From the U.S. Census:

The U.S. Census Bureau has released version 4.26.1 of OnTheMap for Emergency Management.

Version 4.26.1 updates American Community Survey tabulations to the 2020-2024 5-year estimates and Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data to 2023.

OnTheMap for Emergency Management provides real-time access to a range of detailed Census Bureau data about the people living and working in areas affected by hurricanes, floods, wildfires, winter storms, and federal disaster declaration areas.

Explore our OnTheMap for Emergency Management data tool and our help and documentation resources.

https://onthemap.ces.census.gov/em/?utm_campaign=20260304pio&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

From ADA.gov - State and Local Governments with 50,000+ persons are required to have compliant web content and mobile apps by April 24, 2026.

A fact sheet is available here: https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/#highlights-of-the-requirements-in-the-rule

Smaller governments and special districts should be aware their deadline is April 26, 2027.

GISAA is reaching out to web app providers for guidance and tools to ensure accessibility.

Can't make it to the GISA Conference? The University of Alabama at Birmingham UAB) is hosting the UAB GIS Day!

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Time: 9:00am - 4:30pm

Location: Lister Hill Library 4th Floor

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4235be8d5b924fcaa4f6c753fb23426dhttps://uab.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4OUluMI1RPRputw

GIS Day celebrates the power of mapping and spatial thinking—bringing people together to learn, share, and be inspired. At UAB, GIS connects research, teaching, and community engagement across fields from public health and medicine to environmental engineering and policy.

What to expect:

1. Explore UAB’s GIS innovations See how mapping and spatial analysis are advancing public health, policy, and environmental research across Alabama and beyond.
2. Hear from faculty, students, and partners Learn how GIS supports teaching, discovery, and community engagement through real-world applications and data storytelling.
3. Connect with the UAB GIS community Meet others who share your interest in spatial thinking, and discover tools, resources, and collaboration opportunities available across campus.

Interested in attending? 

1. https://uab.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4OUluMI1RPRputw
2. Email: anassel@uab.edu or mhender4@uab.edu

The two easiest Public Parking Decks to park at are shown on the embed map within this StoryMap UAB GIS Day 2025
Both of these deck cost $3 for the first hour and then $1 each additional hour

Here are the parking locations on UAB’s Campus Map

• 14^th St Parking Deck
• University Blvd Parking Deck

In case you missed it, watch NASA’s Plankton Aerosol Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) observatory's GISAA lunch and learn from 10/3/2025, which has now been uploaded to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5b0R7IFufg

Many of the past GISAA webinars have been uploaded to our YouTube channel. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/@gisalabama

The popular FEMA resource, Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT), has been updated! 

"The Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool gives everyone access to powerful data and GIS mapping that can help everyone understand their community. RAPT has more than 100 preloaded layers with data on population, infrastructure and hazards. This data and the analysis tools in RAPT extend GIS capacity for state and local officials to help understand disaster impacts and the potential challenges to resilience they face."

Visit https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/practitioners/resilience-analysis-and-planning-tool

Dan Mellott, GISP, and VP of the GISAA Board of Directors, authored a Sain Associates blog post about our organization.

Check it out: https://www.sain.com/advancing-gis-across-alabama/

We would also like to thank Sain Associates for being a GISAA sponsor!

Area of Interest Techniques

With Esri's John Nelson

When: 09/05/2024 12:00 PM, CDT
Where: Google Meet

Register here: https://gisaa.org/event-5834678

Google Meet Link will be emailed upon registration. 

When making your map, you want the focus area to be prominent, to help draw the audience's attention to your area of interest. There are lots of different ways we can do this, and we'll explore a variety of them using ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online. Get ready to live!

John Nelson is a map maker, software experience designer, and writer at Esri creating fringe geographic data, curious web experiences, marginally educational blogs, and debatably instructional videos. He works in a small woodshed in Michigan and relishes the opportunity to chat with other map folks.

Join us for the UNA Geography Alumni Conference, Thursday and Friday April, 18-19, 2024. This year, the conference will be $10 for all UNA Alumni & Non-Alumni registrations and student registrations are free. See the conference page for more information. GISAA looks forward to being a sponsor again this year.

Registration page: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeoVQkra46YoKZBLl4L0GPVJo5-pWycOL-JnaU4pCeVpqvVxA/viewform

The Alabama Geographic Information Office is excited to announce the dates for this year’s GIS of Alabama (GISA) Conference! The conference will be held November 18-21, 2024, so mark your calendars and make plans to join us back at The Lodge at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL. Registration will open up this summer, so be on the lookout for more information soon. If you missed the conference in 2023, you don’t want to miss this year’s!

For more information or questions...

Jaime H. Lambert

GIS Specialist

Alabama Geographic Information Office (AGIO)

Office: 334-676-6421

https://algeohub.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html

The GISAA would like to thank the Sweet Trails Alabama initiative for their Lunch and Learn presentation on December 6, 2023.

If you missed this presentation, it can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/-Vj8U7nfvzQ