Aug 13

Decisions Cluster Telecon August 13, 2009

Attending: Rob Raskin (JPL) , Carol Meyer (ESIP Federation), Brian Rogan (ESIP Federation), Ana Prados (NASA GSFC), Bob Chen (CIESIN), Bob Downs (CIESIN), Eric Kihn (NGDC), Flip Dibner (OGCii), Ken Keiser (UAH), Karl Benedict (UNM), David Askov (PDC)

Cluster objectives:

a. To get out the success stories

b. Help develop decision support tools

c. What conferences were important to attend

AGU session on Environmental Decision making will occur. Abstracts are still being accepted until September 3.

Karl Benedict suggested an EPA decision making meeting that was very valuable as well.

OGC meeting the week before is also a good meeting to attend as well. They are a domain working group and their focus is on interoperability.

A discussion ensued about classifications of decision making and is it spatial, etc. There are classifications that can be found but that it should be make more specific so that types of decision making can be clarified.

It may be beneficial to bring different groups to work together such as NASA and EPA or even groups such as the World Bank

Carol had asked about the emergence of the cluster and their role. She cited the work of other clusters such as Carbon, Water, etc. Rob felt that this was a good point and that a joint session might be in order.

Ana mentioned that there were definite overlaps and opportunities for collaborative work.

Rob urged that folks should begin to populate the Wiki about applications, work to other clusters and committees, etc. this is a resource for making those kinds of connections. A good section on applications would be helpful to show the breadth of decision making to play a role.

Most clusters have meetings twice a month. Rob suggested a second meeting later in the month. We would like to get input from the decision makers themselves.

Rob urged folks to join the decisions mailing list.

Carol asked if there is a decisions community that is ready to work with us already? Is there a group that has already had contact and we might cultivate? EPA was quite interested and willing to share their success stories. That would be the most applicable.

When we are further along, we will want to send out a note urging them to join ESIP to bring together the toolmakers and their partners as well as end use decision makers. There were many of them at the Santa Barbara meeting.

There should be one sent out this fall to try and get them to the winter meeting.

Is there anyone in particular that we might want to invite to the meeting? -new decisions awardees -state/local level decision makers -ESRI or other GIS vendor? DSS vendor?

The Visioneers telecom on August 14th is an opportunity to try and get the decision-making theme be part of the meeting.

Carol discussed the book “Unscientific America” as a quick read to get an idea of why it is difficult to get scientific information out there.

One group that uses geospatial data is the environmental justice community. They use it to understand access, vulnerability, etc. It is important to look at a broad level of communities that use geospatial data. Decision making means different things with different applications.

Help with the winter meeting/cluster group Karl Benedict, Ana Prados and Carol Meyer volunteered to help in that area.

Bob Chen discussed a report on The World Bank which did some work with disaster efforts and the report summarizes it at the country level. Economists care more about countries than the map. The report goes on to give recommendations to the Disaster Relief Center. They have very little expertise in hazard mitigation. They are beginning to learn about the use of GIS and how to do rebuilding efforts in a more sustained way.

Carol mentioned that the theme for the winter meeting will be Environmental Decision making. There will be topics for both speakers and breakouts during the meeting and the group can help in that way.

We are talking about end users of ESIP data which includes tools and standards. There was a lot of talk about metrics in Santa Barbara.

Meeting adjourned at 3:10 PM