Nathan Sturgill

Delaware Public Utilities Internship(GIS)

September 23, 2021

Weeks 1 & 2

I first began the internship with an orientation meeting at which I met with the GIS technician for the Department of Public Utilities Janelle Valdinger. After orientation I began to familiarize myself with the office and the layout of my space in the office where I would be working as the GIS intern for the remainder of the semester. In the first week I worked with ArcUser information that allowed me to see how ArcGIS software works in the real world and how it can be applied to a variety of fields, not just the field of geography. Also during the first week I attended a Cityworks GIS seminar that explained what the company of Cityworks GIS does on a day to day basis and the different types of clients they have that use the Cityworks GIS software, including the public and private sector. The Cityworks GIS seminar also described in detail the upcoming paid internship they would be offering in the summer of 2022.

During week two of the internship at the Department of Public Utilities in Delaware, I have been working on ArcGIS training through the ESRI training software. The first training software that I experienced was becoming acquainted with the basics of spatial analysis and how analyzing maps created using ArcGIS can help cities, states, and organizations better manage workflow and problem solving. The second training exercise that I went through was exploring the cloudburst issue and the flooding it creates in Copenhagen, Denmark. This exercise had a goal of using a geoprocessing model created with elevation data that marks the low lying elevations in a city that are prone to flooding caused by a cloudburst (extreme rainfall or precipitation in a short period of time). This exercise guided me step by step in how to identify blue spots, or at-risk areas/buildings in a city, and analyze these blue spots to assess at-risk areas in a city and help predict the rainfall required to fill these low lying areas that are prone to flooding. This is yet another example of how ArcGIS software can be applied to help mitigate problems in major cities or countries. 

Next week we will begin working on creating a base map in ArcGIS that will relate to the city of Delaware and go further in depth with what the city of Delaware Public Utilities Department does on a daily basis with ArcGIS. I will also explore how this department solves problems within the city using GIS software and how they capture data regarding specific problems within the city itself. We will also be working with field data and how the GIS technicians within the department use this information to directly coordinate with the rest of the department about which problems should be looked at by the city. I will also be taught how to capture this data in the field myself and I am looking forward to this opportunity.