Case Studies

State/Local Government Coordination and Cooperation Case Studies
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Missouri: The Value of Internal Data Coordination
State governments also use remote sensing, although sometimes for purposes different from those of local governments. States are more apt to employ moderate-resolution Landsat data than high-resolution commercial data (whether from satellites or airborne sources) in their remote sensing applications, because they generally need data covering larger physical areas than cities and counties. Obtaining high-resolution data for large areas and preparing the data are too costly, and usually the phenomena in which states are interested can be observed with low- to moderate-resolution data. Read more

Boulder County, Colorado: Finding a Way
Boulder County began to use spatial data in 1987 to maintain and upgrade tax maps of parcels in the county.5 From what was a modest beginning, the county now uses spatial data for a broad range of purposes, from locating prairie dog colonies to identifying wetlands to tracing fence lines. The county uses various types of remote sensing data in conjunction with GIS data in applications in public health, land use, parks and open space, road maintenance, and even redrawing precinct boundaries as population distribution changes. Read more

Portland Metro: Coordinating Land Use Data and Policies
The only elected regional government in the United States, Portland Metro is pioneering the use of remote sensing data in a regional spatial data framework in Oregon. Read more

Community Demonstration Projects
Community Demonstration Projects represent an FGDC effort to promote another level of partnership. By using $645,000 provided by the National Performance Review Fund, FGDC was able to fund six projects from 1998 to 2000 that demonstrate the importance of geospatial data in community-wide planning. At its September 1999 meeting, the MSC heard presentations on the program as a whole, and on projects carried out in Dane County, Wisconsin; the Tijuana River Watershed; Gallatin County, Montana; and the Baltimore City Police Department. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) is a partner with FGDC in these activities, providing the projects with in-kind software support and expertise. Read more

Partnership Lessons Learned (In General)
Benefits of spatial data partnerships must be evaluated for the entire national community of spatial data users, not merely for the agencies participating in the partnership. Read more

Partnership Lessons Learned (South Carolina)
South Carolina is developing a statewide GIS to assist in natural resource management decisions. Federal funding is administered through the South Carolina Water Resources Commission (SCWRC) and NOAA's Strategic Environmental Assessment Division, which are the lead state and federal agencies designated to build this diverse partnership. Read more