Current Page: Implementation Plan

(Rev 2.0 - May, 2000)
 

Executive Summary

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Geographic Technologies

The first chapter of the implementation plan introduces history and definitions of GIS, Remote Sensing and GPS systems. How to conceptualize GIS and basic map concepts are highlighted. The four components of a GIS are also explained in Chapter1. The components include data and databases, hardware, software (including database management systems), and users.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
 

• History
   
• Definition
   
• How to Conceptualize a GIS
   
• Basic Map Concepts
   
• Map Features Within a GIS
   
• Topology
   
• Components of a GIS
   
  1. Data and databases
      
  2. Hardware
      
  3. Software
      
  4. Users
      
• Functions of a GIS
   
• GIS Software

   

Remote Sensing
 

• History
   
• Definition
   
• Basic Advantages of Using Remote Sensing
   
• Four Types of Imagery Resolution
   
• The Two Primary Types of Sensors: Passive and Active
   
• Products From Remote Sensing

   

Global Positioning System (GPS)
 

• History
   
• Definition
   
• The GPS System
   
• User Applications
   
• Differential GPS
   
• The Potential of GPS
   
• List of Local Government Uses for GPS Inventory

   

Chapter 2 - Seven Keys to a Successful GIS Implementation

Chapter two emphasizes the importance of 7 key elements of a successful GIS implementation Plan.

1. Have a Well Thought Out Master Plan
   Richland County contracted with the Geographic Technologies Group, Inc. to study and identify GIS needs and uses. This study will serve as an introductory master plan to guide the community GIS implementation.

    

2. Have an Independent GIS Coordinator
   Richland County’s GIS coordinator is currently located in the Information Technology department. This arrangement has worked very well.

    

3. Show Success Quickly and Frequently
   Using existing digital data is a good way to get quick results from a GIS investment. A first step for any GIS should be to determine what useful data already exist. A local government may be able to create as many as 30 GIS layers from existing digital data.

    

4. Explain the Uses of the Technology Frequently
   Lack of knowledge about the capabilities of GIS is one of the major reasons that the technology is underutilized in some organizations. It is critical to the project’s success that the GIS coordinator and other GIS staff explain the capabilities of GIS frequently in a variety of venues.

    

5. Make it Useful and Easy to Use
   The easier a GIS is to use, the more it will be used. There are many options available to make a GIS user friendly. A local government that has an intranet can deploy applications to be used by everyone on the network. GIS staff should be using these new tools for GIS deployment and should be moving geographic-based data to employees and citizens alike. In fact, GIS information can be delivered to the entire community via the Internet.

    

6. Delegate - Don't Do All the Work
   The presence of a GIS leader, no matter how talented, does not ensure the viability of GIS throughout the organization. All too often the GIS leader is seen as the only person that needs to be doing GIS for the organization. In order for the enterprise-wide GIS to flourish the organization must realize that some GIS responsibilities must be delegated to existing staff.

    

7. Be Able to Explain and Quantify Costs vs. Benefits
   The GIS project leader is responsible for differentiating between what is “neat” and what is necessary. It is good to evaluate all projects under the microscope of usefulness. Always be prepared to answer questions about why the GIS is a good investment.

    

Chapter 3 - GIS Feasibility Analysis & Needs Assessment

Today, new technological developments and a new approach to GIS will allow Richland County to develop a more open, user-friendly GIS environment that allows all staff to take full advantage of system capabilities. A true “County-wide” GIS is now possible. GIS will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve productivity for the following departments.

• Emergency Services
   
• Sheriff’s Department
   
• Public Works
   
• Planning Department
   
• Ombudsman
   
• Tax Assessor
   
• Department of Information Technology
   
• Register of Deeds
   
• Public Information
   
• Soil and Water
   
• Environmental Health/Vector Control
   
• Administration – Generic Data Browser
   
• Election Commission and Voter Registration
   
• Social Services – Welfare to Work Other County Departments
   

Other organizations that may benefit include:
 

• Central Midlands Council of Governments (COG)
   
• Fort Jackson (FTJ)
   
• University of South Carolina (USC)
   

Chapter 4 - GIS Applications

Operational Applications
 

• Parcel Map Maintenance Application
   
• The National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP) Application
   
• Building a Disaster Resistant Community with GIS Applications
   

Societal Applications - or Public Access GIS
Societal applications are being developed specifically to allow public access to community based information. Information is a resource. It is the objective of local governments throughout the United States to empower or enable citizens to make better informed decisions about their community. The development of societal applications is allowing citizens to generate maps on-demand about real estate, highways, aircraft noise, route management, traffic volumes, flooding, infrastructure, pavement repair, and emergency response. It will enable and afford citizens the opportunity to view, query, and browse information in map form. This application is intended to be a source of civic information that is accessible in public buildings and via the Internet.

Business Applications
A business application should be revenue generating and developed for the purpose of viewing, analyzing, and mapping community data. It would allow access to information on a compact disk or via the Internet through password or permission controls. This application would use digital spatial and attribute data as infrastructure resources. This application uses digital and attribute data as infrastructure resources and capitalizes on their value in the private sector. Although data could be licensed and delivered to private concerns, selling access to data would likely ensure greater utility for users and increase revenue for local government. Interested parties may include real estate brokers, lawyers, bankers, mortgage lending institutions, land developers, and marketing companies.

ArcObjects / Visual Basic GIS Application Guidelines
The ArcObjects / Visual Basic GIS software development cycle encompasses the entire lifetime of an application or program: from the moment the idea for the application is conceived to the moment the application will no longer be used. To start the development of an application all the stages of software development should be considered. Each stage must be completed in succession and in its entirety.

Steps in the Software Development Life Cycle
 

• Development of the user requirements
   
• Development of the functional / design specifications and implementation plan
   
• Implementation of the application
   
• Testing the application
   
• Rollout of the application
   
• Support and maintenance of the application
   

Chapter 5 - Enterprise-wide Organization

Enterprise-Wide Organizational Module
Successful implementation strategy divides the responsibilities of GIS. This is the recommended approach for the GIS effort in Richland County. This approach divides system and data maintenance between a GIS group and departmental end-users. Within their course of daily business, many users update the enterprise database. This is achieved by altering current data entry applications or developing new tools. The users then share the responsibility of maintaining the GIS and become ‘Data Stewards’. This is most appropriate when a high-cost ‘do-everything’ centralized department is not feasible.

Human Resources and Training
To implement and coordinate an enterprise-wide GIS, all human resources must be responsibly and deliberately assigned to tasks and management responsibilities. Richland County should make every possible effort to share data and resources between departmental users and official partners. This will encourage coordination, commitment, and ensure complete and accurate GIS data sets. While the actual implementation of each data set will be handled by the agency that is responsible for its maintenance, coordination of all enterprise-wide functions must be addressed.

Job Classification
GIS position classifications should be combined to establish a strong core of GIS skills. This is a powerful move towards achieving the county GIS goals. The current diversity of GIS departmental classifications should be combined into 2 or 3 titles.

Implementing Three Tiers of Software
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is the world's leading GIS software company. Governments, business, utilities, and educators throughout the world rely on ESRI software to improve operational efficiency, increase profitability, and tap the true potential of their databases. ESRI has a suite of products that cover all imaginable uses of GIS. It is strongly recommended that the this enterprise-wide model utilize the three tiers of ESRI GIS software:

• Arc/Info – flagship
   
• ArcView – desktop
   
• ArcObjects/Visual Basic – applications tools
   

Enterprise-wide Training on Three Tiers of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Training will be an integral part of this GIS implementation strategy.

Intergovernmental Agreements
Richland County, in conjunction with The University of South Carolina and Congaree Swamp National Monument, has set the ground work toward developing a consortium of GIS participants.

Chapter 6 - Base Map Creation and Considerations

Foundation Layers

Every successful municipal GIS has several layers that make up the foundation of the system in addition to the many other reference layers. These foundation layers are needed by every department and are critical to the overall operation of the GIS. These layers are referred to as the ‘base maps’ of the GIS. Two layers that are essential as base maps for Richland County are the street centerline layer and the tax parcel (cadastral) layer.

Street Centerlines
An accurate street centerline base map is the single most important coverage in a successful local government GIS implementation. Many GIS applications rely on a fully attributed street centerline layer. Without this, the GIS will be severely limited. Any address matching routine performed with GIS utilizes a street centerline layer. Fire, Police, Sheriff, Emergency Services, 911, and any other department that utilizes addresses will need access to the centerline layer.

Tax Parcel Layer or Cadastre
Along with the street centerline layer, the tax parcel layer is critical to a local GIS. This layer will be the source for the creation and maintenance of other mission critical layers such as zoning, landuse, emergency response areas, and neighborhood designation. It is critical that this layer be as up-to-date and accurate as possible. The tax parcel layer consists of both cartographic data and tabular appraisal information. These data include information about any physical structures, ownership, and land attributes.

Digital Ortho-Photography
A GIS effort will be greatly enhanced if digital aerial photography is available. Once aerial photography has been corrected to eliminate distortions inherent to photography (orthographically rectified), the images can be placed behind other GIS data to provide a static picture of what the earth looked like at the time of photography. Digital ortho-photography is a great assest to an organization.

Imagery Program
To provide timely and comprehensive data for land use and infrastructure needs, an imagery clearinghouse program should be established. An effort should be made to collect all previous airborne and spaceborne imagery covering the county. These data should be cataloged using practical metadata standards and made available to all participants. The program must include timely goals to maintain the county imagery database through scheduled data acquisition missions.

External Entities and Organizations

Governmental Sources
The level of success of a local government GIS often relies heavily on cooperation by other government agencies and private sector organizations. Richland County has done an excellent job of utilizing several geographic data sets that are available from other agencies around the state and federal government.

Other External Sources
Non-governmental organizations also play a role in the creation and sharing of geo-spatial data sets. Examples include utility companies, engineering companies, and surveying companies are some examples.

Networking Infrastructure
Richland County currently has in place both local area networks (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN). Bell South supplies the latter in the form of a frame relay 252 circuit. The local area network gives the County high-speed access internally within buildings. This allows for centralization of GIS data within office buildings in the organization. The slower speed of the inter-building connectivity does however, limit the ability to dynamically share data across network. Pertinent data sets should be copied between buildings nightly. GIS data sets are inherently large and preclude live data sharing across traditional wide area networks. However, an intranet application running in a web based browser is a very attractive solution to data sharing over the County's WAN. This type of application is a third tier GIS application and has been deployed successfully around the country. The WAN does allow for a scheduled transfer of data across the WAN to the various distributed sights (Administrative Center, Public Works, Judicial Center, Sheriff's Department). The centralization of this data should be considered by the County in conjunction with the previously outlined Spatial Data Repository Initiative.

Chapter 7 – Phased Implementation Plan

Implementation Plan Review
This chapter examines the costs associated with deploying GIS throughout Richland County. The County has an opportunity to implement an advanced GIS in a short time frame. To make this happen, there has to be a commitment from all departments to work together as a team. If one department decides not to participate, then all departments will suffer.

Recommendations for Year One

Database Development
The first year will be comprised of data base development, training, hardware, software installation, and some minimal application deployment. The overriding need in this first year is to develop, convert, and acquire the needed data layers. This is not the most glamorous part of the project, but is critical to success. Pertinent features for Richland County area should be strongly considered. Tax parcels, centerlines, etc. should be captured. New orthophotography would be very beneficial.

Recommendations for Year Two

Applications Development Phase
Year two is the applications development phase of the project. Applications for all departments will be deployed. The discussion of each application is detailed in Chapter3 Departmental Needs Assessment.

Recommendations for Year Three

Data Access and Sharing Phase
The third year of the project will revolve around sharing data throughout the organization and with the public. An Intranet application will grant all County employees access to GIS data for mapping and querying purposes. At this point in the project, departments should be utilizing the GIS for sophisticated analysis. It should have become another resource that employees rely on, much like a word processor or spreadsheet program.

Implementation Plan Update

As GIS development moves forward, the Implementation Plan will be updated to reflect changes in technology, budget parameters, thematic changes, and integration in various departments.

At this time, the original schedule will be lengthened due to limitations in financial and personnel commitments.

Financial Parameters
 

• (May, 2000) - Failing to secure formal partnership with the City of Columbia, Richland County is the sole financial stakeholder in the development of the Community GIS Initiative. Thus, the implementation timeline is significantly impacted by a single budget source.

   

• (October, 2001) – Richland County rolled a five-year GIS development budget into a single bond issue in September, 2001.

   

Projects
Within the first year, Richland County has made significant progress in achieving its GIS-related goals. As small projects moved along, other users began to realize the potential in the Community GIS Initiative. This type of recognition activity is quite common when users that did not exhibit enthusiasm at the beginning of the program realize the benefits gained by early adopters. Early adopters are characterized by a willingness to commit substantial time in working through the ‘gritty’ details of data development. Public Works, Vector Control, and the Election Commission have made such commitments to improving data and the way in which they ‘do business’ through the use of spatial technologies.

Chapter 8 - Automated Data Capture and Global Positioning System (GPS) Technology

Task 1 Project Management & Mission Planning

Project Management
Project management of an ADC/GPS initiative on such a large inter-governmental initiative should consider some key issues. The following has been developed to assist with developing an approach for the successful implementation and utilization of technology for the capture of field data.

Data Dictionary Development
Data dictionaries will need to be designed. Each of the data dictionaries will be a description of the features (points). Each will be used to control the collection of features (objects) and attributes (information about those objects).

Task 2 Field Survey & Data Collection

Field Data Capture of Location and Attribute Information
A field crew of GPS trained technicians should utilize the Pro XRS to capture location and attribute data about storm water, water infrastructure, and sewer infrastructure. The field crew should utilize all hardcopy mapping. This has a two-fold benefit. It will help locate features, and it may serve as an opportunity to populate the data dictionary with information visible on the hardcopy mapping.

Differential Correction
A process known as Selective Availability (SA) introduces the largest source of error for GPS positions. SA was turned off by the Federal government in May 2000.

Task 3 Post Processing & GIS Development

Post Processing
After successfully differentially correcting field data, Trimble Navigation’s Pathfinder Office software will facilitate the export of this information.

GIS Development and Integration
Digital line coverages will need to be created after importing the GPS data. GIS techniques should be utilized to develop line coverages. Lines should be populated with attribute data as depicted on hardcopy mapping.

End Products
The following is a table of possible project deliverables (Digital Coverage's and Data Products):

Implementing automated field inventory tools with associated GPS techniques for the storage, analysis, and depiction using GIS will include a careful evaluation of the following:

• Uses for Automated Data Collection & GPS Tools
• Why Automate Data Collection?
• When to Automate Data Collection?
• Costs Associated with Automating Data Collection
• Who Should Collect Data?
• What is the Best Way to Collect Data?
• What to do with the Data?
• Procedures for Developing and Automating Data Collection System

   

Benefits of ADC/GPS Technology:

• Accurate digital mapping of infrastructure
   
• Updated inventory of structures
   
• Digital Maps-Simple to Update and Correct
   
• System Maps Form the Basis for System Analysis and Management
   
• Chronological History of Activities and Work Orders Performed on the System
   
• Record of Water Line Breaks and Sewer Spills
   
• Record of System Pressures, Hydrant Flow Tests, etc.
   
• Track Customer complaints
   
• Track Maintenance Costs Associated with Repairs
   
• Evaluate Fire Hydrant Coverage and ISO Rating
   
• Use system to assist in Hydraulic Analysis
   
• Notification of Service Outages
   
• Manage Backflow Prevention Program
   
• Manage Line Rehabilitation and I/I Projects/Needs
   
• Manage Meter Replacement Program
   
• Manage Water and Sewer Maintenance Programs
   
• Assist is Risk Management Evaluation
   
• Assist in Financial Planning for Water, Sewer and Storm water system
   
• Developing Priorities Capital Improvement Projects
   
• Emergency Response

   

Appendices

Appendix A: - Letters of Support
Appendix B: - Monthly Newsletter Example
Appendix C: - User Group Agenda Example
Appendix D: - ESRI Support Letter
Appendix E: - USC Short Course registration Example
Appendix F: - Berkeley County Agreement Example
Appendix G: - City of Columbia Memo
Appendix H: - Parcel Compilation Discussion Minutes

Glossary