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+ ArcGIS ® | ENABLES THE POWER OF WHERE FOR PUBLIC ASSET MANAGEMENT Cityworks.com Visit us at BOOTH 1127 19 esri.com/arcnews ArcNews Summer 2017 Additionally, the Policy Workbench gives users instant access to the ArcticDEM using the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard. is high- resolution, high-quality digital elevation model (DEM) of the Arctic is being produced through a public-private initiative between US and Canadian government agencies, the University of Minnesota's Polar Geospatial Center, and Esri. National mapping agencies from the eight Arctic countries, including the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation at NRCan, are providing sustainable support for the Arctic DEM initiative by making continuous improve- ments to the data. e hillshade, slope, and as- pect models that are part of the DEM and thus available in the workbench have proved very use- ful for making policy decisions, since they show, for example, the rugged and steep areas where caribou (an important food source in the Arctic) are unlikely to be located. Mapping Food Security Food security has complex policy implications. at is why the Policy Workbench has maps that show the different aspects of store-bought food, including the locations of major retail food stores, the spatial density of these food stores, transpor- tation routes, and local language areas. ese data layers can give policy makers some indica- tion about the propensity of the population in various areas to purchase store-bought food. If people in a certain region do not have ac- cess to store-bought food, they may rely on what's called country food, meaning they regularly en- gage in hunting, fishing, and gathering. ose who harvest country food can be significantly affected by animal populations, pollution, ice melt, and other issues. However, the country food section of the Policy Workbench currently only provides demonstration information on a fraction of what affects country food, such as land cover and where hunting, fishing, and gathering are not allowed. Food security, or food scarcity, is often a localized issue that af- fects only certain areas. e Policy Workbench demonstrates how in- tegrating local large-scale map data with available smaller-scale map data can aid in examining food security policy issues. A Game-Changing Venture As the Policy Workbench demonstrates, map- ping technology and web services are immense- ly helpful for informing policy decisions in a place as large, diverse, and critical as the Arctic. e workbench also aids both the United States and Canada in achieving their domestic objec- tives for open data standards and interoper- ability. It is imperative that the information coming from various governments, companies, nonprofits, and communities can work to- gether, which is why the Arctic SDP project was so pivotal. "e [Arctic SDP] project will ensure that the facts we collect in their data formats are interoperable and can be shared from lo- cal to global partners in a seamless way," ex- plained Prashant Shukle, the director general of the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation at NRCan. "To date, there has been no such effort to do this, and this project is, for the Arctic, a game changer." To learn more about the Policy Workbench, read the Esri Canada blog post, "How can an SDI be used for policy decision-making in the Arctic?" at http://p.ctx.ly/r/47lp or contact Gordon Plunkett, Esri Canada's director of SDI, at gplunkett@esri.ca. The demonstration Policy Workbench app, built by Esri Canada, presents an array of information, including background on food security and instructions on how to find data, reference maps, and Landsat imagery. The Policy Workbench has maps that show where store-bought food is available in Arctic regions.

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