Published: August 19, 2008 10:40 am         

Mapping program an asset to city planners

A new piece of software is helping Goshen city departments view their data and assets in a dynamic new way.

It’s called a geographic information system (GIS), and it is already beginning to streamline the day-to-day work of the city engineering department.

At its most basic level, a GIS is a map. It can be any kind of map, including topographical, aerial or fully 3D-rendered. Data sets are then added to the original map to create layers of information that can be turned on or off.

These layers can include anything from property lines to water mains and bike paths. For the city of Goshen, this means the backup of information that only exists on paper, with minimal copies.

“We have a lot of information in the city that’s not cataloged well. If the building burned, everything would be lost,” Administrative City Engineer Dustin Sailor said.

Along with the danger of catastrophe wiping out records, some never get returned when people leave their department.

“Before, when employees left, we lost information. With the GIS, the knowledge base isn’t lost, and the information can be shared across multiple departments,” Sailor said.

The project began around the beginning of 2006, when a group of interns and college students were given GPS units to begin mapping the city’s fire hydrants. Not only were they able to map them within a foot of their exact location, but they began to find lost city assets. One discovery was of a sewer access point buried 3.5 feet below an alley where city staff were unaware any sewer existed.

Nancy Greer, city engineering technician, currently spends the majority of her working hours entering data into the new system. Since the beginning of the year, she has been working on drawing in sanitary sewer and stormwater pipes.

“Where we’re going to be when we’re all done is very exciting,” Greer said.

The layers literally sit on top of one another to give a graphical readout of data that would otherwise sit in tables and charts.

For example, if a problem is occurring with a particular part of the sewer system and there is a data set for property lines and a data set for sanitary sewer lines, a user could select both and determine who lived on the property that was having issues.

“As soon as it zooms in and refreshes, you have your answers,” Greer said.

It can be particularly helpful when a city employee is out working on a utility and calls back for help or more information.

“I can see off of the aerial view what exactly it is they’re looking at and can communicate with them better,” Greer said.

The system is also allowing for a new depth of data from City Forester Aaron Kingsley.

“I have a catalog of over 40 different sets of information I could be collecting about each tree, including species, diameter, condition, markers about the condition, possible necessary maintenance, disease and structural defects,” Kingsley said. “We’ll be able to see more clearly what we have and where we have it.”

By spring of this year, Kingsley inventoried all the trees in city parks except for classified forests and the Shanklin woods. In addition, the street tree inventory is between 10 and 15 percent complete.

“I hope to have it completed by the end of 2009, but that may be on the idealistic side,” Kingsley said.

He was not always convinced of the software’s usefulness.

“I was at first skeptical about this,” he said. “I didn’t think it was more than a simple database. Then, as I was using it, I realized exactly what kind of powerful tool it is.”