Why is GIS important to the City of Evans? It is estimated that at least 80% of all information used by governments is geographic in some way.
For example, water valves, zoning boundaries, wastewater manholes, city limit lines, section and property corners all have a certain location on the face of the earth. The locations of these features, as well many other items of concern to local government operations, can be stored within a GIS and organized into different GIS data layers. When you stack these different map layers in a GIS, you can create maps.
Consider the simple map of the United States on the left. The light yellow map layer represents the states, the blue polygon layer represents the largest US lakes, the red lines represent the Interstate Highway system and the green points represent the major cities. When stacked on top of each other is a GIS, you have created the map shown here.
In addition, GIS links geographic (spatial) data to non-spatial tabular data. For example, a point representing a fire hydrant on a GIS map may link to a database listing the hydrant manufacturer, condition, color and date installed. This linkage, in a digital, dynamic mapping environment, makes GIS a powerful tool.
The City of Evans GIS utilizes GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technology and highly accurate aerial photos to collect geographic information. Currently, the City GIS has more than 100 different map layers organized by feature type. This data is used to create maps and perform geographic analysis in support of City operations.
To learn more about the many applications of GIS, check out the GIS links page.
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