Volunteer Assisting URISA CCRC with Application Refresh

The URISA Climate and Community Resiliency Committee (CCRC) was originally formed as a task force in 2019 that focused on questions such as, “What current impediments to data collection and dissemination exist?” or “What mechanisms exist or can be developed to increase awareness and collaboration between resilience researchers and GIS practitioners?” Due to the success of the task force, it was elevated to a committee in 2020. In collaboration with the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS (NAPSG) Foundation, the URISA CCRC maintains an Experience Builder (ExB) application in ArcGIS Online that provides guidance and documentation on the use of key indices for both climate and social science. Over time, new developments across the various indices, and details about a particular index (e.g., the Social Vulnerability Index for the United States) need to be updated within ExB.

GISCorps volunteer Emilie Pratt from West Virginia was selected to help URISA CCRC with their desire to get this ExB application updated before GIS-Pro in October.

The project consisted of reviewing the documentation of the five indices which are compared in the Guidance on Risk, Resilience, and Vulnerability Indices to note changes since implementation and to make those changes in the Experience Builder application. The five indices are: CDC Social Vulnerability Index (CDC SVI), Social Vulnerability Index for the United States (SoVI®), FEMA Community Resilience Challenges Index (FEMA CRCI), Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC), FEMA National Risk Index (FEMA NRI).

CCRC members identified areas within the Experience Builder requiring updates. The URISA CCRC team reviewed, edited, and approved the required changes identified by Emilie in her research. Those changes were then made to the ExB application without difficulty. The updates were completed just before the NAPSG Foundation’s InSPIRE conference, where they were pulled up for reference during a presentation on equity in emergency management. Attendees of that conference were able to view the resource with the most up-to-date content. The project was then presented at the GIS-Pro conference in Maine to a very receptive audience that was interested in learning more about the GISCorps volunteer program.

Project Complete