Feature — National and International Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
As leaders at all levels in government, the public sector, and the private sector attempt to integrate GIS technology into their work, they are turning to the Vinson Institute’s Information Technology Outreach Services (ITOS) division for assistance. GIS teams have helped expand the capacity of organizations at the local, state, national, and international levels. Locally, ITOS has helped to put GIS technology to work finding mapping and transportation solutions, and on the state, national, and international stages, ITOS plays a similar role but on a larger scale.
At the state level, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) relies on GIS services for many important projects. GDOT and ITOS have partnered to improve collection and maintenance strategies for the GDOT’s Road Characteristics File and to upgrade the housing of this information to a more modern electronic database. This work allows the GDOT to streamline its processes for collecting various information about all the state’s roads, replacing inefficient fieldwork with GIS technology for collection of some data. The statewide transportation database facilitated the creation of new, up-to-date city, county, and state highway maps that can be more easily maintained than their predecessors, and it was through use of GIS that the GDOT became the first state department of transportation to use all digital sources to create the official state highway map found at visitor centers across the state. Specialized maps, such as those for cyclists, have also sprung from ITOS’s work with the GDOT.
The United States Geographical Services (USGS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have also turned to ITOS for assistance with GIS in creating the High Resolution National Hydrography Dataset (Hi-Res NHD), a hydrologic network model containing information about surface water features (e.g., lakes, rivers, wells) across the country. In addition to finishing up the Hi-Res NHD for Georgia, the GIS production lab is collaborating with several other organizations to create NHD data for U.S. Forest Service lands, the state of Texas, and several other areas surrounding Georgia.
Internationally, ITOS is working with the United Nations to support the Geographic Information Support Team (GIST), an inter-agency initiative that promotes the use of GIS in support of humanitarian relief efforts and emergency preparedness and response around the globe. ITOS hosts GIST’s website and has collaborated with them to set up a data repository to meet its worldwide data management and integration needs. The GIST website facilitates the timely exchange of vital data in times of emergency.
