Municipalities are beginning to realize the
flexibility, long term benefits and cost savings of utilizing a
Geographic Information System (GIS) for their planning, natural
resource management, infrastructure inventory and daily
management needs. With the power of personal computers expanding,
the flexibility and user friendliness of GIS software now
available, and the cost of hardware and software constantly being
reduced, the affordability of implementing a municipal GIS has
now become a reality. The talk represented by this paper shows
how a municipality can begin with the basics; a PC, desktop GIS
software, and a little data, and begin to build their own
encyclopedia of digital data. They can slowly add new volumes or
layers to their set as personnel, budget and need permit, and
reference previously developed volumes or layers to accomplish
specific tasks as the need arises. The figure to the right shows
how various data sets can be borrowed upon for municipal
applications, thus minimizing duplicative efforts which
translates into long term cost savings and more efficient
accountability of municipal assets.
