During the month of February we were asked to complete professional interviews and garner industry highlights to get additional views of the GIS industry and what job applications may look like using this technology. For my highlight I chose to focus on Natural Resource applications in GIS, specifically Forestry applications. While I am most familiar with marine GIS and marine remote sensing operations, forestry makes up one of the widest swaths of natural resource GIS users. I rarely have the opportunity to speak with individuals in this sector of the industry, and I especially appreciated the insights on how closely databases and systems can be tailored to individual uses.
I came to GIS after already working in the marine biology field for several years, and my experience with the technology and its uses had - prior to this certificate - been almost exclusively marine applications. Though this has made me expressly familiar with my industry's standards for map making, layer inclusion, and common geoprocessing, it was fascinating to hear how the technology is customized for forestry applications. Some of the uses discussed in the interview such as databases to track the status and location of a single trees I could easily see having applications for marine GIS to track a single coral head or survey point. With artificial reefs we already do something similar, but I would be keen to implement some of the metadata options discussed in the interview.
An additional point touched on in the interview was the disconnect sometimes faced between technicians and managers over when a numerical database like excel would be most appropriate, or when migrating to a geodatabase would be best for spatial components. This is a situation I have navigated myself as a professional in the field, and I believe it is best to have the tools for operating in both systems. As I gain more experience I feel that my ability to clearly describe the benefits of a spatial database has improved, as well as my ability to design accessible databases. These skills make it smoother when transitioning a team or introducing managers to the benefits of geodatabases.
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| Some of the same reef locations displayed both in a geospatial database and in a traditional spreadsheet database. While both are able to display location, name, deployment date, and reef material, the geodatabase also provides at-a-glance location relative to landmarks and other reefs. |
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