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PURPOSE Decision-making, operations and planning at all levels of government in Massachusetts, including some mission critical functions, increasingly rely on the capabilities of geographic information systems (GIS) to provide information, create maps and perform analyses. Many businesses, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions similarly rely on GIS in their daily operations. At the municipal level, GIS is being used in public safety and emergency response, property assessment, planning, public health, permitting, school administration, conservation and public works. Regional agencies are using GIS for transportation planning, economic development studies, housing studies, regional development plans and to provide technical assistance to communities on local planning and zoning issues. At the state level, agencies are using GIS for public safety, emergency manaagement and pre-disaster mitigation, permitting review, site development, transportation corridor planning, asset management, natural resource inventory, water supply protection, open space planning and many other purposes. More and more GIS is showing up on municipal web sites - see examples. Regional planning agencies are also moving GIS information on-line - e.g. MAPCs on-line mapping and data exploration tool. State agency web sites with on-line mapping include Department of Revenue, Department of Environmental Protection, legislative district information and many other maps on the Commonwealth's web site. Outside of government, there is widespread use of sites such as Google Maps, MapQuest, and Yahoo! Maps as well as on-line mapping from real-estate web sites such as Zillow and Coldwell Banker. Use of GIS tools is common in many other business sectors including environmental site evaluation, planning and engineering, survey, retail location, health care, insurance, marketing, and delivery services. These public and private sector applications rely on having up-to-date, accurate, and complete map information or "spatial data". Many government agencies rely on the same few essential spatial data sets, often obtained from other agencies, as the base for their use of GIS. Also, it should be recognized that much private sector GIS activity depends on public sector data - for example in Google Maps, the imagery for Massachusetts comes from MassGIS, and the roads (from Navteq) are being updated through a public/private partnership between the Executive Offices of Public Safety and Transportation and MassGIS. In an increasingly electronic world, basic GIS data layers need to be recognized as a shared resource - the Massachusetts Spatial Data Infrastructure. Unfortunately, the committment to consistently develop and maintain these shared spatial data resources is absent. Massachusetts spatial data has been maintained haphazardly through whatever funding and staffing agencies can put together, on occasion through ad hoc agreements between agencies; there is no systematic, institutionalized, approach to developing and maintaining a shared data infrastructure. This ad-hoc approach has resulted in agencies using data that are not current or complete, or in redundant and uncoordinated efforts to create or maintain data. Lack of accurate, accessible and standardized data hinders effective service delivery and limits public agency options for developing operational efficiencies and using GIS to set priorities and respond to public needs. We are currently developing a strategic plan to identify and resolve the problems associated with the lack of a coordinated approach to GIS data use. The strategic plan will compile information and provide recommendations for the development and maintenance of the four most widely used and important "layers" in our shared spatial data infrastructure: 1. Standardized parcel lines as shown on municipal tax maps (these are not yet available statewide), 2. Photo base map ("orthoimagery", including the infrared spectrum and associated elevation data), 3. Standardized road centerline network with address ranges, and 4. Critical infrastructure locations (mapped via address to the parcel/building level; not yet available statewide). The first three layers are on the list of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) framework spatial data layers published by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). The fourth layer, geocoded critical infrastructure, includes those critical infrastructure facilities and locations identified by the national Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) which can readily be geocoded from parcel level address information and/or building outlines. STRATEGIC PLAN BACKGROUND This strategic plan project is being funded by a grant to MassGIS from the U.S. Geological Survey under the Fifty States Initiative, a project of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Support for this initiative also comes from the National Sates Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), of which MassGIS is a member. The USGS grant has been used to retain the services of a consulting firm, Applied Geographics, Inc. Working closely with MassGIS staff and an oversight committee drawn from members of the Massachusetts Geographic Information Council (MGIC), Applied Geographics will design and facilitate most of the workshops and interviews for the project. Feedback from people attending the workshops and participating in the interviews will be collected and compiled. Additional input may be solicited via emails and using web-based tools. Information from the workshops, interviews, and other sources will heavily influence recommendations made in the strategic plan. Applied Geographics will develop the draft and final versions of the strategic plan and related presentation materials, which will then be reviewed by MGIC members and by MassGIS staff. The project schedule calls for delivering the plan by late March or early April. |
Last Updated
12/27/2006
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