State and Local Government

Two images from the Landsat 7 satellite are included in the new U.S Post Office series of 15 Earthscapes Forever stamps. Released October 1 to kick off National Stamp Collecting Month, the stamps vividly portray America’s diverse landscapes as viewed from heights of several hundred feet above the Earth to several hundred miles in space.

In this article, authors Jantien Stoter, Joris Goos and Athina Trakas describe CityGML and take a look at how National Spatial Data Infrastructure stakeholders in The Netherlands worked together to establish a national 3D standard that aligns to both the existing national 2D standards and the international OGC standard for 3D geoinformation, CityGML.

“There is a certain amount of sensationalism about disaster maps,” said John Nelson of IDV Solutions. In this article, Nelson gets deep into discovering the variability of datasets but at the end of the day, maps must communicate a clear message. Nelson tells us that maps may not need to offer explicit conclusions but rather present the evidence as fodder for questions and conversation … and maybe more maps!

"Geospatially speaking, we’ve created a bit of a mess in this country. Over time, we’ve developed a mish-mash of conflicting policies and laws across all levels of government," says David Hocking, president of the Spatial Industries Business Association in Australia. But in this article, Hocking supports a "coherent legislative framework for sharing government-held spatial information between agencies."

A recent study by the Wisconsin State Cartographer's Office examines the effectiveness of online maps for meeting community outreach goals. The study, which is to be published in the Auto-Carto 2012 proceedings, uses Web-usage statistics from Google Analytics for the SCO’s

Will the skies soon be congested with low-flying drones taking unwarranted photos of you or your neighbors? While the prospect for unmanned aerial vehicles in use by your local government is high, many political as well as technical challenges remain. Contributing Editor Hal Reid provides an update on the current status of issues surrounding drone usage.

As flood waters rose on the Missouri River in July 2011, emergency management officials needed to quickly access images for monitoring flood stages and for search and recovery. But how to do it fast and on a miniscule budget? Jeff Herzer, a GIS graduate student and former assistant chief telecom engineer at Missouri State Highway Patrol, gives us his method for geotagging photographs and assigning lat-long coordinates to each image … all for $5.00!

Douglas County, Nebraska currently has a good deal of its enterprise GIS running in the cloud. GIS coordinator Michael Schonlau describes the process of moving into the cloud and what he and his colleagues have learned along the way.

Contributor Rich Quodomine suggests that “think globally, act locally” may be a valuable mantra for selecting the next geospatial conference you attend.

Contributor Rich Quodomine explores how GIS got specialized enough to take on a critical lead role in a major transportation planning debate via its role in asset management.