Appalachian Ohio’s Open Geographic Information System Web Access
Gallia County, Coshocton County and the Appalachian Ohio Geospatial Data Partnership (AOGDP) are completing an exciting regional Geographic Information System (GIS) project called the Appalachian Ohio’s Open Geographic Information System Web Access that explores the benefits of a shared web GIS resource.
This project significantly supports the underserved communities of Appalachian Ohio by providing a resource that is used by Federal, State, Regional and Local governmental units as well as private interests looking to invest in the future of Appalachian Ohio. Specifically, this online could service economic development efforts in the Appalachian region, including the Utica and Marcellus shale gas exploration companies as well as their subordinate support teams.
This project will utilize a two phased approach:
Phase One - Appalachian Ohio’s Open Geographic Information System Web Access is a feasibility study that will determine the most effective means with which to design and maintain a shared web mapping service that will allow counties to publish their digital parcel data to the web and make it available to a wide audience. This data is available within a web application accessed by a web browser; a feature data service that GIS users can consume in their GIS software package in real time using a broadband internet connection; or as a basic file download that the end user can utilize as necessary in other applications. Counties in the Appalachian region will fall in to one of two tiers that were identified at the onset of the project:
Tier One – Counties with existing, trusted GIS parcel data that is regularly maintained and meets the minimum data standard for publication.
Tier Two - Counties without GIS parcel data or data that requires conversion into a trusted parcel layer suitable for publication.
Phase One is to develop and deploy a shared, online data repository for viewing and consuming standardized, accurate and trusted GIS parcel data. Counties participating in this phase will be those identified by the project team as Tier One. Other geospatial base data such, transportation networks and aerial imagery will enhance the parcel data within the web service, and the system design will accommodate future county data sets that augment analysis capability such as soils, watersheds, geologic formations, census, school district, voting precincts. Of the participating counties, Gallia and Coshocton Counties have trusted data that is included in this initial deployment of the online data portal. Hardware, software configuration and programming conducted by the experienced staff at the Voinovich School for Leadership and Public Affairs and Buckeye Hills – Hocking Valley Regional Development District will take place in this phase and is designed with scalability in mind to support the addition of counties in Tier Two of the program. During this period multiple vehicles for data delivery and storage will be evaluated by the project team. These options include local hosting (local instances of ArcGIS server at Voinovich School and Buckeye Hills, cloud hosting (ArcGIS Online), and hosted service solutions (Amazon Web Services/ EC2).
Phase Two includes a study for counties (Tier Two) that do not have a fully developed county digital parcel layer in GIS. This planning study will identify the steps needed to develop a standardized parcel layer that is suitable for publication and ongoing maintenance. Prepared documentation will describe the process of parcel data development with real-world empirical evidence of cost and time requirements of creation and maintenance. Finally, a practical, actionable plan for shared cost of between county departments, based on department benefits, as well as a “road map” to securing outside funding sources will be completed in this phase.
By the end of Phase One, we will have a shared resource that active Appalachian Counties can use to support economic development activities in their areas, and specifically to assist the Marcellus and Utica shale industry. This project will directly integrate with planned Ohio Spatial Data Framework efforts and the highly successful statewide spatial data programs like the Ohio Statewide Imagery Program (OSIP) and Location Based Response System (LBRS) roadway centerline program. An additional benefit is the Ohio Geographically Referenced Information Program (OGRIP) will utilize this resource in the creation of their conceptual regional node system, a node system that will consolidate a seamless data fabric for Ohio.
Figure 1 below depicts the conceptual flow of data between local counties and the federal government. It is our perspective that local data is the most accurate data available, and we are advocating for a simplified means to ensure the most accurate data for our local areas is reaching all interested parties at the state and federal level. In this model, counties are the authoritative data source for cadastral data, and are utilizing a regional approach to aggregate and publish their data up to state and federal organizations.
Once this feasibility study is successfully completed, and the outcomes are analyzed, an implementation project is planned which will scale this coproduction project to a more inclusive level. The full and expanded implementation is not included in this project.
At the conclusion of this project it is our hope that utilizing this seamless regional asset, developers from within and outside Ohio can easily access needed spatial resources as they look to locate their businesses and develop Appalachian region of Ohio.