DIMAR COVID Geospatial Monitoring
Built a geospatial COVID monitoring workflow for Colombia's national maritime authority using ArcGIS Online and Python, supporting institutional decision-making during the pandemic.
- ArcGIS Online
- Python
- QGIS
- Survey123
Problem
During the COVID-19 pandemic, DIMAR (Colombia’s Dirección General Marítima) needed to monitor the geographic spread and operational impact of the pandemic across its maritime jurisdiction — ports, coastal zones, and naval installations. There was no existing spatial monitoring infrastructure for this use case.
My Role
I designed and implemented the geospatial monitoring workflow end-to-end: data sourcing, spatial processing, and delivery via ArcGIS Online dashboards accessible to decision-makers across the institution.
What I Built
- Data collection: structured intake via Survey123 for field reporting from maritime installations.
- Spatial processing: Python scripts to clean, aggregate, and georeference incident and operational data.
- Visualization: ArcGIS Online dashboards showing geographic distribution, trends, and operational status across DIMAR’s jurisdiction.
- Update cadence: near-daily refresh cycle during peak pandemic monitoring period.
Outcome
A functional institutional monitoring tool used by DIMAR leadership during the pandemic response. The project demonstrated that lightweight GIS infrastructure (Survey123 + ArcGIS Online + Python) could be deployed quickly for institutional decision support without heavy infrastructure investment.