DIY visualizations: opportunities for story-telling with esri tools

The Forest Service and Esri recently entered into a partnership: (1) to distribute FIA and other Forest Service data with the public and stakeholders through ArcGIS Online, and (2) to facilitate the application of the ArcGIS platform within the Forest Service to develop forest management and landscape management plans, and support their scientific research activities. This partnership (in combination with the Agency’s master agreement with Esri) includes access to ArcGIS Online, the GeoPlanner, story maps, map journals, and business intelligence tools. In this presentation, we review the vision developed collaboratively by the Forest service and Esri to implement these tools more widely in analysis and reporting, discuss the development of appropriate digital infrastructure to support these activities, and highlight straight-forward applications of several Esri tools for digital story-telling. Additionally, we demonstrate how application of these tools fulfill aspects of FIA’s mission while simultaneously accomplishing the Obama Administration’s goal of sharing geospatial data with the public.