JHU has used ESRI geospatial tools and data about the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus to put together a near real time web map showing infection and deaths around the globe. The site (https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html) has gained quite a bit of media attention, and rightly so, as it is a great example of how data with spatial references can be quickly and informatively presented.
Land Services SA Leverage Historic Data for Analysis
Land Services SA are not only updating their SAILIS platform, but also partnering with startups to leverage the historic land data they have on record.
Chinese Ghost Cities
One thing that has been consistent across my Chinese travels, and always amazes me, is the sheer volume of new, large scale property developments being built. Whether in Xinjiang province in 2012, or Jiangsu province in 2018, the skyline in many places is dominated by 30+ storey buildings in various stages of completion. Many international finance groups believe this is fueling a record amount of debt within China as the Chinese government spends heavily to create these new dwellings to create jobs. In many cases they build these new areas, suburbs and sometimes entire new cities with no demand. Search online and you can find many reports of people walking through entire cities complete with parks, train stations and shopping malls that are all completely empty. Some of these cities do eventually fill up with people although it is often as a result of generous incentives from the government.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-27/china-ghost-cities-show-growth-driven-by-debt/9912186
The importance of land and property heritage information
Identifying and maintaining heritage information for properties and land is a small but important part of land information management. Tasmania is now looking at updating and correcting its data after anomalies were found during an audit last year. This is especially important for Tasmania as although it is a small Australia state, it is the oldest and has a wealth of beautiful heritage sites.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/5854457/heritage-register-management-plan-initiated/?cs=12