INTRODUCTION
Location data is critical to nearly all state and local government work — whether it’s responding to a public safety call, supporting community planning and development, or maintaining critical infrastructure.
While governments have a wide array of geospatial data for this work, this information often exists in silos, and traditional IT infrastructure presents obstacles to optimizing and securing it.
That’s why state and local governments are embracing a more comprehensive approach within their enterprise IT infrastructure — the concept of spatial infrastructure.
“GIS and spatial infrastructure could be described as the most impactful technology government has access to,” says Carl Nylen, senior account manager for state and local government at Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence and mapping. “I don’t know of any other technology that’s as broadly and deeply distributed across virtually every function of government at the state, regional or local level.”
WHY SPACIAL INFRASTRUCTURE?
Spatial infrastructure enhances traditional GIS by incorporating modern tools, such as cloud computing platforms, to seamlessly integrate with the IT technologies and systems governments use every day.
Comprehensive spatial infrastructure includes modern, location-based software that encompasses industry best practices, aligns with an organization’s existing governance and IT policies, and evolves as operational needs change.
Spatial infrastructure typically integrates GIS with core systems, such as permitting, asset management and customer relationship management systems. The technology has widespread applicability across government functions, including data collection and management, general mapping, analytics, and mobile and field use.
Spatial infrastructure is flexible. It can be deployed in different ways, including as a single system, a collection of systems or a geo-enabled business system. And as an increasingly cloud-native technology, spatial infrastructure allows governments to improve operational efficiency because of the cloud’s flexibility and scalability.
“Now that we have hyperscalers that are able to build out these large-scale capabilities, it allows governments to use a pay-as-you-go model to only pay for services they are actively using,” says Carlos Rivero, executive government adviser at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Spatial infrastructure allows governments to take their geospatial data out of silos and optimize it for practical use.
USE CASES
Public safety and emergency management
Spatial infrastructure can help public safety and emergency response agencies deploy personnel to the right areas at the right time based on location — whether it’s for a medical or fire call, a crime in progress, or disaster recovery.
Planning and development
City and community planners can make more informed zoning decisions about where to allow residential, commercial or industrial buildings based on factors such as land suitability, environmental constraints and natural resource protection. They can also use integrated GIS data to visualize and analyze complex data related to population density, land use and topography, and use these inputs to improve the accuracy of their forecasts and models.
Health and human services
Governments can proactively identify areas at high risk for certain diseases and conditions, more effectively track public health outbreaks and create predictive models to identify future community health trends. These activities can support proactive interventions that improve health outcomes and lower health-care service costs.
Facilities management
State and local governments can use GIS data to optimize facilities, promote health and safety in buildings, and improve energy efficiency. Such information can also enhance space planning to increase productivity, lower costs and strengthen emergency preparedness in government buildings. Additionally, governments can use spatial infrastructure to advance sustainability, integrating GIS data with data from heating, cooling, lighting and waste management systems to better understand energy-usage patterns and implement practices that reduce their carbon footprint.
Asset management
Spatial infrastructure lets leaders access timely data on road and bridge conditions and deploy resources more effectively through predictive maintenance efforts.
Smart city initiatives
Integrating spatial data into core business systems supports projects such as real-time traffic congestion monitoring, multimodal transportation planning and effective land use for public spaces.
SPATIAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN ACTION
Problem:
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) used to rely on an on-premises imagery storage solution, but the technology became increasingly costly to scale as the department served more users and stood up additional services. The solution also lacked portability, which affected who could access the data and when.
Solution:
WisDOT decided to move to the cloud. It adopted Esri’s ArcGIS Image Dedicated, which brings rapid analytics and streaming capabilities directly to imagery and is deployed on AWS Cloud infrastructure.
Results:
The move allowed the department to consolidate 100 terabytes of high-resolution imagery, increase data accessibility and lower costs by 90 percent. WisDOT increased access to high-resolution imagery for its 3,500 employees, which has accelerated project delivery times, streamlined collaboration with other departments, and reduced WisDOT’s storage costs from $260,000 to around $25,000 annually.¹
IMPLEMENTATION BEST PRACTICES
Define a strategy
Develop a geospatial strategy that focuses deployment on your organization’s mission-critical needs. Start by identifying use cases where spatial infrastructure can immediately optimize operations.
Lead with integration
Develop a solid business system integration strategy, including building criteria for the selection of new business systems you may acquire. This will establish a solid foundation for collecting and activating spatial data across government functions.
Collaborate with a technology partner
The right technology partner can provide invaluable expertise and accelerate your deployment strategy and plan. Esri and AWS, for example, offer resources to define, implement, operate, maintain and improve spatial infrastructure. Also, many governments are adopting hybrid models for spatial infrastructure, balancing on-premises and cloud-based systems for maximum flexibility, scalability and performance. AWS offers a range of capabilities to streamline this type of project.
Invest in workforce development
In addition to external expertise, agencies need to have trained staff and provide resources to continuously improve their knowledge about GIS and spatial infrastructure. Consider on-demand training programs that feature relevant use cases. You can also sponsor GIS certifications, attend GIS workshops and hackathons, and designate internal champions who will help establish a collaborative learning culture.
Focus on security and governance
Use cloud infrastructure that aligns your data security with evolving privacy regulations. For example, AWS cloud infrastructure provides multiple layers of integrated security, such as physical controls, policy controls, technical controls, authentication, authorization, firewalls, filters and encryption. Make sure GIS data is compliant and secure.
CONCLUSION
Spatial infrastructure holds tremendous potential for enhancing how governments use and share GIS data for a wide variety of use cases. Organizations that develop a detailed plan with external partners on how to integrate spatial infrastructure with their systems will reap the benefits of this technology much faster.
The cloud is the ideal tool for making sure GIS data is compliant and secure.
¹ Wisconsin DOT Improved Efficiency Moving Imagery Services to Cloud-Based GIS
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