Welcome to the AWRA Spring Specialty Conference on GIS and Water Resources VII ! 

We are living through a remarkable period of advancement in information technology -- in just a few years we have learned to take for granted the massive computing resources for geospatial searches provided by the major internet search engines.  That technology first trickled down to the Water Resources community by providing us with unprecedented ease of geospatial integration with nationally available basemaps.  

While the base data is becoming ever-more reliable and sophisticated, we are in the midst of the next advancement where hydrologic modeling, water data, and climate data become increasingly standardized and accessible through the same types of web-services that brought us these great basemaps. A third phase is also emerging, where the analytic processes, to make full use of these integrated platforms, are becoming increasingly easy to share and publish for collaborative research.  Every type of work in Water Resources is impacted by these new developments as new sources of data and new tools come online; but, standards for data quality, statistical reliability (uncertainty), and metadata standards are still trying to catch up.    Happily, the emergence of social media in parallel with all these advancements is giving us new ways to collaborate, share our experience, and seek input from a vast network of human “sensors” for everything from who felt the earthquake or which road is flooded, to where is the best restaurant.  

We look forward to sharing experiences in New Orleans; meeting others who deal with the same challenges at every level of detail on the wide array of information and technologies that will help us meet the water resources challenges of the new century.

John C. “Jack” Hampson Conference Chair	Sandra Fox Conference Program Coordinator	Katherine Lins Executive Program Chair

• Discover the most recent advances of GIS in the analysis and management of water resources systems
• Ascertain the state of knowledge of GIS use in planning and analysis of land use and landscape analysis
• Bridging GIS and Climate Change: See how GIS is used to assess impacts of climate change, decision support, and hydrologic forecasting
• Learn about integrating surface and groundwater GIS systems
• Find out about the latest developments in models, programs, tools and techniques such as NHD, HIS, AGWA, and LiDAR Enhanced Analysis
• Learn how GIS is used in mining and hydrologic fracturing impact assessment
• Inform yourself about the use of GIS in flood loss planning and about available mitigation and spatial tools
• Discuss hydrologic and riparian ecosystem effects related to climate change and how GIS can aid in the study of these effects.
• Share your experiences and knowledge of the GIS field with other attendees
• Listen to experts from the USA and elsewhere discuss the use and ramifications of GIS to their own unique problems
• Examine how GIS has been used in case studies of water supply and demand
• Discover decision support systems and information management systems related to or that use GIS
• Participate in and learn from the Oral and Poster Sessions, commercial exhibits and network with other water resources experts