The IJC was recognized for its geospatial projects across the transboundary in July, winning an award at the annual Esri conference in San Diego, California.
The IJC’s geospatial work brings together authoritative information from Canada and the United States within a common, binational geographic framework. This has allowed the IJC and its boards to organize, analyze, and communicate information about shared waters.
In its 1998 report The IJC and the 21st Century, the Commission noted that rivers, lakes and watersheds do not stop at the boundary between Canada and the United States, even if their respective data collection systems each country operated did. Both had been developed independently, frequently did not align, and stopped at the border, all of which made it difficult to effectively manage watersheds they shared. The IJC saw a problem that it was uniquely situated to help resolve, ensuring that these watersheds could be fully understood as the whole systems they are by harmonizing the separate data both countries collected.
This effort initially got underway in 2005, when the IJC convened a binational effort to harmonize both countries’ hydrographic data along the international boundary. This led to the creation of the Data Harmonization Task Force in 2008, which was tasked with aligning the datasets.
The results of this harmonization effort have been used by agencies, and led to three previous recognitions, from Esri International, Esri Canada, as well as from the Geospatial World Forum 2013 in Amsterdam.
This latest recognition from Esri was not tied to any single product that the IJC has developed. Rather, the IJC was awarded for the broader modernization of its geospatial program, and for developing a unified environment for managing, integrating, documenting and communicating geospatial information across the transboundary.
The IJC has used geographical information systems (GIS) technology to organize, integrate, analyze, preserve and communicate geographically referenced information that supports its boards, studies and other responsibilities. This information can include historic data, as well as real-time information being recorded from government agencies. The resulting maps, data and applications support IJC staff and board work, while also providing researchers, water managers, partner agencies and the public with accessible information about transboundary conditions.
The IJC and its boards have used GIS products for projects ranging from mapping flood scenarios in the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River system to supporting and communicating with water quality analyses.
The IJC’s ArcGIS page provides access to curated geospatial data and applications supporting its transboundary work. This includes StoryMaps, which go through different basins, describing their hydrology, features and history; interactive web maps; basin atlases where users can add multiple data layers to a map; and dashboards showing near-real-time monitoring information.
The modernization effort was led by Michael Laitta, a senior physical scientist and director of the IJC’s geospatial program, who worked alongside IJC staff, boards, contractors and partner organizations. He was also recognized for his work at the conference for his contributions towards advancing the GIS community’s understanding of hydrologic and hydraulic modeling.
