GIS, Geospatial Data and You

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

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

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

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

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….

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”

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

Municipal Comprehensive Plans

+ County Comprehensive Plans

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

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

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…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

Anything Look Familiar Here?

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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)

GIS, Geospatial Data and You

by Mike Mahaffie on Apr 20, 2010

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