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Cal Waters adds Esri mapping and geo‑enrichment; long term effort to digitize legacy maps
Summary
The Cal Waters demonstration showed a GIS interface (Esri) for plotting points of diversion and places of use, KML upload support and geo‑enrichment. Staff said many legacy place‑of‑use maps will need separate digitization work and that some map features will not be ready at day one.
Project staff demonstrated a built‑in Esri map widget that lets reporters plot points of diversion (PODs), upload geospatial files (KML and other formats) and associate plotted features with river segments, policies and metadata.
Jeff Parks showed a test GIS demo and said reporters can search by address, latitude/longitude, or by navigating the map. He demonstrated placing a POD point and said the system will pull in derived attributes—county, stream segment and the applicable policy area—based on the point’s location. Parks said users will be able to upload KML or other geospatial files so existing GIS users can import their shapes into the portal.
Nut graf: Staff characterized the GIS module as an essential modernization that will support better analysis and modeling but said that digitizing historic paper maps and places of use is a multi‑year effort. They said the mapping tools will be available for new submissions and can be used to request staff assistance to reconcile legacy features.
Discussion highlights: PG&E and other organizations raised two practical points: (1) some places of use, such as powerhouses, are better represented as points rather than polygons, and staff said the system can accept facility‑level points; and (2) many historic maps lack georeferenceable detail, so scanning and georeferencing will be phased and will not be complete at go‑live. UAG members also raised privacy concerns about making fine‑scale spatial data broadly available; staff said the team will consider visibility and discoverability and will work with legal and outreach teams.
Ending: Staff invited UAG members to volunteer for testing and said the system will include help text, templates and a path for reporters who cannot supply geospatial files to record approximate locations for staff to reconcile.
