A presentation to the Delaware Academy of Lifelong Learning on GIS technologies. References: http://bit.ly/cexEAl

1. Mike Mahaffie Data Coordinator State of Delaware Office of State planning coordination GIS, Geospatial Data and You(or, Why Google Maps Works)

6. What Does Delaware Look Like? Delaware’s boundary is marked by 179 monuments. Some are lovely carvedstones Some are not They were set starting incolonial times by surveyors including Mason & Dixon. They mark all but one of the lines that make up our state boundary

7. What Does Delaware Look Like? The Transpeninsular Line The Tangent Line The Arc Line The North Line The Top of the Wedge Line The 12-mile Circle The 1934 Mean Low Water Line The Delaware Bay Line

8. Here’s Something That Worries Me The Transpeninsular Line Starts Here What Happens Here!?!

9. Why is He Like This? I have three jobs Technical support for the Office of State Planning Coordination Liaison between Delaware and the Census Bureau State GIS Coordinator The first two are tough enough But getting all the minutiae of digital mapping straight can make you….

10. By the Way… “GIS” stands for Geographic Information System The tools and dataneeded to combinedatabase info withgeographic location What, added towhere, equals usableknowledge “Geospatial Data”

11. How Do We Use GIS? State land-use policy development State Strategies for Policies and Spending Development Reviews Transportation planning and management Environmental policies and management Sea-level rise studies Habitat studies Plume modeling for spills and other bad things Health planning and epidemiologic studies 911 dispatch and emergency event management

12. Municipal Comprehensive Plans

13. Municipal Comprehensive Plans + County Comprehensive Plans

14. Municipal Comprehensive Plans + County Comprehensive Plans + Public-Owned/Protected A Statewide Approach

20. Where Does This Data Come From? Basic mapping used to comefrom USGS in the form of Topographic Maps Starting in the 1980s, theCensus Bureau developed TIGER The "Topologically IntegratedGeographic Encoding andReferencing" system Helped lead to GIS

21. But Those Are National in Scale Topographic Maps are at 1:24000 To map the wholeof the US, you needto map at very small scales Say, 1:3000000 What does that mean for a smallstate? It’s not good…

24. In Delaware, We Map at Large Scales Generally, wemap at 1:2400

25. In Delaware, We Map at Large Scales Generally, wemap at 1:2400 But we often golarger (1:1000)

26. Local Data Are Better Two things we’ve learned: The closer you are to something, the more clearly you map it Those who are in charge of a thing should maintain the data about that thing Therefore, the best geospatial data come from local and county sources In our case, generally from the state (we’re special) Eg: Most roads in Delaware are maintained by the state

27. But Data Must be Organized & Aggregated The Delaware GeographicData Committee formed in 1998 To coordinate the use and sharing of GIS data and tools in Delaware A collegial organization that existed because it said it did (minor reference in state code) Partnerships, relationships and friendships have been key Ultimately about 500 members

28. Goals of GIS Coordination Ensure that geospatial data are maintained and published in such a manner that they are readily available to all appropriate data users to support state and local government functions; Promote the use and sharing of geospatial data and of geographic information system software and tools by state agencies and local governments; Establish standards for the appropriate publication of geospatial data and metadata; and Provide for a coordinated community of geospatial data providers and geospatial data users in Delaware. 29 Del. Code, § 9141

29. Goals of GIS Coordination Ensure that geospatial data are maintained and published in such a manner that they are readily available to all appropriate data users to support state and local government functions; Promote the use and sharing of geospatial data and of geographic information system software and tools by state agencies and local governments; Establish standards for the appropriate publication of geospatial data and metadata; and Provide for a coordinated community of geospatial data providers and geospatial data users in Delaware. 29 Del. Code, § 9141

30. DGDC Has Been a Success Organized and published a series of data sets that make-up a digital base map of Delaware: Aerial photography Boundaries Parcels Elevation Geographic Names Land Use/Land Cover Transportation Water Features

31. DGDC Has Been a Success Created one of the first online GIS data portals – The Delaware DataMIL Presented a digital topographic map of Delaware Always up to date Always available on-line

33. DGDC is Becoming More Formal Updated legislation in 2007 to create an Executive Council of the DGDC Now re-organizing to establish high-level GIS data policy Council includes cabinet-level leaders, counties, municipal governments and others

34. But What about Everyone Else? There has been a long discussion about defining a base map for the whole US We call it the National Spatial Data Infrastructure – The NSDI Who is in charge of this? Parts come from different states and from different federal agencies Many varied partnerships There is a Federal Geographic Data Committee And a National Geospatial Advisory Committee Too many chiefs?

35. And The States are Organized State GIS Coordinators from almost all states have joined together as the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) To make sure all the states are organized And partnering withthe federalgovernment And the private sector

36. Which Brings Us To… GOOGLE Bing Maps MapQuest And Many More

37. Anything Look Familiar Here?

38. Where Does Google Get Its Data? Background orthophotos for Delaware on Google Maps (and Earth) are from Delaware’s 2007 ortho project They are aggregating publicly available data into their own version of the NSDI This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.. They are getting it done But who is legally responsible?

39. For Example The Judy V is a Charter Boat sailing out of The Indian River Inlet – off of Inlet Road, south of Dewey Beach

40. Crowd-Sourced Data Increasingly, data is being created by regular folks As hobbyists As part of data projects As a by-product of social media activity

44. Who Will Build The NSDI? NGAC Chair Anne Hale Miglarese (Paraphrased): Unless there is significant investment in the next few years, the private sector will own the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. TechCrunch writer Erick Schonfeld: These efforts at creating an underlying database of places are duplicative… It is time for an open database of places which all companies and developers can both contribute to and borrow from. But in order for such a database to be useful, the biggest and fastest-growing Geo companies need to contribute to it.

45. Where Do We Go From Here? Cities and counties are now creating and maintaining very accurate GIS data States are aggregating and organizing that data Almost everyone makes GIS data freely available The federal government intends to organize a National Map The private sector is already doing it, but in separate silos The open-data community is also involved

46. What Does That Mean for You? Be aware of the many conflicting interests at play Don’t just trust the map data on the screen If you’ve a mind? Join in and help make this data even better Demand coordination of your local, state and political leaders Have fun

47. Mike Mahaffie Data Coordinator State of Delaware Office of State planning coordination mmahaffie@gmail.com stateplanning.delaware.gov bit.ly/cexEAl twitter.com/mmahaffie twitter.com/nsgc twitter.com/delawareGIS GIS, Geospatial Data and You(or, Why Google Maps Works)