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An impressive 48,000 physical and online attendees from 130 countries participated in Esri’s 43rd annual user conference. One of the online attendees included Shannon Murphy from Friends of the Verde River. This conference provides education and resources for geographic information systems (GIS) users.
The conference theme “GIS – Creating the World You Want to See” provided the opportunity for attendees to consider future goals. This included an exploration of which choices can move us toward our goals and how using GIS can support those efforts. Some of the suggested focuses included conservation and flood and drought planning. The plenary sessions also highlighted many excellent organizations and their projects. Among those organizations was The Nature Conservancy and their many efforts. These included GIS projects, such as “Habitat Richness” and “Monitoring Mangrove Loss”.
A concept presented was that “sustainability starts with geography and with seeing the world as one ecosystem”. For example, the Verde River watershed contains many interrelated geographies and ecosystems. It is also part of a larger geography and ecosystem. If something declines or improves in one section of the watershed it affects a greater whole.
Cartography (map design) is important to attract people to a map and to provide visual interest and clarity. Shannon was particularly impressed with a cartography competition session. Three Esri employees competed against each other to recreate three famous maps. The first map was the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak map by John Snow. The second map was Charles Manard’s map of Napoleon’s 1812 Russian Campaign. The last map was more about the style of maps created by Émile Cheysson. These included Carte Figurative des Donnees Relatives A L’Entrentien des Routes Nationales en 1878 and Circulation Specifique eu Egard a la Population (map on the left – 1883). It was fascinating to see their individual interpretations and the modern maps they produced.
John Nelson recreated part of his demonstration in this YouTube video.
Sarah Bell also recreated one of her maps on YouTube here.
Ken Field created a blog post about Cheysson’s style here.
Shannon also attended sessions to develop the technical skills to use Esri applications. The applications included ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, Experience Builder, and StoryMaps. Other sessions delved into programming languages that allow further customization of the applications. These programming languages included ArcPy and Arcade.
In summary, the Esri User Conference helped Shannon gain new skills and knowledge. This will help her to produce better mapping products and story visualizations. These will help the Friends of the Verde River engage with a wider audience and encourage more people to take part in our mission. After all, the world that we want to see includes a healthy, flowing Verde River system and we are all connected.
