Business Plan Development and Implementation: California Geospatial Governmental Boundary Business Plan
***** October 20, 2011 -- At the request of the primary investigator this project was cancelled. *****
In 2006, the California GIS Council produced a report entitled: "Geospatial Framework Draft Data Plan." In this report, governmental units were established as one of the seven core framework themes of geographic data that are produced and used by most local, state, and federal organizations whose business processes depend upon geospatial data.
This project will help identify an appropriate state-level steward for governmental units in California. Further, the work will identify local, state and federal agencies that create governmental boundaries, needs for the stakeholder and data-consumer communities, and propose processes for efficient integration of data from various authoritative sources. California has never produced a business plan for stewardship of digital governmental units. Since California lacks a business plan for stewardship of governmental units, state agencies use different information for what they believe to be commonly understood government boundaries. The location of governmental boundaries is essential to state business practices; governmental boundaries delineate areas of responsibility for providing services by specific entities. A set of standard, authoritative, complete governmental boundaries will enhance the usefulness of California's parcel layer by allowing decision makers better information to accommodate inter-jurisdictional issues (e.g., emergency response, land use planning, etc.). The lack of common knowledge about the accurate boundaries of governmental units impedes business functions and creates confusion and inefficiency regarding inter-jurisdictional boundaries.
Making data available for use by all state agencies will (1) allow decision makers to make better informed decisions with respect to inter-jurisdictional issues and (2) provide the basis to improve resource allocation.
This project will further the statewide spatial data infrastructure (SSDI) and consequently the goals of the NSDI by planning ways to establish stewards for the governmental units layer and by making this information available so it can be better used by the federal, state and local government.
Contacts:
Scott Gregory, Geographic Information Officer
916-403-9360
Scott.gregory@state.ca.gov