FOSS4G 2017 (the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) will be held August 14-19, 2017 at the Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center in Boston. The conference will consist of 2 days of hands-on workshops, 3 days of presentations, and a code sprint. MassGIS is pleased to announce our colleague, Holly St. Clair, Chief Digital Officer for the Commonwealth, will be a keynote speaker.
 
Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) will be hosting the workshops, and providing hands-on sessions for both new and experienced users. Topics to be covered include QGIS, GeoServer, PostGIS and R. For a small additional fee, you can attend the co-located JS.Geo (JavaScript and mapping) conference on August 15 at District Hall. Social events are also being planned, including a Welcoming Party at the Harpoon Brewery, an Ice Breaker at the Seaport Hotel, and a gala at the New England Aquarium.
 
Interested in participating? Follow these links to submit a proposal for a presentation or workshop or register for the conference.

The state requires municipal assessors to maintain a parcel map. MassGIS has been working with communities to shift them towards maintaining a parcel map that complies with Level 3 of the MassGIS Assessor Parcel Standard.
 
To contribute to this initiative, MassGIS created the parcel enhancements program. The objective of this program is to empower communities to maintain standardized assessor parcel mapping. Through the program, communities may request that their standardized mapping be enhanced so that it provides the content and capabilities they currently have with their existing tax maps. Enhancement examples include adding dimensional annotation or replacing a GIS or CAD-based automated map production tool.
 
MassGIS is pleased to announce that it has funded enhancement requests in 30 additional communities and has contracted with GIS service providers to complete these enhancements.  To date, 225 municipalities have had their requests funded by MassGIS!

We’ve had a spate of requests from engineering firms and municipalities for recent imagery. The imagery is needed for mapping impervious surface data to develop storm water management plans.
 
Using the 2013/2014 USGS Orthoimagery, MassGIS created a preliminary statewide impervious surface layer. Although we are in the process of editing the data, some towns have been provided the unedited dataset to use. While the data need editing, we’ve been told that this is preferable to creating the data from scratch. We’re happy to provide communities who need impervious surface mapping with the preliminary data. Please contact Paul Nutting.

• The Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization has updated MBTA Bus Routes and Stops data from the Fall 2016 Schedule.

• The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife has updated the Coldwater Fisheries Resources data to reflect 2016 fisheries sampling efforts.

• The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife has mapped Inland Water Bathymetry (measures of water depth) at a scale of 1:10,000 for some lakes and ponds in Massachusetts. The data were gathered on boats using a GPS/depth sounder. The data samples were then extrapolated to form contour lines with depth measured in feet. MADFW plans to map an additional 200 or so inland water bodies in an ongoing effort to revise its old paper bathymetry maps.

• Barnstable-Mashpee
• Canton-Sharon-Norwood
• Holland-Wales
• Sharon-Walpole