Shital Dhakal, GISP

Shital Dhakal, GISP

Berkeley, California, United States
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One of the core tension in building a product is prioritizing the highest-ROI…

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Activity

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Experience

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    Santa Clara, California, United States

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    Sacramento, California

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    Walnut Creek, CA

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    Boise, Idaho Area

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    Lalitpur, Nepal

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    Nice Area, France

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    Kathmandu University(KU) & Land Management Training Center (LMTC)

Education

Licenses & Certifications

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Volunteer Experience

  • Chairperson

    Solano Regional GIS Consortium (ReGIS)

    - 8 months

    Science and Technology

    Solano Regional GIS Consortium (Solano ReGIS) is a cooperative of local government agencies within Solano County, California, working together to share spatial data, pool resources, and provide GIS expertise to Solano ReGIS members.

  • Executive Board Member

    California GIS Council

    - 2 years 5 months

    Served as the City government and private industry representative on the Executive Committee of the Council. The purpose of the Council is to promote a greater understanding and use of the benefits of GIS, and facilitate cooperation throughout the State of California by supporting the collection, acquisition, sharing, and dissemination of GIS data, standards, and policies.

  • Packt Graphic

    Book Reviewer

    Packt

    - Present 2 years 1 month

    Science and Technology

    Geospatial Data Analytics on AWS: Discover how to manage and analyze geospatial data in the cloud

  • Packt Graphic

    Book Reviewer

    Packt

    - Present 6 years 3 months

    Education

    Reviewed - 'Geospatial Data Science Quick Start Guide'

  • Elsevier Graphic

    Reviewer

    Elsevier

    - Present 7 years

    Education

  • Toastmasters International Graphic

    Vice President Public Relations

    Toastmasters International

    - 1 month

    Education

    Confidence Builders Toastmasters Club 3972

  • US Army Corps of Engineers Graphic

    Volunteer efforts at Lucky Peak Project, Walla Walla District

    US Army Corps of Engineers

    - Present 11 years 4 months

    Environment

  • OpenStreetMap Foundation Graphic

    Editor

    OpenStreetMap Foundation

    Disaster and Humanitarian Relief

    Have been volunteering in updating OpenStreetMap in spare time.

  • Executive Member

    Boise Nepalese Association, Idaho

    - 1 year 1 month

    Disaster and Humanitarian Relief

    -Actively participating in plannings meetings, maintaining an official website and organizing various events to collect donations for various non-profit organizations.
    -Helped raise over $10,000 + donations for earthquake relief fund after series of massive(upto 7.8 magnitude) earthquake of April 2015 in Nepal.

  • Supervisor, ANSWER Alumni Association (AAA)

    American-Nepali Student and Women Education Relief (ANSWER)

    - Present 12 years

    Education

    Attending, coordinating and assisting graduates and college students with their meetings and projects.
    ANSWER is a nonprofit, non-partisan, non-religious organization that believes in empowering low caste children by introducing them to quality education. Its mission is to educate children from the lowest castes and provide them with real lifelong careers so that they will be come the vanguard for real change in Nepal.

  • UN-HABITAT (United Nation Human Settlements Programme) Graphic

    Event Volunteer

    UN-HABITAT (United Nation Human Settlements Programme)

    - Present 15 years

    Education

    Volunteered in “Transparency in Land Administration, Training for Trainers” organized by Kathmandu University in collaboration with UN Habitat and ITC, The Netherlands .

  • Amnesty International Graphic

    Student Member

    Amnesty International

    - 1 year 2 months

    Human Rights

  • Founding Member

    Nepal Geomatics Engineering Society

    Science and Technology

Publications

  • A Modern City’s Transition from Paper & Pen Workflow to Smart GIS Apps

    ESRI User Conference

    With limited resources at their disposal, local governments have a diverse task to perform every day: from inspecting buildings to maintaining public utilities, from policing community to designing sidewalks, and from attracting new businesses to preparing for emergencies. In this presentation, We provide a case study of a smart City to demonstrate how the use of GIS as an enterprise technology has decreased redundancy and improved decision making, civic engagement and service delivery.

    See publication

  • Lidar Aboveground Vegetation Biomass Estimates in Shrublands: Prediction, Uncertainties and Application to Coarser Scales

    Remote Sensing

    Our study objectives were to model the aboveground biomass in a xeric shrub-steppe landscape with airborne light detection and ranging (Lidar) and explore the uncertainty associated with the statistical and Machine Learning models we created.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Landsat 8 Coupled With Lidar Estimate Semi-arid Rangeland Biomass and Cover

    American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 2015

    Key Findings
    We successfully modeled the vegetation cover at a large scale using multispectral imagery (Landsat 8). The frequent occurrence of soil adjusted metrics in the model demonstrates the influence of bare soil reflectance in the spectral models in this rangeland ecosystem.
    We found the best model to describe vegetation cover fractions included vegetation indices calculated from multiple acquisitions dates. This was because the model was able to account for the differential…

    Key Findings
    We successfully modeled the vegetation cover at a large scale using multispectral imagery (Landsat 8). The frequent occurrence of soil adjusted metrics in the model demonstrates the influence of bare soil reflectance in the spectral models in this rangeland ecosystem.
    We found the best model to describe vegetation cover fractions included vegetation indices calculated from multiple acquisitions dates. This was because the model was able to account for the differential phenological transitions of the vegetation.
    Lidar was found to better estimate shrub biomass than Landsat. The only limitation of lidar being its high expense to map the entire NCA.
    Lidar could not satisfactorily model the herbaceous biomass in the field site (R2 < 2) due to the low ground cover and stature of the herbs.
    As per our imputed map, the NCA contains ~ 344925 Kg of herbaceous biomass and ~ 313420 Kg of shrub biomass. Similarly, more than 70 % of NCA has shrub biomass less than 100 g/m2 and 50% of land with less than 100 g/m2 of herb biomass. More than 68 % of NCA has shrub cover of 10% or less.
    Validation of the biomass and cover results (Table 2) demonstrates that bias was introduced from the in-situ data and modeling approach. Independent assessments are necessary to quantify uncertainty.

    Other authors

  • Comparison of Linear and Non-Linear Models to Estimate Leaf Area Index of Dryland Shrubs

    AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 2015

    Conclusions:
    Both statistical and physical approaches provide acceptable results, however the appropriate
    spectral region for each one is different and needs further investigation.
    The second derivative of the spectra can help us identify regions where the vegetation signature
    can be separated from the soil signature in mixed spectra (i.e. arid ecosystems).
    We did the same analysis on Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata ) with poor results, potentially due
    to the confusion of…

    Conclusions:
    Both statistical and physical approaches provide acceptable results, however the appropriate
    spectral region for each one is different and needs further investigation.
    The second derivative of the spectra can help us identify regions where the vegetation signature
    can be separated from the soil signature in mixed spectra (i.e. arid ecosystems).
    We did the same analysis on Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata ) with poor results, potentially due
    to the confusion of LAI and plant area index field data. Further studies are required.

    Other authors

  • Assessing the Limitation and Capabilities of Landsat and Lidar for Estimation of Semi-arid Rangeland Biomass and Cover using a Machine Learning Algorithm

    NASA ARSET Remote Sensing for wildfire application workshop

  • Estimating Aboveground Biomass of Sagebrush Using Airborne Laser Scanning and Random Forest Regression

    Great Basin Consortium Conference, Boise, ID, US

    Quantifying aboveground total biomass of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), as well as native and non-native grasses, is important for modeling climate and hydrological dynamics, estimating pre-fire and post-fire fuel loads, measuring carbon storage, assessing habitat quality and managing changes in sagebrush-steppe environments. Remote sensing data, including LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) which provides vegetation vertical structure information, have been used for biomass estimation…

    Quantifying aboveground total biomass of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), as well as native and non-native grasses, is important for modeling climate and hydrological dynamics, estimating pre-fire and post-fire fuel loads, measuring carbon storage, assessing habitat quality and managing changes in sagebrush-steppe environments. Remote sensing data, including LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) which provides vegetation vertical structure information, have been used for biomass estimation modeling across medium to large scales. In this study, we incorporate airborne LiDAR data with ground validation for scaling shrub and grass biomass from small scales (1m-subplot up to 100m-plot scale) to large, regional scales in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (NCA), Idaho. Various vegetation metrics and statistics derived from the point density airborne LiDAR were trained and linked with the aboveground biomass ground validation data using the Random Forest regression approach. The relationship was then used to impute (i.e. scale biomass to the larger study region covered by LiDAR data (9970 hectares). Our results demonstrate that LiDAR-derived metrics based on vegetation height (including mean absolute deviation from mean height and standard deviation of height) have a strong correlation with the field-measured biomass (R2~ 0.74). This method can be used to determine the most important metrics to estimate biomass in semiarid shrubland across Northwest United States.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Quantifying and predicting fuels and the effects of reduction treatments along successional and invasion gradients in sagebrush habitats

    Joint Fire Sciences

    Ref: Graaff, Kyle Anderson, Justin Welty, Lucas Spaete, Shital Dhakal, and Charlie Baun. "Quantifying and predicting fuels and the effects of reduction treatments along successional and invasion gradients in sagebrush habitats."
    This information is preliminary and is subject to revision. It is being provided to meet the need for timely
    best science information. The information is provided on the condition that neither the U.S. Geological
    Survey nor the United States Government may be…

    Ref: Graaff, Kyle Anderson, Justin Welty, Lucas Spaete, Shital Dhakal, and Charlie Baun. "Quantifying and predicting fuels and the effects of reduction treatments along successional and invasion gradients in sagebrush habitats."
    This information is preliminary and is subject to revision. It is being provided to meet the need for timely
    best science information. The information is provided on the condition that neither the U.S. Geological
    Survey nor the United States Government may be held liable for any damages resulting from the
    authorized or unauthorized use of the information. Any use of trade names is for descriptive purposes
    only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. government

    Other authors
    • Doug Shinneman
    • Anne Halford
    • David S Pillod
    • Robert Arkle
    See publication

  • Using Multispectral Imagery, LiDAR and Field Measurements to Scale up Aboveground Biomass in the Sagebrush-Steppe, Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area

    Conference: Society For Ecological Restoration (SER) Northwest & Great Basin Regional Conference,2014, Redmond, Oregon

    Second best poster

    Other authors
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  • Hydrological Modeling of the Potential Impact of a Forest Fire on Runoff in a Mediterranean Catchment

    Conference: FIG Congress 2014 Engaging the Challenges, Enhancing the Relevance, 16 – 21 June 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Land Cover Change and Urban Settlement Extraction in Kathmandu Valley Using Remote Sensing: A Proposition

    GeoSpace, Geo-ICT Journal of GES, 1 (1):31-33, Kathmandu University, Nepal

    See publication
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Projects

  • Public Tree Inventory for the North End, Boise, Idaho

    Performed field data collection, geocoding and GIS analysis to produce a spatially explicit tree inventory in Boise Northend using ArcGIS and Adobe Illustrator.

    Other creators

  • Using Python to Automate Watershed Delineation in Colorado river

    Used arcpy module of Python and ModelBuiler in ArcGIS to automate the process of watershed delineation in Colorado river

  • Long Profile of the Trishuli & Buri Gandaki Rivers, Nepal

    Used Google Earth and ArcGIS (Spatial Analyst, Raster Calculator) to calculate, analyze and present Hypsometry Index, Concavity Index, river pattern topography, Sinuosity, Hack's Index and R1 Index of the Himalayan rivers in Nepal.

    Other creators

  • Building a Simple Web Map Service (WMS) Client Using 'Tkinter' in Python

    The objective of the project is to build a GUI that will fetch WMS image and save it. The GUI will try to open the image.
    A WMS client submits requests in the form of URLs and asks a Web Map Server to do things which it can. The client could be the user and a standard web browser or a specialist program. The content of the URL however depends upon the tasks requested and these URLs include the WMS Specification version number and a request type parameter. In order to produce a map, the URL…

    The objective of the project is to build a GUI that will fetch WMS image and save it. The GUI will try to open the image.
    A WMS client submits requests in the form of URLs and asks a Web Map Server to do things which it can. The client could be the user and a standard web browser or a specialist program. The content of the URL however depends upon the tasks requested and these URLs include the WMS Specification version number and a request type parameter. In order to produce a map, the URL parameters indicate which area of the earth is to be mapped, the co-ordinate system to be used, the type(s) of information to be shown, the desired output format and the output size. In order to query the content of the map, the URL parameters indicate what map layer is being queried and which location of the map is of interest and in order to ask a mapserver about its holdings, these URL parameters include the getcapabilities request type.

    Other creators

  • Preparation of Business Plan for 'The Navigator Pvt. Ltd'

    The pin-pointing location of services, product and people has become more demanding while coming to the 21st century. As the society becomes more cosmopolitan, a single day doesn’t remain without the need of interaction with new situation and alien circumstances. With this has arisen an acute need of a service that manages the everyday activity of an individual.
    ‘The Navigator’ is a company and a product marketed under the same name in the form of a built in application for smart phones…

    The pin-pointing location of services, product and people has become more demanding while coming to the 21st century. As the society becomes more cosmopolitan, a single day doesn’t remain without the need of interaction with new situation and alien circumstances. With this has arisen an acute need of a service that manages the everyday activity of an individual.
    ‘The Navigator’ is a company and a product marketed under the same name in the form of a built in application for smart phones and laptops that assists it users in nearly all his activities throughout his/her day relating to geo-location. Be it travelling to a new city or refueling the car or finding a nearby momo café, the user will find the assistance of ‘The Navigator’ an essential component for their hassle free chores.

  • Project Management Analysis of Pemba Gelu Micro-Hydro Power-plant using CPM and PERT

    A micro-hydro power plant of 12 KWe namely Pemba Gelu is to be built in the Solukhambhu district of Sagarmatha Zone. This dummy project is being built from the collected funding of Non-residental Nepali (NRN) and is one of the several such projects being built all over the country. The project has to be accomplished with minimum of impact to the local environment in economical way with maximum participation of the local people. Nearly all the legal and official work has been done some 5 years…

    A micro-hydro power plant of 12 KWe namely Pemba Gelu is to be built in the Solukhambhu district of Sagarmatha Zone. This dummy project is being built from the collected funding of Non-residental Nepali (NRN) and is one of the several such projects being built all over the country. The project has to be accomplished with minimum of impact to the local environment in economical way with maximum participation of the local people. Nearly all the legal and official work has been done some 5 years ago, hence the project has to be started and completed at once. It is understood that the procurement part of the project has already been completed.

  • Utilizing Handheld GPS to Map Touristic Sites and Facilities in Pokhara

    Instruments and Software used:
    • GARMIN etrex VISTA HCX GPS receiver
    • Mapsource 6.13.7
    • MsExcel 2007
    • ESRI ArcGIS 9.3
    The main objective of our project was to prepare an informative tourist map focussing mainly on the existing as well as the potential tourist sites in city of Pokahra in Gandaki region.

    Other creators

  • Using Total Station and Core Cadastral Domain Model (CCDM) for Digital Cadastral Survey in Bajrabarahi, Makwanpur District

    Cadastre is the record of ownership, value and quantity of land on the basis of boundary survey. This project consisted of two modules: Digital Cadastre and Graphical (Manual) Cadastre. The Digital cadastral consisted procedure of data acquisition, processing and dissemination along with preparation of records in digital environment. The process included control point establishment, detail survey, database preparation and map generation. Ultimately, the process of report generation was…

    Cadastre is the record of ownership, value and quantity of land on the basis of boundary survey. This project consisted of two modules: Digital Cadastre and Graphical (Manual) Cadastre. The Digital cadastral consisted procedure of data acquisition, processing and dissemination along with preparation of records in digital environment. The process included control point establishment, detail survey, database preparation and map generation. Ultimately, the process of report generation was performed in accordance with the application extension of ArcGIS used by Banepa Digital Cadastral Pilot Project i.e Parcel editor.
    The working area of the field was in Bajrabarahi VDC of Makwanpur district.

    Other creators

  • Road, Bridge and Small Hydro-power Survey in Dhungrebas, Sindhuli District

    This project was undertaken to understand the construction of small hydropower with intake, canal ,surge tank, penstock, power house and tail race. The route survey was done to determine best route between the two termini and also to find the most suitable combination of alignment, gradient and other details of the selected route.

    -To provide the tentitive length and alignment of the canal.
    -To provide the topographical map of the area around the area encompassed by the…

    This project was undertaken to understand the construction of small hydropower with intake, canal ,surge tank, penstock, power house and tail race. The route survey was done to determine best route between the two termini and also to find the most suitable combination of alignment, gradient and other details of the selected route.

    -To provide the tentitive length and alignment of the canal.
    -To provide the topographical map of the area around the area encompassed by the project.
    -To provide suitable site, gradient and alignment for construction of various features.
    To provide the tentitive length and alignment of the road by taking chainage at every 10 meter.
     To provide the topographic map(i.e. terrain representation) of the stripe around the road
    within an interval(20 meter) distance from the road center
     To provide suitable curves at the place where alignment and/or gradient changes.
     To provide proper gradients and calculate earthwork on the improvement of an existing roads.

    Other creators

  • Control and Topographic Survey and Map preparation of Oriend Magnesite Company Premises,Sindhupalchowk using Differential GPS and Total Station

    Other creators

Honors & Awards

  • Perplexity AI Business Fellowship

    Perplexity AI

    This application-based fellowship program is designed for individuals who want to:
    -Develop their career in the AI industry
    -Become an AI thought leader
    -Become an AI champion at their organization

  • Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing

    Applied Geography - ELSEVIER

    Awarded by Elsevier in recognition of the contribution made to the quality of the Applied Geography journal.

  • Travel Grant

    ASBSU

    Travel Grant to attend and present research findings in AGU Conference in Downtown San Francisco

  • Second Best Poster

    Society For Ecological Restoration (SER), Northwest & Great Basin Chapter

    Founded in 1987, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is a non-profit organization comprised of individuals and partner organizations from around the world who are actively engaged in the repair and recovery of degraded ecosystems utilizing a broad array of experiences, knowledge sets, and cultural perspectives. SER members include scientists, planners, administrators, consultants, indigenous peoples, landscape architects, teachers, artists, engineers, natural resource managers…

    Founded in 1987, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is a non-profit organization comprised of individuals and partner organizations from around the world who are actively engaged in the repair and recovery of degraded ecosystems utilizing a broad array of experiences, knowledge sets, and cultural perspectives. SER members include scientists, planners, administrators, consultants, indigenous peoples, landscape architects, teachers, artists, engineers, natural resource managers, farmers/growers, community leaders, and volunteers.

  • 2014 Merit based GEM GRAD Scholarship

    Boise State University

    The Gem Scholarship is a special scholarship for qualified nonresidents that waives the full-time nonresident portion of tuition for out-of-state students. Gem recipients pay only the resident fees—a
    savings of approximately $12,000/year.
    Final selection for the Gem is HIGHLY competitive. Students must meet all criteria to be considered for this award.

  • Erasmus Mundus

    European Union

    Erasmus Mundus Mobility with Asia is funding exchange programme between Asia and Europe for individual mobility flows of academics from Partner Countries. This programme is sponsored by the Erasmus Mundus programme of the European Commission. The programme is built on a partnership of 17 Universities, 10 in Asia and 7 in Europe.

  • Council Head

    Student Council, Caspian Valley College, Kumaripati, Lalitpur

  • 2006 Mahatma Gandhi Scholarship

    Indian Embassy in Nepal

    The Mahatma Gandhi scholarship is educational interchange program between India & Nepal. The scholarship is awarded to deserving high school students.

  • Winner

    Kantipur Engineering Institute (KEI) Nationwide Inter College Quiz Competition, Lalitpur

Languages

  • English

    Full professional proficiency

  • Nepali

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • French

    Limited working proficiency

  • Hindi

    Professional working proficiency

  • Urdu

    Limited working proficiency

Organizations

  • URISA

    -

    - Present

  • Nepal Geomatics Engineering Society

    Founding Member

    - Present

  • American Geophysical Union

    Member

    - Present

  • Northwest GIS User Group

    Member

    - Present

    The Northwest GIS User Group, Inc. is a non-profit organization that provides a forum for training, exchange of knowledge, techniques, and data among the users of ESRI software and related GIS products and services.

  • Society For Ecological Restoration (SER) North West Chapter

    Member

    - Present

  • Kantipur International College of Engineering and Management

    Lecturer

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  • Geomatics Engineering Society

    General Secretary

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