The Geospatial Index Wilfred Waters

Xan Fredericks, GISP is National Map Liaison for Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. She works in the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP). You can find out about the NGP User Engagement Office here (https://www.usgs.gov/ngp-user-engagement-office). Furthermore, Xan has her own profile at the USGS here (https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/xan-fredericks). Enjoy the impressive list of her publications. The US Geological Survey (USGS) is '...the science arm of the Department of the Interior, [bringing] an array of earth, water, biological, and mapping data and expertise to bear in support of decision-making on environmental, resource, and public safety issues.' (https://www.usgs.gov/about/about-us/who-we-are).

Inspired by the caliber of staff at this organisation and impressive outputs such as the National Map, I had a discussion with Xan about culture. I wanted to know how the USGS builds up a workplace where people are prepared to fully commit. Xan delivered with some wonderful messages and I really recommend a listen. Toward the end I also used the topic of high speed rail mapping as a way to dig into some of the datasets they maintain.

Thanks once again to Xan for a wonderful conversation. In taking the time to talk to us, she shows what it is to fully live the role of a National Map Liaison.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/wilfred-waters-902b16217
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

In 2023 Fitch Ratings observed "Natural catastrophe business has become largely loss-making in recent years as prices have failed to keep pace with increasingly frequent, severe and volatile weather-related losses due to climate change."

Let's look at what this means for an insurer named Markel. Their 2020 annual report contains the frank remark:

"First, we’ve significantly reduced writing insurance and reinsurance with exposures to natural catastrophes... We’ve not earned adequate returns for the risk and capital charges associated with large property related exposures for several years. We will redeploy the capital previously allocated to this business to higher and better uses within Markel."

Let's now look at how entrepreneurs are responding. Spatial Risk Systems (https://spatialrisksystems.com/) is a Manhattan spatial finance company. It is run by some of the finance industry’s most experienced professionals. An example is Alex Vengerovsky, the chief scientist in this episode. He has worked at Bridgewater for example. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater, is one of the world’s most successful investors.

SRS has developed a geographic information system for the finance industry that scores US counties, zip codes and census tracts on 4 risk dimensions. These are climate impact, environmental risk, community vulnerability and community resilience. These are also aggregated as an overall risk score. This system can then be used to rate the spatial risk of a given asset, such as by using the footprint of a building. Consider a publicly traded electricity company. The building footprints of their power plants will be available. They can be used to sample the risk scores at the building locations on these 4 dimensions provided by SRS.

Through this, a clearer understanding for investors and insurers can be gained of the risks faced by each power plant in recovering from, for example, an adverse weather event. Depending on the risk score, the event impact may be increased or reduced. This may be considered from the perspective of "cost, toll, and duration of an event and affect the overall risk to a community or asset" (https://spatialrisksystems.com/spatial-risk-score-methodologies/).

Considering the community vulnerability dimension, if the asset is in a location where this is high then there may be significant challenges in restoring original function after a disaster. The opposite is likely to be true where community vulnerability is low.

Let us return to the Markel example at the beginning. Perhaps the geospatial analytics of Spatial Risk Systems can help Markel re-enter the natural catastrophe market through better capacity to gauge risk. For more detail, here are some really informative videos on YouTube about what SRS does:

https://youtube.com/@spatialrisksystems8197?si=3OSBG5eWUAE3eyQi

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/wilfred-waters-902b16217
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Alex Korolev is CEO of GIScarta (https://giscarta.com/). It is a web mapping platform that can be used to make beautiful maps. We talk about its functionality whilst hearing many extra details about the industry in Russia.

He’s also Russia’s most popular GIS education YouTuber:

https://youtube.com/@gis?si=vKUuT9Q0kIb77ewQ

It was great to hear how he’s used his success there as a funnel for business and recruiting.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life.

This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur.

You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/wilfred-waters-902b16217
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Sarah Bell talks us through her terrific hillshade tutorial:

https://www.sarahbellmaps.com/drawing-color-hillshade-a-tutorial-with-time-lapse-videos/
https://www.sarahbellmaps.com/drawing-hillshade-by-hand-with-pencils-a-tutorial-with-time-lapse-videos/

I take the opportunity to reflect on my sad highly technical mapping career where there has been no art, at all.

Then we talk about using beautiful maps to boost social change, like a nationwide high speed rail network for America.

LET'S DO IT!

Links to some resources, discussed:

Cartography at Penn: https://geographics.psu.edu/
North American Cartographic Information Society, NACIS: https://nacis.org/
Alan McConchie, Lead Cartographer, Stamen: https://stamen.com/people/alan-mcconchie/

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life.

This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur.

You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Jami Dennis, principal of Geodetic Analysis LLC, talks us through the GISP, networking to assist finding a job in the US and how to start a business. Some links relating to topics discussed:

Geodetic Analysis: https://geodetic.xyz/
National States Geographic Information Council: https://nsgic.org/
The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA): https://urisa.org/
The GIS Certification Institute (GISCI): https://www.gisci.org/
Attorneys for Small Business: https://www.l4sb.com/
The Small Business Administration: https://www.sba.gov/
What is a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS)? https://www.eda.gov/resources/comprehensive-economic-development-strategy

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life.

This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur.

You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
Watchlist: ⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Navigine is an indoor navigation and real time locator system (RTLS) software company (https://navigine.com/platform/tracking/). It was a privilege to spend time with the CEO, Alexey Panyov. He described how an RTLS is a powerful means of organising warehouses, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, transportation hubs and retail centres. For example, he brought warehousing and distribution centres alive by pointing out how they can house 10s, in some cases 100s, of thousands of items. It can take days to manually find a given object within such a place if they are not tracked using an automated system. He describes how Navigine reduces the pain here for warehouse operators by giving them a dashboard showing positions of staff and all items on the shelves. I recommend using the demo for more detail after the episode (https://navigine.com/demo-rtls/). You can also access their algorithms for free under an open source initiative (https://navigine.com/open-source/).

The conversation brought credibility to what has to me appeared to just be hype - internet of things. Navigine is an example of a fast growing, global company that uses IoT as a basis for its operations. Thanks again to Alexey for spending the time.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~10% annually. For only $58,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life.

This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur.

You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER
NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/geospatialindex.bsky.social
Watchlist: https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/
Newsletter: https://www.geospatial.money/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC