Texas Fire Risk App and other Government GIS News
The Texas Forest Service and Texas A&M University have unveiled a new Web application that will forewarn residents when conditions are ripe for wildfire. The free application — dubbed TxWRAP — is designed to help homeowners and communities determine wildfire risk so they can act before a wildfire strikes. IT's Esri, Bing and DTS Agile based. The public viewer uses the term map themes along with map layers. Does the public know what a map theme is?
There was a good bit of buzz (at least on this blog) about Michigan signing on with Microsoft for aerial imagery in 2009. Now one county that submitted an intent to participate in year 3 (this year) is getting in on the deal.
Ogemaw County’s Geographic Information System (GIS) aerial photographs will be getting upgraded this year, but some townships’ aerial photos may not be revised.
The Board of Commissioners approved the purchase of aerial photography from Bing Maps during its April 26 meeting. The photography will be up to date, as the last aerial photos were taken 15 years ago, said Equalization Director John Awrey. Awrey added the new photography, scheduled for this spring, will have a much higher resolution.
Awrey said purchasing the upgraded files for the county’s GIS system costs $16,100, with eight townships providing a combined $4,600 for the files and the county paying the rest of the bill.
Pinellas County (Florida) Commissioners unanimously approved a six-year $2.46 million contract April 24 with Esri. The county will consolidate and standardize on Esri products since the current system includes a mix of products, some of which are outdated and unsupported. There is bad news for resellers and other vendors per a report from Property Appraiser Pam Dubov, BTS Director Paul Alexander and Purchasing Manager Joe Lauro, all members of the EGIS committee.
Since the county invested heavily in this software product, it was prudent to leverage the established close working relationship with ESRI [sic] to negotiate directly on a non-competitive basis and bypass potential resellers of the product line.
From what I understand it's a four year deal where the county get "all you can eat." In the fourth year the county must inventory its licenses for use in determining how much it will pay for perpetual licensing.
