Case Studies

Solution Mandated under Manitoba's Animal Diseases Act, premises identification provides a mechanism to link livestock and poultry to geographic locations for effective emergency response. To leverage this information during an emergency situation, the Chief Veterinary Office developed a Decision Support System for Agriculture Emergencies (DSSAE) using Esri's ArcGIS. Esri's open and interoperable technology allowed the application to be developed quickly and flexibly in-house with limited resources. Through a personal geodatabase, the DSSAE dynamically links ArcGIS to critical premises information derived from the Premises Identification Program such as legal land description, owner and emergency contact information, and animal information. ModelBuilder, a visual programming tool in ArcGIS, is used to automate tasks such as buffering and routing through reusable geoprocessing workflows and models. Through the DSSAE, users can track the spread of an outbreak and visually pinpoint premises at elevated risk. From there, work lists can be created that prioritize and assign action items. Esri's Network Analyst is used to create biosecure routes, so that transportation can be routed around potentially susceptible premises. These premises are buffered to reduce risk and minimize the impact of an animal health event. The application provides a central location to update premises data and to perform animal count analyses as events unfold. Users can also define extraction data for reports and maps that contain premises summaries as well as the status of assigned actions. Benefits The DSSAE has greatly increased the speed at which animal health events are responded to in Manitoba. Previously, staff would travel door to door to locate and notify affected premises. Now, those likely to be impacted by an event can be quickly identified through a map view, along with a list of corresponding phone numbers, and contacted immediately. The application has also proven to be an invaluable communication tool for MAFRD: details of an event can be extracted and represented on maps to keep others updated. This allows decisions to be made seamlessly across a diverse range of stakeholders. For example, egg farmers can be notified if their barns are at risk, politicians can be kept up to date on the latest developments and information can be easily shared with Manitoba Public Health and federal departments. To date, the application has helped to minimize damage and cut costs during more than 20 animal health events in Manitoba, including an outbreak of a virus affecting pigs called Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED). During the PED virus outbreak, the DSSAE quickly generated disease buffers that helped MAFRD identify at-risk farms so they could be notified and instructed to monitor their pigs closely and implement higher biosecurity measures. Transportation routes were planned using ArcGIS Network Analyst to ensure livestock delivery vehicles avoided the infected farm. Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development manages animal health events with GIS | Esri Canada 2 Using ArcGIS Network Analyst, MAFRD can create biosecure transportation routes to ensure healthy livestock does not come into contact with infected animals during an outbreak. The Decision Support System for Agriculture Emergencies lets analysts track the spread of an outbreak and pinpoint premises at elevated risk. "For animal health emergencies, the DSSAE has been instrumental in spearheading the significant improvements we've achieved protecting the health of farm animals. The system provides a central location to update and organize information so we can make quicker decisions as events unfold." Victoria Tkachuk Animal Health & Food Safety Analyst MAFRD

• Cover