GIS as an enterprise municipal system.

• Author: Babinski, Greg
• Position: Geographic information system

In the past two decades, geographic information system (GIS) technology has become much more powerful, while costs have declined. GIS has become a common business tool, and many basic GIS capabilities are now used directly by government agency business users--including finance staff--elected officials, and the general public. As the technology has matured and applications proliferated, many government agencies now consider GIS a mission-critical enterprise system, along with financial, human resources, enterprise resource planning, and asset management systems.

King County, Washington--which comprises 2,000 square miles and has a population of 1.8 million--invested more than $10 million in its initial GIS development. On the other end of the spectrum, the City of Mercer Island--which comprises six square miles within King County and has a population of 22,000 and--invested barely $300,000 for its original GIS development. Both agencies rely on GIS for dozens of purposes, including managing their utility systems, providing a key tool for planning and permitting, and supporting public safety and emergency management. GIS supports many unique needs for each agency as well--such as protecting and managing the three bald eagle nesting sites on Mercer Island and helping King County assess how increases in sea level, related to global warming, will affect its waterfront.

SUPPORTING BUSINESS NEEDS

GIS is not a single-purpose system, but an enabling technology that supports multiple business needs. It harnesses the power of framework geographic information by providing locational context for almost any municipal data. GIS software allows public agency data to be processed, analyzed, and displayed quickly and effectively to support better decision making.

Data Maintenance. Municipal framework data, the foundation for GIS, typically includes transportation (streets, highways, and street addresses), property ownership (tax parcels and land surveys), boundaries (city, district, census, zip, etc.), natural features (streams and topography), and imagery (digital aerial photography). Framework data, which provides the geographic context for other business data, was maintained for years before GIS was developed. For example, the assessor maintained paper tax parcel maps, the public works department maintained street paving maps, and the utility department maintained sewer maps. Traditional, paper-based map maintenance was labor intensive, prone to errors, and did not support agency-wide use. GIS allows technicians to maintain base maps with considerable time and costs savings, and automated processes within the software help reduce errors and improve accuracy. Network technology enables everyone in the organization to share framework GIS data for their own business needs.

Framework GIS data require constant updating as transportation, property ownership, boundaries, or other features change. Because GIS data is expensive to develop and maintain, it makes sense to pursue collaborative data sharing opportunities with other public agencies in order to minimize costs.

Business Process Improvement. GIS supports better business data management, which can lead to business process improvements. For example, a county with paper permit records could scan their records for system automation and improved records security. The scanned permit records could then be retrieved within GIS by street address, by owner, by type of property, or by many other geographic variables. A planner or permit technician could use GIS to retrieve and view other nearby permits, utility information, and even high-resolution digital aerial photography of the site. Permit applications could then be processed by the agency at reduced cost and in less time for the applicant. GIS helps put a wide variety of data and records into geographic context for informed decision making.

Natural and manmade disasters during the past decade have exposed a nationwide need for better management of local street address data. Most regions have multiple jurisdictions and even departments within jurisdictions that assign and maintain street addresses. In many regions, the U.S. Postal Service, county assessor, local permitting agency, fire department, and enhanced 911 each maintain separate street address databases. Multiple street address databases within a given location usually contain significant discrepancies and represent wasteful duplication of effort. This situation is of concern to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, states, and local first-responder agencies, which need accurate street address data to deploy GIS for effective coordination of multiple agencies in response to any type of emergency.

Map Making. "Show me a map" is the most frequent request GIS staff receive, and map making is a powerful GIS application. GIS-based maps are easier to create and...