The Collective is a leader in geospatial solutions for communities and organizations across the state. Whether we're helping cities with their mapping needs, or conducting critical vegetation mapping to assist land-owners in decision making, our team of professional GIS experts and University students are providing the North State with the GIS solutions they need.
For the last 30 years, the Collective has been preparing students for the workforce through engaging, hands-on learning opportunities. Experiences range from data collection, surveying and research to GIS development for regional, state and federal initiatives.
Former alumni of The Collective's internship program have established careers in GIS fields. GIS companies that house our alumni include the California Department of Conservation and Butte County Fire Safety Council.
[The Collective] helped me develop my GIS skills as well as gain experience in a professional setting and build connections that I know will last forever.
For more information about the Collective’s internship program, contact Erik Fintel at efintel@csuchico.edu or Hayley Stone at hmstone@csuchico.edu
The Collective was awarded a three-year contract to create a vegetation map for 2.2 million acres in the far northeast corner of California with portions of the map in Siskiyou, Shasta, Lassen, and Modoc counties. The map will assist land managers in several ways including invasive species management, fire management/prescribed burns, restoration, migration corridor connectivity, sustainable agricultural practices, maintaining population goals for fishing and hunting, and protecting and preserving sensitive plant and animal communities.
The Sacramento River is California’s largest river and claims dozens of lives each year due to drownings, boat accidents, and suicides; it is also a common body dump location for homicide victims. The "Fluvial Transport of Human Remains: Forensic Application of a HECRAS Model for Predicting Search Parameters for Human Remains Recovered from the Sacramento River, CA" study conducted by the Collective’s GIS team helped develop a predictive fluvial transport model for locating human cadavers within the southern half of California's Sacramento River.
The research adapts an existing hydraulic model (Hydrologic Engineering Center's River Analysis System, HEC-RAS) to generate a predictive model of fluvial transport rates of victims who entered the river with known dates and locations under low, medium, and high flow rate conditions.