MAC URISA’s (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, Mid-Atlantic Chapter) Bi-Annual Conference is the largest GIS conference in the Mid-Atlantic region. It hosts a comprehensive, multi-day conference that showcases outstanding and innovative uses of GIS technologies in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The program provides participants with hours of learning and networking opportunities to update GIS professionals on the latest technological developments and their use in research, municipal planning and permitting. MRRI’s GIS lab attended the 2024 Conference in Atlantic City, NJ from October 16th through 18th. The three day conference provided opportunities for the GIS staff to catch up on the GIS industry’s latest innovations and updates. October 16th offered two workshops that introduced participants to the programming and mapping capacities within SQL, as well as introduced Collector’s successor, Field Maps and its possible applications in municipal planning and permitting, as well as environmental field data collection. The two day conference that followed brought on a wide berth of talks that focused on GIS application in stormwater and flood protection management, parcel data management, in transportation, planning, and environmental as well as the emerging drone application and how it may support field data collection and surveying. During these three days MRRI’s staff had the opportunity to widen their network among GIS professionals from the tri-state area. Dr. Ildiko Pechmann, Senior Environmental Scientist, Brian Wlodawski GIS specialist III, Christopher Blackley GIS specialist II, and Erick Manke, GIS specialist I represented MRRI at the conference. Their presentations ranged from building flood risk alert system (CB), through utilizing drone imager to map shoreline erosion (EM), concluding with sediment transport modelling (BW) and assessing the Meadowlands’ resilience in light of impending sea-level rise (IP).
