Upcoming Webinars:
Mapping Water in CT, Part 1: An Introduction
September 25, 2025, 1-2 PM ET
Host: UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR)
Speakers: DeAva Lambert, CT DEEP & Alfredo Herrera, CT GIS Office
In this first installment of a three-part webinar series, we will be talking about the efforts and activities that the State of Connecticut is conducting and participating in the realm of hydrography and flood mapping. We will cover the base datasets available and the ways in which the state makes use of them. The two following webinars will delve further into specific topics and activities related to all things water and hydrography.
Mapping Water in CT, Part 2: The USGS National Geospatial Program
October 23, 2025, 1-2 PM ET
Speakers: Adam Benthem, USGS & Alfredo Herrera, CT GIS Office
Host: UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR)
Adam Benthem will join us for the second in our three-part webinar series on mapping water in Connecticut. As the National Map Liaison to New England States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut for the USGS National Geospatial Program User Engagement Office, Adam uses his expertise on National Map products and services to engage with users and stakeholders. Adam is dedicated to helping state, local, tribal, and federal partners identify, develop and fully utilize The National Map’s foundational datasets to meet their specific needs. He will provide an update on their effort in Connecticut.
Mapping Water in CT, Part 3: Regional Stormwater Mapping Support: From MS4 to SB9 (PA 25-33)
November 13, 2025, 1-2 PM ET
Speakers: Tucker Beckett, WestCOG & Ashley Benitez, OPM
Host: UConn CLEAR
In this final installment of a 3-part webinar series on mapping water in CT, we will talk about WestCOG's experience providing mapping support to towns working to meet their obligations under the MS4 permit. We will be covering the logistics of mapping stormwater infrastructure, data structure, outputs, lessons learned, and how these efforts can carry forward into the culvert mapping requirements of Public Act 25-33. We will also touch on ongoing MS4 coordination work being carried out by the regional Councils of Governments.
Previous Webinars:
September 11, 2025, 1-1:45 PM ET
Host: UConn CLEAR
Speaker: Alfredo Herrera, CT GIS Office
The CT GIS Office has been busy working on several projects and initiatives over the course of the year. This 45-minute webinar will talk about all the interesting initiatives, applications, and datasets we have been working on and will introduce our upcoming webinar theme that will see out the rest of the year. Hint...it's all about water!
Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 1-2 PM ET
Speakers: Stu DeLand, Camille Fontanella, & Eric Hammerling, CT DEEP
Host: UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR)
In May, the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) launched a web-based tool to assist with the potential siting of solar projects and further the goal of increasing our state’s supply of zero-carbon energy. CREST provides free access to various layers of state, federal, and institutional data – demographic, forestry, geology, land use, water, wildlife, and more – that can be used by municipal planners, solar developers, conservation organizations, members of the public, and others to visualize where renewable energy best fits into Connecticut’s diverse landscape. Learn more about CREST and how to use it from the developers of the tool at DEEP with input from UConn-CLEAR, primary partners with DEEP on the CREST.
May 15, 2025, 1-1:45 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Min Huang, CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection; Evan Carlson, Whiteout Solutions; and Emily Wilson, UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR)
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Whiteout Solutions used drones and low altitude helicopters to collect imagery and elevation data of tidal marshes across the Connecticut coast. This 45 minute webinar will talk about the project, the final data products and what they show, how to view and download in the interactive viewer, and why it was all done in the first place. Join us for the overview and demo. Visit https://maps.cteco.uconn.edu/projects/highres_marsh/ for more information.
May 1, 2025, 1-1:45 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Ashley Benitez & Carl Zimmerman, CT GIS Office
This 45-minute introductory presentation is the second in a two-part series on free and open source GIS. It will cover the new and broad ecosystem of GIS and geospatial tools (e.g. viewers, scripting tools and desktop applications), explain how to choose the right tools for your set of uses cases, access public data, and how to conduct simple spatial analyses with QGIS. Attendees will learn about free geospatial software and GIS tools which are widely available, reliable, and powerful. Many have the capabilities of expensive commercial products from the industry leaders. Free tools such as these provide substantial analytic and visualization capabilities to organizations needing location data and visualization solutions such as non-profits, small businesses, land-trusts, and local governments. These tools can be used in conjunction with a variety of public data sets including elevation and parcel data from Connecticut, the federal government, and other entities. This webinar will cover core use cases and processing that small organizations need to map and analyze their data. The webinar builds on content presented in Part I of the Open Source GIS series. View recording and webinar resources from the April webinar.
April 3, 2025, 1-1:45 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Carl Zimmerman & Ashley Benitez, CT GIS Office
This 45-minute introductory presentation is the first in a two-part series on free and open source GIS. It will cover the new and broad ecosystem of GIS and geospatial tools (e.g. viewers, scripting tools and desktop applications), explain how to choose the right tools for your set of uses cases, access public data, and how to conduct simple spatial analyses with QGIS. Attendees will learn about free geospatial software and GIS tools which are widely available, reliable, and powerful. Many have the capabilities of expensive commercial products from the industry leaders. Free tools such as these provide substantial analytic and visualization capabilities to organizations needing location data and visualization solutions such as non-profits, small businesses, land-trusts, and local governments. These tools can be used in conjunction with a variety of public data sets including elevation and parcel data from Connecticut, the federal government, and other entities. We will demonstrate a few of the most relevant capabilities such as analysis, big data visualization, and basic map-making.
March 20, 2025, 1-1:30 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Cary Chadwick & Emily Wilson, UConn CLEAR and Anya Grondalski, NEIWPCC/Long Island Sound Study
The UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) and the Long Island Sound Study have recently created an in-depth StoryMap focused on the Long Island Sound Watershed. From the rural boreal forest of northern New Hampshire to the rocky beaches of Long Island’s northern coast and the diverse and densely populated boroughs of New York City, the LIS Watershed is home to more than 9 million people This 30-minute webinar will provide an overview of the story map, discussing its utility for municipalities, educators, conservationists, grant applicants and others working and living in the Long Island Sound Watershed.
The Rise of GeoAI: Transforming CT’s High-resolution Remote Sensing Datasets into GIS-ready Products
February 13, 2025, 1-1:45 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Chandi Witharana, Assistant Professor, Durga Joshi, PhD Student, Harshana Wedegedara, PhD Student, University of Connecticut, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment
The increasing availability of multimodal remote sensing datasets offers tremendous opportunities to map landscape features and track their changes across space and time. This 45-minute webinar will showcase several new statewide geospatial datasets generated from the latest 2023 leaf-off LiDAR and imagery collection. Connecticut hosts terabytes of high-resolution remote sensing data in online repositories, such as CTECO, ranging from 1930s grayscale aerial photographs to modern multispectral aerial images and high-density 3D LiDAR point clouds. The latest 2023 statewide leaf-off LiDAR survey comprises over 700 billion individual points at a density of roughly 14 points/m², complemented by a concurrent multispectral aerial imagery collection exceeding two trillion image pixels at 8 cm spatial resolution. Integrating LiDAR with aerial imagery enables accurate feature extraction and classification, making it virtually possible to map every urban tree, utility pole, and powerline segment in the state. However, traditional algorithms often struggle under the sheer volume and complexity of these large datasets, underscoring the need for high-throughput, GeoAI-powered analysis pipelines that can operate at scale. This webinar will showcase geospatial products including tree canopy height, plant area index, and foliage height diversity, and will discuss how these products contribute to downstream analysis and synthesis efforts, such as urban tree equity, forest carbon modelling, and roadside vegetation management.
January 23, 2025, 1-1:30 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Ashley Benítez, CT GIS Office
This 30-minute webinar provides an introduction to Connecticut’s broadband landscape, showcasing the work involved in developing and maintaining datasets on broadband availability, adoption and other key datasets. Learn how the office processes public and provider-submitted data to measure and track broadband deployment to inform residents, policymakers, and broadband stakeholders in the state.
December 12, 2024, 1-1:30 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Sarah Hurley, CT GIS Office
This 30-minute webinar introduces a housing mapping and data application that the GIS Office (within CT OPM) has created in partnership with the CT Department of Housing (DOHG) and the CT Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) for use by governments, non-profits, planners, and interested stakeholders.Called the CT Housing Data Hub, this site uses a variety of maps and charts to show the current state of housing, housing programs, rent burden, and permitting across the 169 towns of CT. This resource allows users to understand housing trends over almost 20 years of time and get information about their local municipalities with linked maps, data, and charts. Please join us to learn more about this useful resource.
October 24, 2024, 1-1:30 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Ashley Benitez, GIS Coordinator, and Leah Hodges, GIS Analyst, CT GIS Office
October 10, 2024, 1-1:30 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Alfredo Herrera, Geographic Information Officer & Emily Wilson, Extension Educator, UConn CLEAR
Part 1: Introducing the CT GIS Office, and
Part 2: All About Image Services
September 12, 2024, 1-2 PM ET
Hosts: UConn CLEAR
Speakers: Alfredo Herrera, Geographic Information Officer & Carl Zimmerman, GIS Coordinator, CT GIS Office, CT OPM & Emily Wilson, Extension Educator, UConn CLEAR
After introducing the webinar series, the first part of this two-part webinar will be about the role of the CT GIS Office (GISO), how it was formed and functions, what services and guidance it provides, and how it works with partners across the state. Specifically, the CT GIS Office coordinates geospatial data acquisition and creation, provides standards and training, and supports analytic capabilities for GIS users.
The second part of the webinar will be a technical discussion about image services and describe how they are different from map and features services. We will describe how to find and connect to them, what functions are available, and how online and desktop GIS software (ArcGIS Pro and QGIS) handles them. The focus will be on the soon-to-be-released 2023 statewide aerial imagery.