MIKE MAHAFFIEDATA 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 carved

stones 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 Transpeninsula

r 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 enoughBut 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 managementEnvironmental policies and management

Sea-level rise studies Habitat studies Plume modeling for spills and other bad things

Health planning and epidemiologic studies911 dispatch and emergency event

management

Municipal Comprehensive Plans

Municipal Comprehensive Plans

+ County Comprehensive Plans

Municipal 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 Integrated

Geographic Encoding andReferencing" system

Helped lead to GIS

But Those Are National in Scale

Topographic Maps are at 1:24000To map the whole

of 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 thingTherefore, the best geospatial data come

from local and county sourcesIn 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

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 dateAlways 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 NSDIWho is in charge of this?

Parts come from different states and from different federal agencies

Many varied partnershipsThere 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 organizedAnd partnering with

the federalgovernment

And the private sector

Which Brings Us To…

GOOGLEBing MapsMapQuestAnd 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 screenIf you’ve a mind? Join in and help make this

data even betterDemand coordination of your local, state and

political leadersHave fun

MIKE MAHAFFIEDATA COORDINATOR

STATE OF DELAWARE OFFICE OF STATE PLANNING COORDINATION

mmahaff ie@gmai l . comsta tep lann ing .de laware .gov

b i t . l y / cexEA l

tw i t te r. com/mmahaff ietw i t te r. com/nsgc

tw i t te r. com/de lawareGIS

GIS, Geospatial Data and You

(or, Why Google Maps Works)