Geospatial Analytics Lab

Overview

Under the direction of Dr. Barnali Dixon, since 2001, Geospatial Analytics Lab (G-SAL) is a full-service lab and serves as a resource center for the university community as well as larger communities through its research, teaching and service related activities. G-SAL also provides support for professionals and community projects.

Areas of Research

Geospatial Analytics Lab (G-SAL) conducts theoretical and applied interdisciplinary using geospatial technologies to support decision making processes. G-SAL fosters collaborative research in applications of geospatial analytics for environmental and coastal problems and to promote equitable resiliency in coastal communities.

Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSS)

G-SAL conducts research to develop Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSS) integrated with geospatial technologies and geocomputation for modeling and managing land-water interfaces for water contamination and vulnerability, with a particular focus on terrestrial source and aquatic sinks in the context of extreme weather events and climate change (including sea level rise).

Integration of AI and soft computing with Geospatial Technologies (GeoAI)

G-SAL conducts research toward development, implementation and analysis of environmental models using AI methods such as Fuzzy Logic, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Neuro-fuzzy and Support Vector Machines (SVM) and other soft computing techniques.

Coastal Resiliency & Adaptation

G-SAL conducts research to understand climate change in the context of planning, adaptation and resilience with a particular emphasis on human dimension.

 Areas of Teaching

In addition to regular course work (semester long courses), the Geo-Spatial Analytics Lab (G-SAL) at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus is pleased to offer professional training workshops in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing. For more details click here.

Areas of Service

Geo-Spatial Analytics Lab G-SAL) offers various services related to map making, consulting for geospatial analytics and strategies to use geospatial technologies and map/poster printing. Please email us if you are interested in any of these services.

Support for Professionals

Geo-Spatial Analytics Lab (G-SAL) provides project support by serving as a resource, assist capacity building and technology transfer, and training for the working professionals.

Current Projects

Current projects conducted by the lab include:

  • Design and Development of a Near Real-Time Community Crowdsourced Resilience Information System for Enhancing Community Resilience in the Face of Flooding and other Extreme Events (Lead Dixon)
  • Analysis of contamination levels in the coastal waters of Florida using GIS ( Lead: Dixon)
  • Improving the Coastal Aquifers’ Vulnerability assessment using machine learning approaches (Lead: Dixon)
  • Development of an integrated Community Resiliency Information System (CRIS) (Lead: Dixon and Johns)
  • The Role of Crowdsourced Data, Participatory Decision-Making and Mapping of Flood Related Events (Lead: Dixon and Johns)
  • Tale of Two Neighborhoods: Biophysical and Socio-Economic Vulnerability to Climate Change in Pinellas County, Florida (Lead: Johns and Dixon)
  • Coastal flooding: An integrative analysis of socio-economic vulnerability and its relationship to successful coastal adaptation and resilience (Lead : Dixon and Johns)
  • Public Responses to Flooding and Severe Weather: Utilizing Spatial Distribution in Identifying Influencing Components (Lead: Dixon and Johns)
  • Personal Network as a Resource of Resilience for Individual and Community : Comparative Study between Fukushima, Japan and Florida, USA’ (Lead: Tateyama and Dixon)
  • Twitter Analysis Integrated with ArcGIS Enterprise Server – a viability study for disaster planning and response (Lead: Dixon)
  • Monitoring Air Quality in Diverse Neighborhood with Smart Pole and Sensors integrated with CRIS (Lead: Dixon, Johns and Alegria)
  • Assessing Climate Gentrification in Pinellas County and Developing a Generic Web App for Mapping Gentrification for the US at the county level (Lead: Dixon)
  • Community Collaborative of Florida: Assessing Food Security and Revisiting Food Desert Analysis using Geospatial tools: A CBPR Project in Collaboration with Florida Food Policy Council (FLFPC) [Lead: Hall and Dixon]
  • Living Shoreline Access in Pinellas County: A GIS-Based Analysis through Equity Lens [Lead: Dixon. Cheek, Trotz]

Publications

Selected Works - Barnali M. Dixon (bepress.com)

About Us - The G-SAL Team

Dr. Barnali Dixon, Director, bdixon@usf.edu

Mike Hancock,  Research Associate and Lead Solution Architect  

Alec Colarusso, PhD Student and CRIS Web Interface & App Development 

Julie Earls, Graduate Student and Research Assistant

Kora Klinger - GIS Tech

Mike Licea - GIS Tech

Oliver Laczko - Undergraduate Research Assistant

Visiting Scholars:

Dr. Noriko Tateyama (visitor 2021-2022),  Home Institution: Kanto-Gakuin University, Japan