April 2020

What a difference a month makes! I don’t think any of us were expecting a global event the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a century, but here we are. As tough a circumstance as this is, the geospatial community is durable and resilient. Together we will outlast this. As a group of science professionals driven by data, we know what to do – follow the health and safety precautions from the CDC and be prepared for a rough month ahead.

 To address a question I have heard come up frequently in the last month, we are proceeding with our Annual Conference planning for the end of July as anticipated. This event is still some months out, and we remain optimistic that things will be more normal by then. We will of course act in the interest of safety as needed, but at this point the conference is still a go.

One meeting which has experienced a postponement is the next meeting of the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers which had been scheduled for May 4-6 in Melbourne. Once we know more about when their next meeting will be held, we will share that information.

NSPS has been working with state societies to clearly delineate surveying as an industry essential to critical infrastructure functions consistent with the declaration from the Department of Homeland Security. Simply put, for the core functions of the country to keep working, the geospatial industry must keep working. Thus far I have heard of little resistance to this understanding, but if you experience something different, please contact FSMS and we will do what we can to clarify the critical importance of our profession.

Those who have been using the newest USGS LiDAR for Florida may have noticed that it was released using an Albers projection. Our friend Rick Pryce spotted this and following some contacts with and collaboration between Kirk Waters at NOAA and Jason Stoker at USGS, the newest Florida 3DEP LiDAR data is now available in Florida State Plane Coordinate Systems here: https://coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/. 

With all the uncertainty surrounding our rapidly changing public health situation, the most important thing that we can do (other than following the health and safety guidelines) is to stay in communication with friends and family and to keep each other’s morale up. Morale is the great intangible which allows us to accomplish results which did not appear to be possible. Collectively, we will prevail. Until next month, be safe out there!