Case Study: City of Little Falls

Within the next year, licensed copies of desktop GIS software were purchased for Codes and DPW and training was conducted.

Late in 2009, it was time to provide GIS data access to the remaining departments and boards. Those users would be more casual, needing only periodic access and would not need to edit data at all. A web based GIS viewer was the logical choice.

It was important that the viewer be easy to use, provide access to all data, offer some basic analysis capability and printing of maps with user-specified data and zoom levels.

The biggest challenge in this project was being able to display a wealth of data layers clearly, regardless of whether the aerial photo was shown or not. The solution was to use partial transparency as seen below.

For a GIS to be useful long-term, it is essential that the data be kept current. For Little Falls, tax parcel data is updated in January and July each year. Zoning and sewer and water district data is updated on an as needed basis. All funding for the City of Little Falls GIS has come from department budgets; no grant funding was needed.