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“I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.”
- Paulo Coelho
A number of Geospatial/GIS “Great Leaps Forward” have occurred around disasters and events. The tragedy of 9/11 brought GIS into the Emergency Management Playbook in a big way. Geospatial was part of the game plan before, but it gained a great deal of ground in the events of 9/11, and post-disaster mitigation.
In 2005, the events of Katrina, and in some respects the failures of Katrina, had the geospatial community realize that information sharing was a huge part of what we need to do.
2010 brought us the Haiti earthquake, and the rise of Crowdsourcing in Geospatial Data, or as it was called at the time, VGI.
2012 brings Sandy, and the first time Geospatial sees the power of cloud-based maps for information sharing and dissemination rise.
That brings us the Now, the age of COVID-19. A worldwide pandemic that only a few people still alive have seen before.
So, what will GIS/Geospatial look like on the other side of this, how will our field change, and how will we change?
