A regional approach to geographic information sharing in northern New Jersey, USA

ABSTRACT

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) is a regional planning agency in northern New Jersey with jurisdiction over 14 municipalities. This case study describes a five year effort by this agency to serve geographic knowledge to 14 towns in the region by sharing resources and infrastructure through a centralized Geographical Information System (GIS). Serving this information required funding, specialized staff, software licenses and equipment. The information being served consists of interactive maps conveying the spatial arrangement of municipal infrastructure, administrative boundaries and fundamental demographics of each town in maps and tables that show proximity, elevations and distances that would otherwise be impractical to describe using words alone. Systems such as these support local governments by delivering information and services to the community in the form of variance notifications, zoning and land use inventories and updates and emergency management information including Right to Know records (RTK) that inform first responders about stored hazardous materials in industrial facilities. The study details how the target user community was profiled, how data was organized around the needs of the users, the different implementation phases, roll out of the applications, training, maintenance and finally, how the system was adopted and is currently used.

REFERENCES

• 1: Artigas, F., and D, Elefante. "Connecting Communities in the Meadowlands Using Geographical Information Systems". New Jersey State League of Municipalities, 89^th Annual Conference. November 17--19, 2004.
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.3 Organizational Impacts

Keywords:
emergency management, geographical information systems, knowledge, municipal government