ITEM:		INFORMATIONAL ITEMS/STAFF REPORTS
26.	QUARTERLY GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROGRAM UPDATE
Meeting Date:			October 18, 2004	Budgeted:	N/A
From:			David A. Berger,	Program/	N/A
			General Manager	Line Item No.:
Prepared By:			Eric Sandoval	Cost Estimate:	N/A
General Counsel Approval: N/A
Committee Recommendation: N/A
CEQA Compliance: N/A

The purpose of the MPWMD Geographic Information Systems Program is to provide analytical geospatial support to staff. The current goal is to develop an agency-wide GIS program to inventory, assess, manage and analyze data from regions which share common challenges utilizing in-house expertise. The next quarterly report will be prepared for the January 2005 meeting. The following paragraphs highlight GIS activities in the July-September 2004 period.

Geographic Information Systems Implementation Plan — Creation of a formal GIS Implementation Plan, which will guide the development and maintenance of the GIS program has begun. A GIS Implementation Plan will complete the assessment for enterprise-wide GIS development at MPWMD.

Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) Orthophotography Project — The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) entered into a cooperative agreement with MPWMD regarding a Regional Orthophotography Project. AMBAG entered into a technical services contract with SANBORN Colorado, L.L.C. to provide technical and professional services related to orthophotography of the Monterey Bay Region.

Aerial photography and high resolution elevation acquisition flights were conducted in July 2003. MPWMD’s contract with AMBAG ended June 30, 2004 without complete delivery of products. At this time, MPWMD has withdrawn from the project citing untimely and incomplete delivery of products. In addition, some of the delivered products have not met acceptance criteria.

The District will fulfill its commitment and continue to participate in the Orthoimagery Subcommittee. The Subcommittee is an advisory group, which provides technical advice to AMBAG for the Orthoimagery Project. The Subcommittee has agreed to continue advising AMBAG and the participants until the project is complete.

File Management and Organization — During this reporting period, District staff has continued to evaluate current data management and organizational procedures. The following is a list of on-going or completed tasks:

· Evaluate GIS, statistical and graphic software for District requirements

· Revise Map Gallery web page for the District web site

· Complete public GIS data requests

· Research alternatives for orthoimagery product support

· Fulfill map requests from staff

· Complete installation and upgrade of GIS software

· Complete installation and upgrade of GPS software

· Back-up all GIS dataholdings on personal desktops and servers

· Generate and update metadata for existing and new GIS datasets. Metadata is documentation which describes the accuracy, methodology, source, contact information, etc. of a geospatial dataset.

Data Collection and Conversion — During this reporting period, District staff has required support for ongoing projects. Due to these needs, data collection and conversion has been necessary even though a formal GIS program is not in place. A preliminary goal of converting/creating one GIS data layer per month has been established. To date, 36 layers have been created or converted. This number exceeds the preliminary goal of twelve. This will be an on-going effort. Review of specific datasets will vary project by project.

Staff and Project Support —

The following is a list of on-going or completed tasks or projects:

· Completed draft maps for the proposed Seaside Groundwater Management Plan.

· Completed a draft map for the Water West allocation measure.

· Obtain parcel ownership information from the County Assessors office. Coordinate with County staff to finalize the criteria and format of the datasets.

· Providing GIS assistance for the Watershed Assessment project.

· Participate and attend the 2004 Annual ESRI GIS User conference.

· Completion of the initial phase of the Monitoring Well mapping project.

· Provide technical training to staff for GIS analysis and GPS acquisition.

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