[California] Cal-Adapt and Adapting to Rising Tides

[Brian Hamlin]

Hi All -

   a short observation on the Fall season here in the Bay Area: the  
vivid contrast between the massive Oracle World conference, with  
yacht races and police escorts, and GIS for conservation biology,  
climate change adaption and long-range planning, is in full evidence.

-  cal-adapt.org

BAAMA just had its monthly (?) meeting as per usual at the  
Metropolitan Transportation Commission - the topic of the meeting was  
Geospatial Tools in Climate Change Planning.

UC Berkeley GIF started it off with Kevin Koy showing cal-adapt.org.  
Although it is not new, it is new to most viewers. Nearly two years  
after its completion, most local govt GIS professionals in the room  
had never seen it or used it. The raw data is fully available, and  
too-numerous-to count charts with gorgeous design, lightening-fast  
performance and cogent subject areas are easily available via point- 
and-click interface. It is built on PostGIS / python/numpy / django /  
mapserver / (js kit?) on a Linux server.

Kevin Koy also used the opportunity to introduce the next Berkeley  
GIF work, the Berkeley Geoinformatics Engine. It is first and  
foremost an API to data sets, with some modern web niceness in the  
front. It is in the early stages of development. Several campus  
conservation-focused museums and research institutes, along with  
future partners, will use the API engine to make data available.

- AdaptingToRisingTides.org

Next was the research behind AdaptingToRisingTides.org with Kris May  
PhD presenting  - which as a side note revealed the actual budget for  
the work, and lets say, it wouldn't buy very many black SUV police  
escorts at midnight for drinks, let alone travel, gear, hotels and  
custom $100m yacht race equipment.

The GIS work on potential Bay flood levels leveraged existing data  
sets, had high expectations and as can't be said clearly enough, very  
low budgets and short timelines.  Dr. May mentioned that "the public  
interest in this mapping is very high" .. yet the project is as it  
is.. All involved executed with integrity and thoroughness befitting  
professionals.

-- live.osgeo.org

Your truly made a short announcement about http://live.osgeo.org. As  
usual, the room full of career GIS professionals had puzzled looks on  
their faces hearing the unknown name Open Source Geospatial  
Foundation (OSGeo). Some deep tech in the room exists however, and a  
few notes were taken about the Live and where to get it. I had a nice  
chat with a recent grad from the Nicholas Institute at Duke  
University, for example.

   In general, its no secret that funding, intellectual property,  
competitive pressure and of course politics, are resulting in  
completely backwards allocation of resources to long term survival of  
deep ecology on Earth, meanwhile the party on the Titanic is in full  
swing. We are fortunate in the Bay Area to have some of the best  
tech, best weather and best food on the planet. If things cant get  
done here, well..  draw your own conclusions on that..

best regards from sunny San Francisco

Brian M Hamlin
OSGeo California Chapter