A Hands-On Tutorial: Risk Mapping with Metro's Social Vulnerability Explorer

This hands-on workshop provides an introduction to using Metro’s Social Vulnerability Explorer (SVE), a web-based interactive mapping tool funded by the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization. The SVE enables the exploration and analysis of the geographic intersection between demographic characteristics and environmental hazards.

This training has three parts, each of which will take about 30 minutes including time for questions. The first section will cover basic tool functionality, training participants on the core user interface of the mapping platform. The second section will explore the tradeoff in the tool between geographic scale and data precision (i.e., smaller areas have fewer demographic indicators available). The third section will cover the various risk scenarios, including earthquakes, floods, urban heat, and wildfire.

Participants can bring their laptops and work alongside the facilitator or simply sit back and follow along conceptually. The Social Vulnerability Explorer is available at the following link: gis.oregonmetro.gov/social-vulnerability-explorer

Joe Gordon is a Principal GIS Specialist at Metro (Portland, Oregon) that specializes in demographic, remote sensing and environmental justice analyses, including indicator development, social and environmental index development, and hazard preparedness.

A recent project Joe has managed is the development of Metro's Social Vulnerability Explorer. As part of this project, he has held numerous hands-on trainings on the use of the Social Vulnerability Explorer with regional partners and community organizations.

As a co-manager of Metro's Cooling Corridors Study, Joe convened and moderated an expert panel which included the Chief Heat Officers from Miami-Dade County, Boston, and Athens, Greece. Additionally, as part of the Cooling Corridors Study, he convened and moderated a monthly advisory group of governmental partners in the Portland metropolitan region.

As part of the leadership of various interest groups in the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Joe has also organized and moderated national webinars related to environmental resiliency, data analysis, and socioeconomic forecasting.

In addition, he has been a part-time instructor at Portland Community College for ten years, teaching classes related to Geographic Information Systems (GIS).