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WHAT IS A GIS?
A GIS is a system of hardware, software, geographic data, and experienced personnel whose purposes is to support the capture, management,
manipulation, analysis, modeling, and display of spatially referenced data
for solving complex planning and management problems. In other words,
it is a computer system that is used for collecting and analyzing data that
can be mapped, and it displays the resulting information as a map or
series of maps. Spatially referenced means that the data displayed on
the computer screen are tied to a real-world location; that is, the latitude
and longitude of a feature on the ground (such as an intersection) would
be automatically reflected on the onscreen map.
Spatial Data
Types of spatially referenced data that a municipality would use include
the following:
Jurisdictional boundaries
county and city limits
special services districts
census divisions
property boundaries
electoral districts
parks
Physical features
roads
utility lines and other features
buildings
land use (residential vs. industrial, for example)
The spatial data are linked to attribute data in a database. Attribute data
refer to additional information about a feature such as the name and
length of a road, the size and pressure capacity of a water line, and the
owner and value of a parcel.
One way municipal information is organized in a GIS is by layers of
spatial features with their attributes (Figure 1). These layers can then be
presented singly or overlaid with other features, depending on what information is being sought. For example, the roads, land-use, and facilities
layers can be overlaid to see where the best location for a new fire station
might be. It is this ability to integrate disparate types of data and display
the relationships between and among them that makes a GIS powerful.
Data that are useful to a municipality can take significant amounts
of time and money to acquire. Although free digital data are available
from both state and federal governments, the usefulness of such data for
local governments may be limited due to lack of scale or spatial accuracy.
The GIS user must be aware of differences in spatial accuracy in order
to determine whether or to what degree the results of analysis should
be trusted. For example, FEMA flood data that are used in conjunction
with parcel data, which have a much higher degree of spatial accuracy,
should be interpreted cautiously.
Related Technologies
A GIS can be developed as a general-purpose tool or for a narrowly
defined set of functions. For example, a land information system (LIS)
focuses on the mapping and analysis of land and property records. Transportation management uses a specialized set of analysis tools supplied
by developers of GIS technology for transportation. Other automated
mapping systems were developed for specific fields that are now incorporating GIS functions. These include
computer-aided drafting (CAD), widely used in industrial design
and architecture;
R-15
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Utilities
Layer
Topographic
Layer
Parcel
Layer
Planimetric (or
base) Layer
State Plane
Reference
Grid
Geodetic Survey
Control
Layer
13
12
21
14
22
15
23
16
24
17
25
18
87
19
34
Size
Year
Mat.
Depth
Pres s.
Ins. by
Ins. no.
R- 2
R- 1
33
88
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Owner
Address
L.B. P.
Land value
Bldg. value
Prop. code
Bldg. code
Zoning
Stories
Garage
Area
Frontage
Last sold
Zoning
Layer
ASSOCIATED DATA
elections
police
tax assessment
solid waste management
planning and zoning
natural resources
emergency services
management
parks and recreation
transportation planning
In addition, the availability of a GIS can directly affect citizen participation, particularly with regard to taxation issues:
A GIS can be used to analyze the relationship between tax
revenues drawn from different neighborhoods or areas and
the expenditures being made in those areas. Citizens can use
the GIS to learn how taxes drawn from their neighborhood
are budgeted for different functions. As recent surveys suggest, citizens are more likely to approve of needed taxations
when they know that their dollars are being spent on specific
servicesespecially services that might benefit their neighborhood or themselves individually.2
Data can be analyzed in order to reveal patterns or trends that need
to be addressed or to assess the impact of a municipal policy. For example, where and when certain types of crime occurs may be associated
with land use (does it occur in residential or business areas? does it occur at the same general time? is it concentrated in one area or widely
dispersed?), proximity to transportation, population characteristics, and
other information that law enforcement agencies can use in deciding
how to focus their efforts. Such data may suggest other solutions, such
as installing streetlights in dark areas or providing crime prevention
education for citizens.
Aside from the fact that improvements may not be apparent for years,
part of the difficulty in measuring the benefit of a GIS is that much of it
is not quantifiable. It is hard to separate the effects of the system from
the effects of its environment. Local governments benefit from GIS and
other technology when the implementation of it is well researched and
planned. The purpose of the system needs to be clear, and those responsible for managing it need to be trained in its use. The jurisdictions that
have been disappointed in their return on GIS investment have generally
not done enough groundwork to understand all of the costs involved,
or they have not received the appropriate level of employee training to
properly use and maintain their system.
Local governments, regional commissions, and local authorities are
permitted to charge fees for providing information from or access to
their GIS. Fees must be based on the development costs of creating or
maintaining the GIS and may include cost to the municipality . . . of
time, equipment, and personnel in the creation, purchase, development,
production, or update of the geographic information system. The code
also authorizes local governments to contract with private firms to provide
GIS information to the public.3
The costs of adopting a GIS vary with how much is required of
the system, whether new people need to be hired, and, if so, how many.
Expenditures for GIS software range from applications having little or
no cost to applications costing tens of thousands of dollars that run on
computers ranging from inexpensive desktop PCs to massive networked
servers. Other than ongoing salary costs, initial database development
is usually the most costly aspect of GIS implementation both in terms
of funding and time, and it varies with the amount and detail of data
needed. Regular hardware, software, and database upgrades need to be
considered in the long-term budget for a system. Municipalities change,
as do the data about them, and the uses of the GIS will change as well.
Personnel training is often neglected when considering costs. Initial
training and periodic updates are necessary in order for the system to be
fully utilized. There is no point in paying for functions that the staff is
not aware of or able to use properly.
Implementation
The first step in considering adoption of a GIS is to decide what kinds of
analysis a municipality wants to perform and what information it wants
to obtain from the analysis. The next step is to conduct a cost-benefit
analysis and feasibility study. These studies should address more than
just technical issues, since organizational and policy issues play a role in
Multidepartment Model
In this model, various departments share costs and responsibilities. Cost
sharing among the departments funds database development and updating. Sometimes this model evolves from the single department model as
requests for service impede the use of the system for its original purpose.
There are a couple of approaches to the multidepartment model.
One department may be chosen as the lead department and be responsible for housing the GIS and providing the services to other departments. The other approach is to create a GIS department to manage the
system. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Having a
lead department with its own priorities may affect how service is provided
to other departments, and a centralized GIS department may not be able
to respond to the specialized needs of individual municipal departments.
Multiagency Model
The multiagency model shares costs and responsibilities between several
levels of local government or between a number of partnersgovernmental or nongovernmental. Typical agreements involve utilities such
as gas, power, cable, and telephone companies that share the cost of
data development with municipalities and exchange information such
as underground structures data with them. If there is sufficient interest
on behalf of the partners, this approach is the most economical option.
However, with this model, it generally takes much longer to get projects
under way because of the need to conduct joint discussions on cost sharing and to consider different kinds of data, different levels of accuracy,
and the different viewpoints and politics of the various agencies. Nevertheless, the greater variety of data provided by multiple partners yields
better benefits at lower costs (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Multiagency GIS
Gas
Company
Public
Works
Bus
System
Law
Enforcement
Elections
GIS
Telephone
Company
Coordinating
Unit
Assessment
Dept.
Power
Company
Water
Dept.
Planning
Dept.
E911
Data
Once the approach to implementation has been decided, data issues
need to be addressed. Data maintenance and sharing agreements among
partners need to be created unless a single department is implementing
the system. Database standards need to be agreed upon. Standards should
include the following:
naming and definition conventions (so that each named type of
road, for instance, means only that type of road and all road names
are entered in the same format)
Available Resources
The Regional Commissions (RCs) provide GIS services to member local
governments, especially for comprehensive planning.
Georgia colleges and universities provide GIS education. Some
provide GIS services, including implementation planning and database
development. Information Technology Outreach Services (www.cviog.
uga.edu/itos) is a University of Georgia unit that assists local governments with GIS technology (i.e., data development; training on the use,
maintenance, and integration of GIS data with existing databases; and
system implementation).
The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA)
is an organization of professionals using information technology and
spatial information in planning, public works, and other governmental
areas. URISA provides educational and other resources.
NOTES
1. LIDAR is a remote sensing technology. Pulses of light are emitted from a laser
source, and high-speed counters record the time it takes for the light signal
to bounce off a surface and return to its source location. These recorded data
can be used to model changes in elevation along the earths surface and for a
number of topography-related applications.
2. John OLooney, Beyond Maps (Redlands, CA: ESRI Press, 2000), 12021.
3. Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.) 50-29-2.