Workflows today increasingly rely on the ability of users to access geographic information in a digital medium. Interactive digital content can enable geographic data with usability that print or static maps simply cannot compete with.  While the technical difficulty of creating interactive content has decreased, it still remains a challenge managing disparate content such as data, documents, graphs, charts, photos, and video into coherent digital experiences.

As a BCDC employee, one of my primary responsibilities was the maintenance of their in-house web tool – the Bay Resource Analysis Tool or “BayRAT”. This decision support tool was used daily by BCDC permit analysts to daylight information and make informed decisions about the locations of various BCDC datasets. I also worked on the Suisun Resource Conservation District’s “GeoMarsh” web tool, an online decision support tool developed with consultant partnership, in which specific SRCD datasets enable asset managers to view their resources in an entirely new way.  These tools remain in use today.  

View the data

Above is a simple example of an interactive map easily developed and deployed with DataSF open source data and tools.