Owens explained. “I thought we could utilize a lot of the tools that Esri already has built in and customize it a little bit to meet our needs.” Conversations with TDEC managers confirmed the hunch. Inspectors were spending up to two hours each day planning their routes and logging what they had done. “It ended up being somewhere about 34,000 hours a calendar year just figuring out where we’re going and tracking what we do,” Owens said. The project to upgrade the workflow with GIS would pay for itself in eight months if they could cut the tracking and logging time in half. Automating Data Editing and Management Workflows Owens envisioned a system that would link service requests to jobsite workflows. He designed configurable applications for inspectors to use for data collection. Permit and inspection data would integrate into an enterprise geodatabase that serves as a source of truth for TDEC septic service requests. The database would sync to the public document viewer. In the new GIS-based system, residents and developers make permit service requests by filling out an online application. The system then locates the request, assigns an inspector, and sends the appropriate form that guides the inspection work. Inspectors check the boxes, record the test results, upload photos and drawings, and issue letters and certificates—all from tablets in the field. Submitting the completed permit or inspection through Survey123 generates PDF files that automatically go to the applicant, TDEC staff, and the database that syncs to the public site. The drip dispersal system audit documented all results from more than 400 site visits. Inspections in the queue now appear on a shared map.
7 Chapter 1: Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure “The real gem is for staff to be able to plan their day by using a map instead of entering all that data into online map tools and seeing what they come up with for their route,” Owens said. The map is part of a real-time operations dashboard with hundreds of requests dotted across Tennessee. Points colored with darker hues alert inspectors to older requests—fees are waived if they aren’t completed within 45 days. All the related information—requester contact, location data, violations, resolutions, test results, and historical records—is organized by location. “This used to be done in spreadsheets and file cabinets, so it’s a huge time-saver,” Owens said. When management sees clusters of requests on the map, they know it’s time to reallocate resources. “They can pull in inspectors from other counties to get the work done and then go back to normal workload,” Owens added. Management watches a splash page that tabulates completed work to keep a pulse on field staff and avoid backlogs. They can drill down on how long specific tasks are taking and view performance metrics for individual staff members. They pay close attention to the average number of days it takes to issue permits. If the times go up, they have the data to bring to the budget office to justify hiring more inspectors. Amid Tennessee’s building boom, officials face intense pressure to keep pace and deliver high-quality results. Modernizing their permitting and inspection system has provided TDEC with tangible efficiency gains to present to legislators and the public. “This was a major investment in our division, and we want to let them know that ‘we hear you,’” Owens said. “We can show how much work that we have done to address those concerns, and the output speaks for itself.” This year, TDEC was awarded honorable mention by the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) in the State Innovation category for its septic permitting modernization project. TDEC staff now have a completed inspection report that details their work across the state and allows managers to keep an eye on the completion rate.
8 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making How Construction of a 500-Mile Energy Transmission Line Is Guided by Location Intelligence Pattern Energy’s $11 billion SunZia project will generate and transmit 3,000 megawatts of clean energy from New Mexico across a 550-mile transmission line through Arizona that will carry enough power for 3 million Americans. “The shape of power makes a good match between the source of power in New Mexico and the market across the Southwest,” said David Janssen, project director, engineering and construction, at Pattern Energy. “As the sun goes down in California and Arizona and the solar panels are going offline, the wind is picking up in New Mexico.” The size and complexity of the project required a new approach—one that involved drones, volumes of data, and a shared mapping solution to manage all phases of the project. Pattern Energy’s specialists who designed and administer SunZia have been using GIS technology at an enterprise scale from the start. Teams from all locations use a solution called Maps to Megawatts. Developed by Esri partner Aegean Energy Group, the SunZia Maps to Megawatts for ArcGIS Online is administered in collaboration with the Pattern Energy Geospatial Technologies team for SunZia wind and transmission and other projects and is used to create applications to support environmental impact assessments, site selection, transmission routing, and construction. The solution aggregates data in dashboards to Pattern Energy has been developing, constructing, and operating wind, solar, transmission, and energy storage projects at a large scale globally for more than 15 years. An enterprise mapping tool has proven powerful for keeping track of the massive and complex SunZia renewable energy project.
9 Chapter 1: Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure track progress and helps coordinate the many project phases. “We have dashboards tracking construction progress, showing captured drone imagery in relation to the design, and dashboards we’ve shared with the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] that track environmental information,” said Michelle Pruse, director of geospatial technologies at Pattern Energy. “We also have various applications that tracked our land acquisition progress and visualized specific constraints on individual parcels.” A map of Pattern Energy’s SunZia Wind and Transmission project shows its immensity, spanning two states. Map by Alex Malito courtesy of Pattern Energy. Carefully Considering Sites and Paths The SunZia project began more than a decade ago with the mapping of land parcels. The real estate team recorded details about ownership, land use, water rights, utilities, geology, and more. Then surveyors added precise locations. To find the best transmission path, the land was analyzed for terrain, protected habitat, fragile environments, and proximity to homes. Mapping cultural heritage sites of Indigenous tribes was also of paramount importance.
10 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making GIS helped planners consider all these sensitivities and calculate costs to find the optimal sites and corridors. Although the transmission corridor spans two states, the area under analysis was much larger. “When you kick off a project, you think you have a ton of available land, but then you start overlaying all your constraints,” Pruse said. “It’s a little eye-opening to go from a giant slice of the state down to what you can actually use.” The project’s success depends heavily on cooperation and coordination with government agencies, Tribal Nations, and private landowners. GIS helped facilitate communication. Detailed maps guided conversations and deliberations before Pattern Energy could obtain the necessary permits to proceed. To achieve route approval, GIS was used to create environmental impact statements required by the National Environmental Policy Act. “Our environmental teams worked closely with BLM to make sure that we have all the information that we need in GIS in order to analyze those areas and make sure that we’re not encroaching on anything we shouldn’t,” Pruse said. Because the line goes through a national wildlife refuge, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is also a stakeholder. “Having all these different types of landowners isn’t typical,” Janssen said. “GIS helps us identify the specific needs of each landowner and have a common approach that crews in the field can navigate and understand.” Guiding the Construction Work After the site locations were solidified, the design and permitting teams worked to match their plans with the constraints at each site. Engineers improved the designs for the wind and transmission towers. They recorded details for each tower’s unique foundation and made plans for earthmoving to allow stormwater drainage or establish access roads. The Maps to Megawatts solution captured details of all the 2,100 transmission tower structures along the line, each with a custom design. The transmission line project will employ more than 1,000 construction workers, split into three teams and deployed across sections of the route. Now that the project has reached the construction phase, work crews have embraced GIS-powered apps to navigate and document the work. Each tower has The primary web app of the SunZia Transmission Line project features a detailed map, with clickable updates that include photos, drone- captured images, and notes on progress. Screenshot of the Maps to Megawatts solution by Aegean Energy Group courtesy of Pattern Energy.
11 Chapter 1: Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure specific access requirements. For instance, some can be reached only by helicopter. “Being able to visualize work areas and look at access routes and constraints allows us to be more efficient,” Janssen said. “It beats getting everyone in a truck to drive out to do a review and then looking at pages and pages of drawings to sort it all out.” More than 50 inspectors review construction to ensure that all parts of the project align with environmental and operational standards. Drones and on-the-ground observations from crews capture every move to manage risks and ensure careful environmental compliance. “GIS influences what everyone is doing in the field,” Janssen said. “About a tenth of the crew are using a tablet, phone, or laptop to make observations, take photos, create production reports, or look up data. When someone finds something that’s helpful for them, they can share that with the rest of the group.” In just the first three months of construction, more than 13,000 observations had been made along the route. The SunZia Wind South Maps to Megawatts Hub provides a platform with data, images, and mapping applications. Screenshot of Maps to Megawatts courtesy of Pattern Energy. Navigating Barriers to Construction Progress With millions of dollars being spent on construction each day, the cost of delays compounds quickly. Whenever something stands in the way, drones and the data in the GIS solution help the team plan around it. Drone imagery, captured and processed using Site Scan for ArcGIS, helps the crews look ahead to see whether fences and roads are in good condition or in need of repairs. Inside GIS, the imagery is used to evaluate changing conditions, such as the effects of monsoon rains. It also helps track movements of material, including calculating the amount of earth that has been moved to flatten the terrain. Some of the tower sites are still under review, which Janssen said causes concern about construction delays. “GIS has allowed us to analyze those areas and come up with work-arounds and resequencing to keep our crews engaged and not just sitting at a locked gate waiting for someone to open it,” he said. Drone images also enable real-time collaboration between the field and the office. “If we’ve got a problem
12 Mapping the Nation: Data-Powered Decision-Making that comes up, we can all look at the drone data to talk about it intelligently,” Janssen said. One BLM permit requirement called for the relocation of all cactus and endangered plants, and drone imagery eased the effort. “We’ve got people on the ground tagging and identifying saguaro and other cacti, and then crews go pick them up and move them out of our right-of-way,” Janssen said. “By looking at the imagery before and after, we can see which cacti make it through the move and which might need some help.” Creating a System of Record to Guide Operations The careful collection of construction data, and an accurate record of what was on the land before construction started, will also support the ownership and operation of SunZia. A before record, captured by drones, helps answer questions. “We’ve taken a photo of every single crack that looked like it was susceptible to any kind of damage during construction,” Janssen said. “That crack may come back to be a big deal 10 years down the road.” GIS records of project construction will be useful for at least the next 20 years, guiding the operations team in its upkeep of transmission lines and stations. Part of Janssen’s job is to hand over the project to operations. “Having the common GIS platform makes that job so much easier for us,” he said. “We have the data already assembled and the construction observations packaged up. This helps the operations team digest it and get up to speed on the project.” Efficiency and Other Lessons Learned Well before construction started, Pattern Energy’s SunZia project had been praised for its many benefits. These include creating good-paying jobs, lowering energy costs, stopping power outages in the face of extreme weather, and accelerating the transition to clean energy. However, it took 15 years for the utility-scale energy project to finalize all the necessary approvals. “What gets the most attention in the industry seems to be the length of time it’s taken to bring this to market,” Janssen said. The many agencies involved in the project in different jurisdictions had a lot to do with the long delay. But other clean energy projects have also faced long development timelines, which has led to calls for reform and bipartisan legislation to modernize the permit process. From Pattern Energy’s perspective, the documentation of end-to-end workflows could speed future permitting and construction processes. If regulators embraced technology and used a GIS-powered digital twin for approvals and oversight, inspections could happen remotely with online approvals. This level of modernization would be in line with a growing local government trend to electronically process permits and enforce requirements through online tools. “We are hoping some of the lessons we’ve learned during permitting and construction—collaborating with GIS—can help us streamline the environmental review process so we can be more efficient,” Janssen said. A drone captured this view from above as a tower was being erected. Photo courtesy of Pattern Energy.
www.esri.comRkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA2NTE0Mw==