MRGAC Event Blends GIS and Climate Science
Collider members host the quarterly MRGAC event on GIS Day to showcase advances in the climate tech industry
By Dave Michelson, Software Designer at UNC Asheville’s NEMAC.
Did you miss Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day 2019? We didn’t. The Collider celebrated this year’s GIS Day (technically on Wednesday, November 13th, but we waited until Friday) by sponsoring the quarterly MRGAC meeting.
MRGAC stands for the Mountain Regional GIS Alliance, pronounced “Mr. Gack.” Each quarter, MRGAC convenes in a different location in Western North Carolina. MRGAC is an alliance, therefore there are no official leaders or officers — it’s just a group of GIS professionals, many of whom are involved in local government.
I’m sure there’s more to the history of MRGAC, but I honestly don’t know it. I remember someone once telling me that it was started by the State of North Carolina. Whatever its history, MRGAC is just a bunch of GIS nerds who get together four times a year to discuss our latest projects and what’s happening in the climate services industry. We also get data and project updates from the State, such as aerial imagery, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), and the state-wide parcel program.
This quarter, the University of North Carolina at Asheville’s (UNCA) National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) and The Collider partnered to host the event in The Collider’s state-of-the-art theater, so thank you to The Collider! The partnership was perfect considering that several Collider members have participated in and been involved with MRGAC for years, and this event was no exception.
We had three talks, all of which were from Collider members. First, I presented the study that I completed for my Master’s of Liberal Arts and Sciences degree at UNCA, which proposes that people are generally not great at estimating distances on maps. I also explained that anchoring — the cognitive bias people sometimes have when they rely too heavily on one piece of information — might influence this difficulty. Perhaps this was a little biased itself, but nevertheless, the discussion was fascinating!
Next we heard from NEMAC’s partner company, FernLeaf Interactive. NEMAC and Fernleaf make up what is known as the NEMAC+FernLeaf Collaborative, which is a public-private partnership that works to deliver solutions to climate resilience.
Jeff Hicks, FernLeaf’s CEO, showed everyone how his company uses GIS to create quantified resilience assessments for communities all across the country. We also got to see a live demo of Fernleaf’s software platform, AccelAdapt, which maps climate threats to cities, and Hicks provided a few real-world examples of how Fernleaf works with local governments to help them become more climate resilient.
Next we heard from Collider member EcoBot. Jeremy Schewe filled everyone in on how EcoBot revolutionizes wetland delineation, which essentially defines the boundaries of a wetland.
EcoBot is transforming the way in which field data is collected by helping environmental field researchers document their observations on water, animals, plants, and soils. While researchers typically use pen and paper in the field, EcoBot alleviates this arduous task by turning your phone into an ecosystem robot (Eco — Bot) to process your observations for you. This allows users to spend more time in the field and less time collecting and organizing data in an office. What eco-services professional doesn’t want that?! Seriously, these guys and their technology is amazing.
All in all, it was a great way to celebrate GIS Day 2019 — by showing MRGAC members how Collider members are using GIS to provide cutting-edge climate services right here in Asheville!
