ESRI's Interactive Oil Spill Map

ESRI has developed interactive mapping for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. This link will take you to the main page, where you are prompted through the steps.

You can add code to your web page for the map, or you can choose a linked version. I zoomed in on Iberia Parish, chose Fishing as the main revenue, and created this map. You can click on the Business Revenue: Fishing box to choose other business revenue categories, or the unemployment rate. You can e-mail the map link, put it in a blog, or send it to Facebook or Twitter.

GIS Project: Update the Zoning Map

It looks like the free ArcGIS Explorer will be a good platform for viewing our aerial photography and other layers. ArcGIS Explorer has some improved features, including "swiping" one layer aside to look at the layer below it.

In order to give Planning & Zoning some reference tools, we're going to update the zoning map layer that was created last year by Freyou & Moore, then view it with aerial photography and perhaps the parcel layer from the Assessor's office. We will also create a workflow that will ensure that the zoning map continues to be updated and current.

In the short term, this will be a local application in the Planning & Zoning office. Once we have our enterprise GIS server in place, these layers will be available to other interested departments.

GIS Workshops

The last two weeks have been busy with workshops. The Louisiana Assessor's Assocation sponsored a GIS workshop May 26 in Baton Rouge. The presentations were very specific to the assessor function, and the integration of GIS, oblique photography, and valuation in the final presentation was very interesting.

The Hurricane Season Geospatial Data Mining Workshop was held June 1. Presenters from NOAA Weather Center,  GOHSEP, USGS EROS data center, NOAA Office of Coast Survey, USGS, FEMA, Dept. of Homeland Security, and USDA NRCS showed how to access a variety of data sources to use in pre-storm planning, as well as post-storm mitigation and recovery. Many of the resources they described are available to the public, with some of them restricted to approved personnel. One link of interest is the NOAA fact sheet on hurricanes and the oil spill.

Work on the proposed budget is continuing. I will be talking to an ESRI Solutions Engineer tomorrow morning, to get some final technical questions answered. We will also be consulting our outsourced IT specialists on server installation and integration.

3-Year Budget

The next step in moving forward with enterprise GIS is to establish a three-year budget for the department, for approval by the stakeholders. I have been corresponding with other parishes' GIS and IT professionals to see what their budgets look like. This is not as straightforward as it might seem, because each parish implements GIS differently. For instance, several parishes are in the utility business, which does not apply to Iberia Parish.

In addition, it has not been easy to nail down initial start-up server design and costs. There are so many ways to do this, that it's been hard to determine which is best for Iberia Parish. Our GIS Technical Committee for Implementation has met once, with e-mail followups, for the purpose of determining optimal implementation. The network administrators and GIS users on the committee have been very helpful and generous with their time, sharing technical information dealing with these topics. Costs have been determined for almost all the server hardware and software components. It looks like we are on target with the grant funding available for the startup.

The next challenge is to budget for long-term projects, including personnel and software development costs. The same resources that have worked with me on the server questions are providing valuable insights in these areas.

Louisiana Remote Sensing and GIS Workshop

I have just returned to the office from the 26th annual Louisiana Remote Sensing and GIS Workshop. The Workshop rotates among locations in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. It was my second year to attend this event.

Many of the sessions had direct relevance to the GIS implementation in Iberia Parish. Some of the most important ones concerned statewide GIS data initiatives, which will provide Iberia Parish GIS with free, high-quality data. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is working on a statewide roads layer, which will be complete later this year. The work is in a quality control phase at this time. This layer will be topologically correct, and will be delivered to us for ongoing maintenance. The presentation emphasized that the layer contains all roads, not just state roads. We can use this as a foundation layer, and modify it as roads change.

GOHSEP, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness reported on the 2010 aerial photography project. This imagery has all been flown, and is in quality control. The first completed segments will be released this summer, with all of it complete by the end of the year. This high-resolution imagery will update the 2008 data we already have, and will be a valuable asset going forward.

There is a consortium currently working on a Louisiana Structures project for several coastal parishes. Iberia Parish is not part of the project at this time, but I will be in contact with those directing the project to find out how we can be included. This project is focused on identifying critical infrastructure for disaster preparedness, including hospitals, schools, gas stations, stores, etc.

The workshop also offered great opportunities to meet GIS managers and analysts from other parishes and agencies.

Examples of Web Mapping

Web mapping has become easier with the introduction of Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, and Java application programming interfaces (APIs). The programming framework is a free download, and the website can be created using data on a GIS server. Some of the sites below use this simple framework, while others include more custom programming.

The small City of Westerville, Ohio has a GIS web site that features several map products. They use the strategy of using only one theme per map.

Closer to home, both Lincoln Parish and Terrebonne Parish also have public map sites. These map sites follow the all-inclusive model, leaving it to the map user to turn desired layers on and off.

Lafayette Parish law enforcement has a public web site where users can search for a variety of incidents. The first screen is a tutorial of the site, and the other tabs lead you through building the query.

While providing information to the public is an important use of GIS, the same technology can be used for in-house viewing on a password-protected intranet.

Iberia Parish GIS Advisory Board meeting

The next GIS Advisory Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 20, 10:00 am, Parish Council Chambers.

The Draft GIS Implementation Plan was sent to each member or designated representative. Presentation and discussion of the implementation plan will form the meeting agenda.

Before the meeting adjourns, the members in attendance should propose action items for the next meeting.