2025 WA GIS Conference

Are you a GIS Professional? GISP? WAGISA member? URISA member? If you answer yes, you are obligated to abide by the GIS Code of Ethics.

The Geospatial Technology Competency Model refers to the business and professional ethics. Professional ethics is a competency to be developed.

This workshop will help GIS professionals understand the GIS Code of Ethics and prepare them to apply it when circumstances warrant. When do circumstances warrant? Always, throughout a GIS career.

During the past few years several high-profile cases related to the GIS Code of Ethics have been publicized. Are you prepared to act if placed in a situation that might require you to violate the Code? Are you able to discuss the Code with employers, colleagues, and customers to frame the ethical limits of applying geographic

We will begin this workshop by discussing the characteristics of a profession and the good and harm that professions can cause. The development and use of codes of ethics through history will be reviewed, leading to their wide use within most professions today.

The GIS Code of Ethics will be reviewed and discussed in detail. We will use case studies to understand the practical application of the various obligations defined in the Code. These include:

I. Obligations to Society

II. Obligations to Employers and Funders

III. Obligations to Colleagues and the Profession

IV. Obligations to Individuals in Society

We will also discuss the Locus Charter – A key tool we can promote for the ethical use of geospatial technology. And we will explore a possible addition to the GIS Code of Ethics.

This workshop is intended to be very interactive. We will go into breakout sessions to discuss our understanding of our obligations and how we might react in potential real-world situations.

Are you ready for the new datum? A new National Spatial Reference System (datum will be launched in 2026. Implemented by the National Geodetic Survey, NATRF2022 will supersede NAD83-2011. Per WA RCW, this will become the datum of record when the change happens. With this change will come new state plane projections (north zone, south zone, and a new statewide projection), as well as low distortion projection (in development). In addition, the US Survey foot has bene deprecated, and all new projections will reflect the change to the international foot. This session provides the background, the potential impacts for WA, and examples of how engineering/surveying and GIS firms and organizations are preparing for the changes.

In 2025 and 2026 the US will implement a new spatial datum — NATRF2022. The adoption of the new reference scheme will be pervasive and impact every area of GIS and spatial data handling in the US. Not only does the basic measurement premise change but the conceptual datum model is different as well. The change, however, will not be instantaneous and legacy data will need to be used alongside that generated in the new datum for years to come.

This presentation will provide insight into the origins and purpose of the new datum, how it may affect your work, what you should be aware of as the plan proceeds, key pitfalls to look for with new data products, and how you can better prepare yourself for the coming changes. The talk will address the key datum design issues, State Plane Coordinates, low-distortion projection concerns, as well as legal and regulatory issues.

This is an opportunity to learn about the coming changes and hear about the potential issues from someone who experienced the last datum change from NAD27 to NAD83 (and lived to tell about it).

For over 10 years, the WA DNR Nearshore Habitat Program (NHP) has been researching methods to transplant and restore populations of eelgrass, Zostera marina, in South Puget Sound. At a series of small research meadows, eelgrass has been transplanted using different combinations of methods and donor sources and each summer NHP staff conduct surveys of the test plots to assess their performance. In 2019, uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS or “drones”) were added to the suite of tools deployed at the sites, which has enabled estimates of total eelgrass shoots to be calculated by combining in situ density observations and area delineations based on the aerial imagery. Then in 2024, DNR announced plans to break ground on a project to remove the fish passage barrier near Joemma Beach State Park – the site of the largest of our eelgrass research meadows – and restore Whiteman Cove to a free-flowing tidal estuary. In anticipation of the project, NHP decided to expand our efforts to include RTK-enabled (real-time kinematic) drone surveys over the entire tidal flat, which enable the production of high-resolution digital elevation models using structure-from-motion photogrammetry software. These models allow DNR to track channel formation and sediment deposition in the restored system, and to observe in real time if there are any impacts from the project on the eelgrass research meadow nearby. This talk will present lessons learned over five years of monitoring transplanted eelgrass populations with high resolution drone imagery, the initial results of comparing the RTK drone-based elevation models of the restored estuary, and finally how these products are being shared with the public using web products such as ArcGIS Experience Builder.

Kelp forests are critical nearshore habitats, and understanding their spatiotemporal distribution across Washington State is essential for effective stewardship and management. Current floating kelp maps in Washington consist of a patchwork of multiple datasets in various formats, including remotely sensed classified imagery from fixed-wing aerial and drone surveys, as well as lines and polygons from kayak- and boat-based surveys. This diversity makes comparison and spatiotemporal change analysis challenging at the statewide level. To address this, the Nearshore Habitat Program at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources developed a linear extent model for floating kelp distribution. This model summarizes annual kelp presence along 1-km coastal line segments using the best available and most up-to-date survey data. The linear extent model builds on legacy data structures to ensure compatibility with other marine vegetation geospatial datasets. It employs multiple ETL pipelines to synthesize a variety of data streams into a single, synoptic map of kelp forests in Washington State. This new dataset is already being utilized by marine vegetation researchers and managers. This presentation will cover the technical aspects of developing this statewide spatial dataset, including the use of Python scripting for data processing and automation, methods for harmonizing spatial data from disparate sources, and strategies for sharing geospatial datasets with users of varying technical expertise.

Come learn about the King County Watershed Mapping Toolbox and new countywide wetlands data. In 2023-2024, King County procured a new wetlands dataset derived from high resolution aerial imagery, LiDAR, land cover data, and local hydrology data. This new dataset is far higher resolution than the previous GIS data on wetlands in King County and will support enterprise-wide functions from Water and Land Resources to Permitting. As part of getting this data to those who can benefit from its use, King County Water and Land Resources, in partnership with the King County GIS Center, has built the Watershed Mapping Toolbox. The Toolbox, which is public facing, is built using Experience Builder. It leverages the full potential of ESRI’s low/no-code development platform, with significant use of Arcade scripting in the basemap to produce content rich and well-formatted pop-ups.

The Toolbox allows users to view wetlands, streams, likely wetland functions, beaver locations, ecological stressors, and high priority areas for conservation and restoration. It brings into the platform data from outside King County, such as WDNR Ecological Integrity Assessments, iNaturalist beaver sightings, USGS soil information, USFS riparian corridors, and more. Users can view wetland data from 1990, 1996, 2024, search for their project sites or property, and compare wetlands boundaries to aerial imagery dating back to the 1990s. A new and unique feature overlays historic General Land Office maps onto contemporary basemaps and imagery to compare historical conditions to contemporary land use. The Toolbox allows for importing GIS data, exporting PDFs, and using filtering and other tools to produce analytics. Overall, the Watershed Mapping Toolbox aims to be a platform for showcasing the variety of riparian GIS data available in King County, with the goal of breaking down access barriers to riparian data across the enterprise.

We present a newly-created environmental dataset for storing fire history information gathered from trees in the Spokane, Washington area. The data come from fire scars preserved on trees after they have been injured in fires of the past – collecting both the quantity and timing of these scars can give a wealth of information on past fire activity, in addition to the spatial patterns gathered from the tree locations. This dataset is designed to be an ongoing collection of fire history data, with contributions from students and community members. Not only is the dataset one of exceptionally high resolution, but it is also the only effort to create a complete inventory of all the fire-scarred trees in Riverside State Park, which is the largest state park in Washington State. These data will be used in teaching activities through GIS labs on things like interpolations and hot spot analyses, but also to record the geospatial nature of past fire activity for an area at a scale not yet pursued before. We propose a presentation where we introduce the idea of fire history and fire-scar data, explore the dataset as it exists now and discuss the student work involved in creating in, and showcase some potential future uses of the dataset as it grows in feature and attribute depth. Currently the dataset is housed on the Eastern Washington University AGOL content page, but the goal is to make it public and shareable via an interactive ESRI StoryMap.

I am currently serving a one-year internship for the Cultural Resources Division of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. With no permanent GIS staff member in the division, my goal has been to establish data management and best practices for GIS data.

The Cultural Affairs Division monitors agency projects for possible impacts to archeologically significant areas and artifacts. When a project is first proposed, division archeologists determine the likelihood of disturbance to cultural sites and whether surveys have been performed, or a site survey is needed. Much of the data is Category 3 and needs to be handled securely. We work closely with tribal governments and Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. My job is to manage geographic data for these projects.

After coming on board, my first task was to find out where and how the geographic data was being stored. I found that the data was spread out over several folders on servers (in various formats), and as zipped shapefiles attached to project tickets. There was no central, searchable location for the data.

To begin the process of organizing the data, I turned to ArcGIS Online for its versatility. I was able quickly add geodata to create a master map of Cultural Affairs projects accessible to team members.

Now I am taking data management for the division to the next level by creating a geodatabase, with customized fields and domains, to house our data. The database will reside on our SQL server and will be highly searchable.

This position has provided me with a great opportunity to build a GIS operation from the ground up. At times it has challenging, but I have enjoyed the process. My goal is to create a GIS that works for everyone in the division who needs it to do their job

Covington Water District is committed to providing clean, safe and reliable drinking water to the communities in Southeast King County. As part of its ongoing efforts to enhance operational efficiency and service delivery, the District has embarked on a transformative journey by implementing the ESRI Utility Network. This advanced technology enables the District to manage its infrastructure with unique precision and insight.

The technology offers a unified model for visualizing and analyzing utility networks, allowing for detailed insights into the water distribution system. By integrating this technology, Covington Water District can improve network safety and reliability through built-in data governance, ensuring accurate asset locations and attributes. The implementation also facilitates real-time collaborative workflows, enhancing communication and efficiency across various business units.

This presentation will delve into the strategic implementation of the Utility Network at Covington Water District, highlighting the challenges faced, as well as the benefits of advanced GIS technology solutions. Attendees will gain insights into how these technologies are revolutionizing water utility operations, driving operational efficiency, and enhancing service delivery.

Using the collection of Utility Network Foundations is a productive and quick way to get your agency up and running with ESRI’s next generation of utility asset tracking and modeling. There is a healthy collection of ESRI documentation on the use of the Foundations, but sometimes, expert written documentation can assume prior knowledge that the audience may not possess. This can slow down adoption and create uncertainty in both the agency’s technical team but also their customers.

In this session, we will do a cursory examination of the data migration tools provided by the Foundation toolboxes. We will examine the available migration scripts: how to use a data mapping workbook, extending the basic schema, and execute a data load. We will look at the resources available to help you on your journey and share advice. At the end of the session, you will hopefully feel more confident in the preparation of your Asset Package for deployment in a single-user or enterprise environment.

This presentation explores the challenges encountered in integrating Esri's Utility Network Data Model (UNDM) with CGI’s PragmaLINE Outage Management System (OMS), a critical component for efficient utility operations. The integration process has relied on manual data model adjustments and JCMB's DataPort for Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) operations to facilitate data flow between systems. These tools have been essential in overcoming integration challenges, ensuring data consistency and compatibility between Esri’s UNDM and CGI’s OMS.
Throughout the project, several key data model challenges emerged, highlighting the complexity of the data and underscoring the critical collaboration between various business units essential for the success of the integration. This presentation will discuss the specific issues that arose, such as data inconsistencies and interoperability hurdles, and the approaches we took to resolve them. From leveraging manual data model adjustments to utilizing ETL processes, we will explore the solutions that were implemented to ensure data integrity and seamless integration. Additionally, the presentation will touch on the ongoing efforts to address emerging data anomalies and the collaborative work between various business units that was vital to overcoming these challenges.

Geospatial data are different than other data because they include something special: coordinates. This presentation will focus on those X, Y, Z and M coordinates that we care so much about. We’ll review coordinate systems and precision, and the key pieces of geospatial metadata we need to use coordinate data. How long is a degree, anyway? What are some data format considerations for coordinate precision? What’s the matter with Web Mercator? Since many GIS systems project data on the fly, why bother to project data into a cartesian coordinate system? Why does the choice of coordinate system for raster data and raster analysis so critical? Come for a review of these basic, yet very important topics.

This research project uses GIS to raise awareness and provide resources and support for people living with chronic conditions; specifically, endometriosis, adenomyosis, and chronic pain. Through Survey123, I captured anonymous data relating to the personal challenges faced by those with these conditions as they navigate the healthcare system, among other information. After geocoding a list of specialists sourced from support groups, I used Network Analyst to generate service areas for each specialist. This analysis helps to identify gaps in healthcare access. Finally, I created an Experience Builder to present the results of this analysis in an engaging, and easy to understand format. The Experience Builder contains sections dedicated to mapping access to specialists, anonymized locations of survey respondents, a section to highlight stories from people with these chronic conditions, and links to support groups among other information. Through this project I hope to increase awareness and bring hope to those with these chronic conditions.

This presentation highlights the work of University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education Students’ GIS Community Sponsored project with 4Culture.

4Culture, the cultural funding agency for King County, WA, sought to analyze, visualize, and present the impacts of 2 grant programs: Building for Equity and Doors Open Facilities. These programs distribute grants to organizations that are acquiring, building, or renovating facilities that make cultural experiences possible. By utilizing GIS, 4Culture and the UW GIS students hoped to highlight the impactful and effective use of a GIS in an arts and culture organization where GIS did not exist. Students created an ArcGIS dashboard for 4Culture’s internal uses as well as a StoryMap to be used for community engagement.

Maptime Seattle is a community group dedicated to making geospatial technology accessible and engaging through beginner-friendly workshops. Our meetups are free and centered around open-source tools so anyone can participate. Our events cover topics ranging from web mapping and Python to hand-drawn maps and social gatherings.

For geospatial professionals, Maptime can be an opportunity to give back, mentor newcomers, and expand the local mapping community by lowering the barrier to entry for geospatial education. Come learn more about who we are, what we do, and how you can get involved or make your own group!

A GIS Strategy to Map Historic Racial Covenants Across Washington State
Stacy Warren, Logan Camporeale, Larry Cebula, Tara Kelly, Monique Baxter, Rachael Lowe

The Washington State Racial Covenants Project, in response to Washington House Bill 1335, seeks to identify all properties with recorded covenants or deed restrictions that include racially discriminatory language. Ultimately, all property owners and prospective buyers should have an easily accessible tool to check whether a given property has ever had a racial covenant associated with it. A team of student and faculty researchers at Eastern Washington University has been tasked with tracking down, mapping, and sharing these documents with the public across fourteen counties in Eastern Washington. We report on the critical role GIS has played in achieving these goals. Specifically, we use a combination of ArcGIS Pro for geodatabase development and Experience Builder for presenting our results in interactive map form.
Our interdisciplinary team includes historians, geographers, anthropologists, geoscientists and GIS practitioners. Much work has to be accomplished before GIS ever enters the picture; this project would not be possible without the hours our historians spent in dusty archives and our partners at University of Washington scanning and converting images to text. Properties with racial covenants can then be identified and entered into spreadsheets. We next developed a workflow to geolocate information from the spreadsheets into feature class layers, align with existing GIS layers from a variety of sources, and populate with attributes pulled from associated historic documents. This data forms the basis of our Experience Builder map series, starting with a prototype model for Spokane County that we are now applying to other counties in Eastern Washington. We report on our workflow design and logistics, problems encountered, and solutions discovered.