GIS Steering Committee
Minutes 1/2/02 Meeting
Voting Members Present: Ed Suslovic, John Holden, Dan Walters, Jim Barker, Jim Page, Dennis Keschel, Ray Halperin, Paul Mateosian, Harlan Onsrud, Paula Thomson, and Jim Thomas.
Staff Present: Mary Cloutier, Kirsten Hebert, and Mary Ann Hayes
AGI Present: Michael Terner and Richard Sutton
Camp Dresser and McKee Present: Michelle Thaler
The minutes of the 12/19 meeting were reviewed and accepted.
Draft Executive Summary: Michael Turner reviewed a draft in detail with the Steering Committee. Co-chair Ed Suslovic complimented its “readability”, and recommend a short fact sheet outlining the key benefits be prepared to accompany the summary. Dan Walters and Mary Cloutier were asked to estimate the amount of money expended on GIS over the last ten years in State government to use as a comparison.
The Steering Committee
agreed to “closely read” the draft and send comments to Michael by 1/7. The following draft incorporates their
comments.
Executive
Summary
A Program for
Building
The Maine Public Library of
Geographic Information
________________________________________________________________________
Background &
Overview:
Maine is facing increasingly complex challenges in statewide, regional and municipal governments. Providing homeland security. Encouraging economic development. Guiding sensible growth while protecting the environment. All of these fronts require immediate and urgent attention. Addressing these issues involves activities such as the analysis of land use patterns and demographics, the monitoring of water supplies and distribution systems, and identifying critical animal habitats and guiding development away from them. Pursuing these activities requires adequate tools and strong technical investments. Geographic information systems (GIS) technology has proven itself an essential tool that enables Maine to confront these issues from both a policy development and implementation perspective. GIS has a long history, both in Maine and throughout the nation, of addressing these exact types of issues, and Maine has made an excellent start in building a strong GIS capacity. But the next steps are critical. Essential geographic data that permits detailed analysis in these policy arenas are unavailable and must be assembled. Technical exchange and training are inadequate to meet demand and must be provided. Further, there are several unrealized opportunities for greater cooperation and collaboration - both between state agencies and between the state and local government - that could lead to important GIS synergies and efficiencies.
In recognition of these immediate challenges and opportunities the Legislature mandated a strategic GIS planning study aimed at providing a blueprint for further, coordinated development of a strong statewide GIS over the next 5 years. This study has confirmed that further actions are required to help Maine realize a maximum return on its existing GIS investments and to position the State to better address issues of sensible growth, environmental protection, homeland security and economic development. Importantly, the plan is designed so that these actions will help the state obtain required data sets while at the same time providing significant support to the local GIS efforts of the cities and towns of Maine. The Legislature has already recognized the importance of moving Maine's GIS forward and developing a plan. The plan has been developed and it leverages potentially available federal funds to the maximum extent possible. It is now time to act.
Introduction &
Definition of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Historically, maps have been a vital tool for effectively depicting complex information. The human brain has a powerful ability to see patterns and understand relationships when information is depicted cartographically. Maps help people to better understand their immediate environments and the world. Geographic Information Systems, known as GIS, are computer databases and software that store cartographic information and provide powerful map display and analysis capabilities.
Unlike traditional maps, users of GIS can interact with the map via the computer. For example, a user can “click” on a map element and ask “what is this?” The GIS can then query the database, find the element and report the characteristics, or attributes of the element. If one had clicked on a road, the GIS might return the road name, the speed limit and the date the road was last paved. Similarly, a GIS user can query the database of map attributes to search for patterns or look for trends. One might go to the GIS database and query road attributes to find “all roads that had not been paved within the last 10 years”. The GIS would then return a map that would show the location and distribution of all those roads. Such a map would be very important for planning capital improvements to a road network and it would be extremely difficult and time consuming to produce without GIS technology. Further, the same roads data set could be used for a diversity of additional purposes such as routing emergency vehicles in response to an accident. Due to the power of this type of query capability, as well as robust map editing functionality, during the 1990’s GIS became the primary tool large organizations, and increasingly small organizations, use to create, manage, and use maps. Whether private firms such as DeLorme or Rand McNally, federal agencies like the USGS or US Forest Service, or the State of Maine, GIS is now employed as a common productivity tool.
Recently, GIS capabilities have been brought to the World Wide Web. GIS is no longer a technology limited to technical specialists. GIS data and GIS capabilities are readily available and accessible by web browsers through Internet sites such as MapQuest.com or the National Geographic Map Machine. This type of wide data availability has helped create an increased awareness of the importance of GIS. In addition, increased data availability has helped increase the returns on data investment by enlarging the number of users, and broadening the range of uses of a single GIS database.
History of GIS Use in Maine
& an Overview of the Proposed Program
The State of Maine has been an active user of GIS technology since the 1980’s. Maine has made solid GIS investments within many departments and state agencies. In addition, the Maine Bureau of Information Systems houses the Maine Office of GIS (MeGIS) which acts as a state level service bureau and provides centralized access to GIS data for the general public and private sectors.
Maine’s GIS programs have evolved with the technology over time. Initially and by technical necessity, these were isolated and independent systems. Later these state systems were loosely coupled and confederated and explicit coordination between agencies emerged. At present, there is increasing GIS activity both within state government and within municipal and regional governments. This increase in participants has greatly increased the need for coordination and it has also highlighted a few important data gaps in Maine. Based on the research conducted through this study, it is time for a further, natural evolution of statewide GIS in Maine. It is time for Maine to take GIS “to the next level”. The question is whether this evolution takes place organically with the inherent risk of duplication of effort and missteps, or whether it takes place in a planned and well coordinated fashion.
This study documents how several targeted GIS investments will help Maine realize a greater return on a decade’s worth GIS investments while solving several operational problems that GIS users in Maine currently face. In addition, as Maine grapples with important regional issues such as sensible growth and economic development, GIS offers rich possibilities for supporting policy development and implementation, provided that the appropriate data sets are available. At present, there are key gaps in several of these data sets.
Perhaps most importantly this proposed program attempts to create an explicit coordination mechanism between the state and numerous regional and local GIS efforts. While there are good examples of coordination between state agencies, there is room for significant improvement and intra-governmental GIS coordination between the state and regional/local efforts is lacking. Filling this void is increasingly important as local efforts continue to accelerate.
Achieving this level of coordination will create an important “win-win” for Mainers. First, local governments will greatly benefit from state support during the critical startup phases of GIS development. Seed money for data development as well as technical support will go far in helping new communities become involved with GIS. Second, the state government will greatly benefit by having increased electronic access to important locally controlled GIS data sets such as parcels and zoning. Activities such as sensible growth and economic development require access to these types of local data.
History of the Resolve 23
Process and Genesis of this Study
Recognizing opportunities to capitalize on new technology and advance Maine’s statewide GIS program to include new data sets and further coordination, both MeGIS and the interdepartmental GIS Executive Council began planning for a more robust statewide GIS initiative in 1999-2000. Based on this planning, during 2001 a proposal emerged to fund statewide parcel automation partially as a means of expanding the statewide GIS to better be able to handle ongoing sensible growth and development tracking efforts.
During consideration of this proposal there was agreement that given the magnitude of this initiative there was a need for further planning to better understand the specific needs and to craft a more detailed implementation strategy. Rather than passing the initial proposal, the Legislature authored Resolve 23 and initiated a specific planning process aimed at determining the best course of action for further developing Maine’s statewide GIS. The Legislature created a Steering Committee composed of representatives of state, regional and local governments as well as members of the private sector and academic communities to oversee this planning process. The Legislature charged the Steering Committee with reporting their findings and recommendations during January, 2002.
During the Summer of 2001, the Steering Committee issued a request for proposal to obtain professional consulting assistance in developing this plan. Applied Geographics, Inc, teamed with CDM and GIS Mapping & Analysis, Inc., won the contract to perform the planning by working in close association with both the Steering Committee and the MeGIS staff. This study is the result of that planning effort
Major Findings from the
Needs Assessment
During
the initial phases of the planning effort over 70 individual parties in Maine
were contacted and interviewed in an attempt to fully understand the needs for
an expanded statewide GIS program in Maine. Interviewees included 22 individual
municipalities, 14 regional governmental entities, 18 state agencies, 5
utilities, 9 federal agencies as well as members of the academic and private
sector communities. Within
municipalities, the team spoke with various Assessors, Planners, Town
Managers/Executives and staff from DPW and Engineering Departments. From these interviews, several major
findings of need emerged. These
included:
·
Wide Interest in GIS: There was an
incredibly high degree of interest in GIS and in an expanded statewide GIS
program from almost all entities that were interviewed. People were aware of what the technology
offered and were eager to become more involved. Most parties strongly believed that
statewide efforts would greatly assist local and regional entities in becoming
more involved with GIS.
·
Multiple Statewide Initiatives: There are
several state government agencies aggressively pursuing GIS on a statewide
basis. While there are explicit
efforts at coordination, there remains some duplication of effort and room for
further, better coordination among these programs. For instance, there is no single
location where all of the best state-produced GIS data for Maine currently
exists. If an entity needed to
collect all of the data for Maine, they would need to visit multiple state
agencies.
·
Large Need for Education & Technical
Assistance: Although there is a high degree of GIS activity within local
and regional governments, many of these efforts are hindered by a lack of
technical assistance, and basic problems can prove difficult to overcome. Similarly, there are many nascent GIS
efforts at the local level that could be greatly aided by outreach and education
from the state. Disseminating
information on topics such as costs/benefits of GIS, application examples for
municipal government and the development process for constructing a GIS would be
extremely valuable.
·
Requirements for New Data: While Maine has
made an excellent start at developing statewide data sets, there remain several
important data gaps that hinder the ability of the state, and other entities to
tackle problems such as sensible growth, economic development and environmental
protection. Notable gaps include:
parcels, zoning, protected open space and land cover. In addition, the availability of a
high-quality, statewide aerial-photo base map would be very helpful for
catalyzing and improving the quality of local data development efforts (e.g.
parcels and zoning).
·
Incremental Improvements in Operational Efficiency
of MeGIS: While there was a high degree of praise for MeGIS and the data
sets it distributes, there were several suggestions for operational improvements
that could be made that would make it easier for MeGIS to deliver data to its
end-users in more useful formats. These types of efficiencies could be added
relatively easily with some targeted investments in newer technology and
associated applications.
