- Although the New England region is conservative by nature, the State of Maine Office of GIS is innovating.
- Their LiDAR for the Northeast proposal would provide data for the coastal counties of New England.
- The $6.2 million investment would produce many times that in derivative planning and coastal zone management projects and benefits.
Living in New Hampshire for the past 35 years I know that in many ways we are a conservative region of the USA. Taking it another step further, the US is significantly behind many of the regions of the world, such as western Europe and Australia/New Zealand, when it comes to land and natural resource management. A push is on within the US to once again fund the development of a land cadastre, at least for all of the federally owned property, but this has been tried before without success. Let’s hope this time around that we can make this happen.
Back to the New England region. The State of Maine Office of GIS in conjunction with the USGS, FEMA and others is sponsoring an important LiDAR initiative that would result in obtaining LiDAR data for all counties that border the Atlantic Ocean in New England. Over 10,500 miles of coastline are involved. This LiDAR for the The Northeast draft concept proposal is being circulated throughout the region and is receiving wide support.
The State of Maine is currently working with outdated 20 foot contour interval data that has a +/- 10 foot vertical accuracy. Needless to say this is not sufficient for floodplain mapping and many other coastal zone management applications that require at least 2 foot contours. The proposal is to develop a multi-year program that involves all of the key federal and state agencies. The projected cost for Phase 1 is $6.2 million.
This could be a model for other regions of the world, and if you happen to live in New England perhaps you could lobby the agencies in your area to support this effort. I am sure the $6.2 million investment would produce many times that in derivative projects and benefits to the region. Did someone say stimulus package?
