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In order to bring everything together, the
GIS Department was started April 1, 2001 with the hiring of a GIS Director.
The department is housed within the Evansville Water and Sewer Utility
(EWSU) and is located in the Civic Center at 1 NW Martin Luther King Jr.,
Blvd, Room 205, Evansville, Indiana 47708.
The
department was established in order to implement and support an
enterprise wide GIS system for local government departments who had a
need to computerize hard copy maps that are routinely accessed and
requested and to meet state and federal mandates. These maps are used to
support the everyday decisions that affect the residents of the city and
county. Some of these maps are from the early 1900’s with no means to
recreate if a disaster occurs.
By
computerizing these maps the city/county has begun the process of having
critical maps digitally created and archived. This archiving of mapping
information will give the city/county the ability to restore and return
to daily operations in case of a disaster. The GIS system also assists
departments in the decision making process by having data that is more
accurate and readily available. This information is currently disbursed
throughout the city/county with no central repository. Before the
implementation of the GIS Network, it could take days, weeks, or longer
for a department, citizen, or elected official to obtain information
maintained by another department in order to make a decision. The new
enterprise wide GIS system will improve the time it takes for a
individuals to obtain information, thus enabling a decision to be made
in a timely and efficient manner.
Additional benefits of the GIS system include the ability to get
departments to work together to share information, storing information
in a central repository, creating awareness between departments on the
type of information maintained by other departments, the reduction
in the duplication of data management, and the ability to implement cost
effective technology solutions with in-house staff at dramatically
reduced costs.
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