Informatics and GIS Program

Color Blindly Simulator being used on a California county map

Ten Essential Ways to Make StoryMaps Accessible

April 29, 2026

By Priyanka D Vyas, Robert Johnson, Shane T Feirer, Maggi Kelly

As StoryMaps gain popularity for delivery of content in an engaging style, questions arise about how to make them compliant to meet the accessibility guidelines. Within UC ANR, StoryMaps are being used for a variety of purposes such as report impact of grant funded projects, county annual reports, delivery…

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2026 Update for Drone Rules and Regulations

February 4, 2026

By Sean D Hogan

For those of you who are reading this, you may already know that there have been some major changes to drone rules and regulations in the United States within the past couple of months. On December 22, 2025, the grace period established under the NDAA 2023 American Drone Security Act expired, now…

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Display Site-Specific Photographs Using the Attachment Viewer Instant App Template

October 6, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then that makes a strong reason why the photos of your program activities should not be hidden in a cloud. ArcGIS Online offers various tools through which photos from your various program activity locations can be displayed on your website to share stories and…

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The Many Faces of a Web-Map for Mobile View

October 2, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

Web-maps are commonly used in cooperative extension to display the location of partners or collaborators or highlight resources clientele can go to. These web-maps typically show the location of the entity and related information that get displayed on a pop-up. In other instances, web-maps are…

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4-H Agriculture from Above x Agricultural for All (AFA2) Workshops

August 4, 2025

By Sean D Hogan

IGIS is thrilled to be collaborating with 4-H in delivering a highly successful series of Youth Drone Camps this year!Inspired by the University of California’s annual DroneCamp conference (for adults), which IGIS first launched in 2017, these new youth-oriented 4-H Drone Camps are infused with many of the…

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Location of food hub in relation to the survey respondents

4H’ers showcase the use of GIS to solve problems in public health, food insecurity, and low voter turnout

May 15, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

At this year's National Urban Extension Leaders Conference or commonly referred to as NUEL, 4-H youth demonstrated how they used GIS to solve problems in the community.

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Students use ArcGIS StoryMaps to educate urban farmers on policy issues at a community event

May 2, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

On Sunday, April 27th, about 27 farmers got together at the UC Gill Tract. Coinciding with Earth Day, this event was aimed for students to present their research on urban agriculture policy issues to the urban farmers and for the farmers to network with each other and the USDA Farm staff.

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Designing a survey becomes easy as ESRI introduces AI Assistant into Survey 123

May 2, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

Designing a survey from scratch can be daunting and a time-consuming affair. You have to go through previous literature and survey instruments and adapt it in the context of your work. Now you can leverage the AI Assistant in Survey123 to make your job easier.

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Terms such as "food desert' yields data on "prepared desserts"

Making a map for your needs assessment just got easier as ESRI powers Business Analyst with GeoAI Assistant

April 23, 2025

By Priyanka D Vyas

As an advisor or a county director, you may want to insert a map of your county and overlay with relevant layers. Or you may want to explore different variables such as income and housing or population characteristics for the purpose of program planning.

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1st International Conference on Drones and Unmanned Systems (DAUS' 2025)

March 3, 2025

By Sean D Hogan

The UC ANR IGIS Statewide Program is proud to have been a part of the 1st International Conference on Drones and Unmanned Systems (DAUS' 2025), which took place in Granada Spain between February 19th and 21st, 2025.

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Design your own map of the UC ANR system - without GIS!

February 16, 2025

By Andy Lyons

Maps created with the new PowerPoint template from IGIS Have you ever wanted to include a map of the ANR network in your PowerPoint presentation or proposal, but just couldn't find the right one? Or maybe you have some map clipart that is pretty close, but want to tweak the colors or labels.

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Ag from Above x Ag for All (AFA2)

October 7, 2024

By Sean D Hogan

IGIS is proud to announce its collaboration with 4H on a new and exciting, three-year, USDA-funded grant, Ag from Above x Ag for All (AFA2), aimed at sparking interest in food and agriculture among teenagers by using cutting-edge drone and mapping technologies.

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Takeaways from Posit::Conf 2024

August 23, 2024

By Genoa Starrs

R and Python together at last, the AI takeover, and Quarto ups its game. Posit::Conf, Posit's annual conference, was held last week in Seattle, WA. While the name might be unfamiliar, many of you might recognize Posit's previous iteration, RStudio.

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ESRI User Conference Day 4: Highlights from the World of Spatial Stats

July 18, 2024

By Priyanka D Vyas

At a time when GeoAI, machine learning, and big data analytics remain the most popular topics in data science, ESRI maintains its commitment towards classical statistics and spatial statistics.

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ESRI User Conference 2004 in San Diego - Day 3: Embracing AI

July 17, 2024

By Shane T Feirer

The third day of the ESRI User Conference was an exhilarating deep dive into the world of Artificial Intelligence. The AI Summit, the first of its kind hosted by ESRI, focused on the integration of AI into the ESRI ArcGIS Suite of software and tools.

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ESRI User Conference Day 2 - AI and ESRI's partnership with Microsoft get the spotlight

July 17, 2024

By Priyanka D Vyas

Where is the nearest oak tree close to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington? How many trees are in Washington DC? When is the trash pick-up date for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW? These are some of the questions that residents can answer using AI feature in the Open Data Portal.

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ESRI User Conference 2004 in San Diego - Day 1

July 15, 2024

By Shane T Feirer

The first day of the 2024 ESRI User Conference was filled with exciting announcements and innovative stories of Conservation and GIS. With around 21,000 attendees in San Diego and an additional people joining virtually, the energy and enthusiasm were palpable.

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Stories from DroneCamp 2024

July 2, 2024

By Andy Lyons, Priyanka D Vyas, Sean D Hogan, Genoa Starrs

We bring you stories from DroneCamp 2024, now in its 8th year and wrapping up a successful week at CSU Monterey Bay. Meet Barbara Satink Wolfson, one of the 5 fire advisors in UC Cooperative Extension.

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DroneCamp is back!

April 10, 2024

By Andy Lyons, Sean D Hogan

DroneCamp June 24-28, 2024 CSU Monterey Bay (plus virtual open) DroneCamp is a premiere five-day training program that covers everything you need to know to use drones for mapping and data collection.

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Central Sierra Counties highlighting National Forests

IGIS Maps for Cooperative Extension Service Helps New Advisors Navigate Their Coverage Area

March 6, 2024

Settling into a new county can be challenging. One has to figure out where things are, how to get from A to B, and where the greatest needs and opportunities are. To help new Cooperative Extension Advisors navigate these waters, IGIS in the past year has booted up a new service called Maps for CE.

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Informatics and GIS Program

Welcome to the Informatics and GIS Statewide Program. We are ANR’s geospatial innovation hub, providing research, services, and training for all ANR programs.

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Mission Statement

IGIS envisions an ANR where all local and statewide research and extension programs integrate cutting edge geospatial tools into project planning, analysis, implementation, and communication.