Geospatial data isn’t exactly a household name, but its research can affect lives and households across all 163,000 square miles of California.
This field of data analytics can give us amazing new pictures of the communities we live in. It can support researchers trying to identify regions with new healthcare needs, it can support satellite-based research into climate change, and even check up on salmon runs upstream from California’s coasts.
Researchers in this field apply layers and layers of data sets over one another to find patterns and perform predictive trend analysis. These professionals form a tight-knit community that thrives on collaboration, so when the call went out from the Department of Technology for volunteers to help create a new one-stop repository of geospatial data, help was not hard to find. Taking the group only two months to develop, the California Geoportal officially launched December 23.
Containing data from more than 30 state departments, the Geoportal represents California’s powerful investment in this field of study, and our commitment of support. As the State’s Chief Information Officer, I’m especially proud of the collaborative efforts of our statewide team that made this launch possible. That includes the Natural Resources Agency, CalEPA, Health and Human Services Agency, and CalTrans, among others.
A user tutorial is available on the portal to assist those with limited or no experience on how to navigate the site or understand how the data is structured.
Please check out the portal, and watch for more to come as we add data sets and broaden the community of researchers who can work together with us to find data-driven solutions to California’s greatest challenges. Access the geoportal: https://gis.data.ca.gov/