2025 Big Sky GeoCon - Mapping the Future: Innovations in Geospatial Technology

State governments in the United States are increasingly mandating that educational institutions and municipalities adopt critical incident mapping (CIM) and emergency management planning to support first responders and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) during emergencies. This presentation underscores the value of integrating Esri products for CIM, emergency management and asset management, with a focus on indoor mapping and digital twins.

Key topic areas covered include data sharing, safety asset mapping, routing, 3D GIS, best path analysis, and evacuation planning, utilizing the latest reality capture methods and ArcGIS technologies. 

Stormwater management is increasingly becoming a challenge for towns and cities that contend with population growth, aging stormwater infrastructure, and the increasing frequency and cost of storm events. Municipalities can leverage impervious surface mapping and analysis to help fund stormwater maintenance by providing an avenue to equitably assess stormwater utility fees based on the amount of impervious surface on a property contributing surface water runoff to a municipality's stormwater system.

In 2024, the City of Cheyenne, Wyoming, partnered with Pickett and Associates to advance its stormwater management program by conducting a GIS-based impervious surface mapping project. Pickett leveraged AI-based image classification using high-resolution aerial imagery to map impervious surfaces across 47.5 square miles and over 29,000 parcels within the City of Cheyenne. Pickett leveraged GIS tools, together with GIS data from the City and County, including Parcels, Address Points, Zoning, and Jurisdictional boundaries, to associate each parcel with a total impervious surface area and tie that impervious surface area to address points and, ultimately, utility billing accounts. Throughout this project, Pickett relied on web mapping applications to enhance communication and stakeholder engagement with the city engineers and city council members. This impervious surface analysis gave the city insight into each parcel’s surface water runoff potential based on its impervious surface area, which directly enabled Cheyenne to equitably assess a new stormwater utility fee based on parcel-level surface runoff potential. The city council passed the new stormwater ordinance in November 2024.

This presentation discusses the GIS-based approach and analysis that Pickett conducted for the City of Cheyenne, highlighting some of the challenges we faced and the impact that this analysis has made for the city’s stormwater program. The impervious surface mapping project not only supports Cheyenne’s Surface Water Management Program, but also provides actionable insights for future urban planning and stormwater mitigation, enabling the City to make informed, data-driven decisions to reduce flooding risks, improve water quality and better manage its stormwater infrastructure, ultimately benefiting the community’s sustainability and resilience. 

Effective asset management is essential for maintaining and optimizing parks and recreation infrastructure. This session will provide a comprehensive look at asset management from strategic planning to implementation and field operations.
The discussion will begin with a broad overview of asset management in parks and recreation, emphasizing its role in optimizing resources, improving service delivery, and ensuring long-term sustainability.

Next, the focus will shift to the implementation of an enterprise asset management system (Cartegraph) for Missoula Parks and Recreation. Lessons learned will be shared, including strategies for ensuring data accuracy, integrating GIS data, overcoming implementation challenges, and developing workflows tailored to the unique needs of parks and recreation assets. The presentation will highlight the transition to a data-driven approach to improve decision-making, streamline preventive maintenance, and enhance operational efficiency.

The session will conclude with insights from the field showcasing how asset management benefits daily park maintenance operations. Topics will include GIS integration for field staff, mobile application usability, asset digitization, and work management functionality. The discussion will highlight efforts to tailor the system for maintenance workers, ensuring efficiency and ease of use in managing park assets.

This session will provide valuable insights for organizations looking to implement or refine asset management practices in parks and recreation.

Montana is modernizing their stream and waterbody mapping data, which relies on the current National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). NHD is outdated and lacks detail for local features like canals and small drainages. With statewide lidar acquisition nearing completion, the next evolution of water course mapping will adopt the USGS 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP). 3DHP provides a new data model, more accurate and consistent data, and connections to water reporting systems. 3DHP will enable hydrographic analysis and visualization for a broad range of applications. Get involved to help improve Montana’s water data. 

This presentation explores how drone technology and GeoAI revolutionize geospatial data workflows, from acquisition to actionable insights. High-resolution imagery collected by drones is processed into orthomosaics, 3D models, and other refined datasets. Advanced AI models analyze this data to identify patterns, detect anomalies, and inform decisions for applications like infrastructure monitoring. Emphasizing automated, scalable methods, this end-to-end process highlights efficiency, accuracy, and transformative potential, empowering organizations to address spatial challenges with precision. 

We will explore and discuss new advances in remote sensing technologies, and discuss their applications in government with an emphasis on emerging technology.

-Tasking and archived satellite imagery as high as 15cm resolution (previously capped at 50cm)
-Autonomous drone docking stations
-Oriented imagery and video
-Enterprise-scale imagery management (image services and STAC)
-Every scale reality mapping, including urban and environmental digital twins