One Tree Planted Projects Site

To complement our donor portal with One Tree Planted, SymGEO is pleased to announce a new project impact site experience that tracks the progress and positive environmental benefits of One Tree Planted projects to date and features a data-driven dashboard using ArcGIS Dashboards. The dashboard has all current project metrics and locations that can be filtered by project type, status, location, or impact.

The site also features:

  • An interactive map that reveals the millions of trees planted around the world,

  • A deep dive into several project-specific stories showcasing the environmental benefits of planting trees,
  • A Forest Note video series that shows all the dedicated, determined work that goes into successful tree planting projects.

“The impact portal of global reforestation projects provides users with an immersive experience to navigate and better understand the impact One Tree Planted is having around the globe. Through interactive maps and insightful data visualization, it empowers users to witness the collective impact of reforestation efforts, fostering a deeper connection with the worldwide initiative to restore and preserve our planet’s vital ecosystems.

– Geospatial Systems Manager, One Tree Planted

Talk to SymGEO today if your organization would like to feature projects or impacts using the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform – we are certified experts and here to help.

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Hubsite

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy seeks to improve quality of life through the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land. As a nonprofit private operating foundation whose origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute researches and recommends creative approaches to land as a solution to economic, social, and environmental challenges. Through education, training, publications, and events, they integrate theory and practice to inform public policy decisions worldwide.

SymGEO partnered with the Lincoln Institute to build an internal, central ArcGIS Hub platform and support five of their Centers and Initiatives. This involved curating and displaying authoritative data layers detailing resource equity, population demographics, historic redlining information, land zoning information, and historic city spending and revenue information among others.

Configurable applications, including ArcGIS Dashboards and web applications, were built to facilitate the exploration of data and visualization of analytical results.

 

“SymGEO has the unique ability to distill content into compelling visual geospatial products and narratives that tell a story and help track impacts. They are very proactive, responsive, great communicators, and can spin up apps quickly as proof of concepts that help with design decision-making. It has been a great experience working with them collaboratively, and I highly recommend SymGEO as a geospatial solution expert.”

– Director, Partnerships and Strategy, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Talk to SymGEO today if your organization would like to build a central spatial data hub framework using the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform – we are certified experts and here to help.

One Tree Planted Donor Portal

One Tree Planted wants to make it simple for anyone to help the environment by planting trees. By partnering with 680+ organizations across 80+ countries, they have restored forests, created habitats for biodiversity, and made a positive social impact around the world by planting over 100 Million trees! Learn more about the critical importance of their mission in the following educational video.

Keeping track of the positive impact of 680+ partners can be a daunting task. Fortunately, through a collaborative effort with SymGEO, One Tree Planted built an interactive Donor Portal prototype that helps communicate project-specific information to funding partners. The portal was designed so that each partner will have their own specific page, featuring just the projects that their funding helped to support. The donor portal was built using ArcGIS Experience Builder, and leverages Dashboards, StoryMaps, and embedded content to provide data transparency and inspiration.

Projects are geo-located to show the global breadth of a partner’s funding impact.

Project-specific information is presented upon selection with links to the detailed project report.

Projects are also displayed on a dedicated mapping page and can be searched by name or geography.

The map links to a detailed project dashboard with key information and a virtual fly-through of each planting site.

The report section of the portal links to the most recent planting report, highlighting key achievements of the year.

The monitoring section uses before and after imagery to convey the landscape scale impact of the planting projects and details the methods used to monitor and ensure planting success.

“The impact of the prototype on our donors was nothing short of astounding. Collaborating with SymGEO to craft a functional prototype during the feedback-gathering phase proved instrumental in cultivating a comprehensive catalog of requisites across all donors.

– Geospatial Systems Manager, One Tree Planted

Talk to SymGEO today if your organization would like to feature projects or impacts using the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform – we are certified experts and here to help.

Capital Bikeshare Community Survey

With 6000+ bikes covering 180+ square miles of the region, Capital Bikeshare is a great way to explore Metro DC and travel to and from various destination points. The network of 600+ bike stations is constantly expanding, and community feedback is an important part of deciding where to locate new stations. To facilitate the presentation of proposed locations to the general public and gather community feedback, SymGEO was honored to help build the Capital Bikeshare Station Request Tool using Esri’s ArcGIS Online technology. This work was featured in the Esri case study “GIS-Driven Initiatives Promote Active Transportation in Washington, DC“.

“The SymGEO team helped DDOT quickly implement a complex, public facing tool with a simple user interface to help us gather a high volume of public input data, which is extremely useful for Capital Bikeshare planning purposes.  Their knowledge of GIS and ESRI products helped make a challenging project with many stakeholders simple and quick to turn around.” 

– DDOT Project Manager

The tool leverages an ArcGIS web map and ArcGIS Web AppBuilder for the application as well as Survey123 for the gathering of comments on proposed bike stations, and it is hosted on ArcGIS Hub. Sharing feedback for a selected station opens a survey page for that station using URL parameters so that the comment is connected to the appropriate station.

If a resident would like to suggest a location for a new site, an alternative survey is launched with additional data capture fields.

The Request New Capital Bikeshare Location survey was constructed using Survey123 Connect and offers the ability for a user to suggest multiple sites in the same submission.

“This is great stuff. Thanks again for pulling this together so quickly!”

– DDOT GIS and Applications Manager

Talk to SymGEO today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform – we are certified experts and here to help.

DDOT Capital Projects

The District Department of Transportation’s (DDOT‘s) mission is to enhance the quality of life for District residents and visitors by ensuring that people, goods, and information move efficiently and safely with minimal adverse impact on residents and the environment. To accomplish this goal, many transportation capital projects are being funded, designed, and constructed throughout the city. To help organize and communicate capital project status and information, SymGEO collaboratively built an interactive engagement portal called DDOT Capital Projects using ArcGIS Hub technology.

“The SymGEO team has helped DDOT transform our digital presence into a highly engaging, well-organized platform. They leverage GIS best-practices and Esri technology to produce visually informative and actionable solutions.”

-DDOT Chief Performance Officer

Projects are organized by Ward for easy access and discoverability by citizens or stakeholders.

Selecting a Ward will show which projects are currently underway or recently completed in the area.

Selecting an individual project unlocks a wealth of information about the project and provides a convenient one-stop-shop for all data and narratives about the project. SymGEO transferred existing content from legacy capital project websites, and project-specific contractors are now responsible for building and maintaining new project websites.

Project features and benefits are presented along with the expected project timeline, history, and associated public outreach material.

As this platform is relatively new to most consultants working on individual projects, SymGEO also produced a “how to” hub site that explains the process for Project Managers and Web Developers. Each project starts from the same standardized template, and branding guidelines are presented to help keep the sites consistent throughout the platform.

The main DDOT Capital Projects website also features citywide programs of interest to residents.

Events and updates are aggregated from individual projects and citywide programs to give a comprehensive picture of all that is happening throughout the city.

A custom footer provides important accessibility information and additional resources to discover.

Talk to SymGEO today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Hub – we are certified experts and here to help.

DC Trail Ranger QuickCapture

Trail Rangers are a consistent and helpful presence on DC’s mixed-use, paved trails, charged with assisting trail users, improving trail conditions, and working with local agencies to keep the trails clean, bright, and clear of obstacles. This amazing program, run by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), is made possible through a grant from the District Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Division, and was featured in the Esri case study “GIS-Driven Initiatives Promote Active Transportation in Washington, DC“.

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To help facilitate the data collection process and quantify work efforts, SymGEO was pleased to configure and deploy an ArcGIS QuickCapture application for the DC Trail Ranger team. Every trail service, maintenance task, work order request, or trail-side event is now captured by location with optional notes or photographs and tagged to the appropriate trail.

To assist with task management, the collected data was used to populate an internal ArcGIS Dashboard that lists all tasks and events by Trail Ranger and the date of the event. A public-facing version of the dashboard allows great visibility into all the activities undertaken by the Trail Rangers to better DC’s collective trail experience.

“As a field team that does a wide variety of outreach and maintenance tasks, ArcGIS QuickCapture has been great for record-keeping and storytelling of program impact. I can confidently say that staff stopped to sweep up broken glass in February 97 times!”

– Trail Ranger and Outreach Director, Washington Area Bicyclist Association

Talk to SymGEO industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in data collection with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS QuickCapture technology –  we are an award-winning, certified Esri business partner and are here to help.

Urban Tree Canopy Change Storymap

DDOT’s Urban Forestry Division (UFD) is the primary steward of Washington, D.C.’s ~175,000 public trees and has a mission of keeping this resource healthy, safe, and growing. Among many other benefits, these trees improve our air and water quality, cool our neighborhoods, and provide critical habitat for many animals. While D.C.’s Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) is already at an impressive 38%, the UFD has a goal of 40% by 2032. To learn more about the gains and losses experienced during the journey to 40%, SymGEO recently partnered with the UFD to create a StoryMap that explores example areas throughout D.C. and lays out the steps needed to reach the 40% canopy coverage goal.

This mobile-responsive story begins with an overview of the current canopy coverage in DC and explores select examples detailing areas of loss and areas of gain.

Areas of loss are typically due to commercial developments, new residential developments, supporting road and transportation infrastructure, or individual tree loss due to natural causes or storm damage. 

Areas of gain can be attributed to plantings along commercial corridors, or in new residential developments to help alleviate the urban heat island effect, or due to the natural growth of trees over time.

Finally, a call to action is made for homeowners to request their own free shade-providing tree, or to report an open planting box ready for a new tree.

Talk to SymGEO industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMap technology –  we are a certified Esri business partner and are here to help.

Wood Reuse Storymap

Did you know that the Urban Forestry Division (UFD) in Washington D.C. offers schools and parks the opportunity to enjoy a variety of useful products to improve school grounds and parks at no cost? Made from upcycled public trees, these finely crafted benches, stumps, and other seating structures serve as living classrooms and natural storage lockers for carbon, all the while connecting students to the natural resources around them. Learn more about this fantastic program with a new StoryMap produced by SymGEO in collaboration with UFD below.

Talk to our industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMap technology – SymGEO is a certified Esri business partner and is here to help.

Academic Hub Site

Collaboration and using the best available data are keys to success at academic institutions, so it’s no surprise that ArcGIS Hub technology offers a smart solution to a perennial challenge. The Governors State University College of Business recently engaged with SymGEO to build their internal GIS capabilities and learn more about ArcGIS Hub collaborative opportunities. The result is the pilot GSU COB Data Explorer Hub site, available for students and faculty to explore and engage with Esri geospatial technology and the larger GIS community.

The Data Explorer Hub site focuses on training opportunities available through Esri that are directly applicable to the school of business.

Numerous data sets, mapping layers, and interactive web applications are also presented to encourage students and staff to think about the many ways that GIS technology can be incorporated into their classes, research, or grant writing processes.

Talk to SymGEO industry experts today if your academic institution or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Hub –  we are here to help.

Heritage Tree Relocations in D.C.

Urban trees in the city are critical to our well-being. Among many other benefits, trees improve our air and water quality, cool our neighborhoods, and provide nurturing habitats for birds, bees, and numerous wildlife. Large trees provide greater environmental benefits than smaller trees and are protected from unnecessary damage or removal by the Urban Forest Preservation Act and the Tree Canopy Protection Act in the District of Columbia.

Learn all about the how, why, and when large “heritage” trees in D.C. have to be moved out of harm’s way during construction projects in a new StoryMap developed in collaboration with the Urban Forestry Division of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT).

Heritage tree relocation – video by Jacob Fenston / WAMU

Talk to our industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s StoryMap technology – SymGEO is a certified Esri business partner and is here to help.