CMPDD has been awarded the prestigious Special Achievement in Geographic Information System (SAG) award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), a global flagship Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software provider. The award is given to user sites around the world to recognize outstanding work with GIS technology. CMPDD was selected from more than 100,000 other users and is one of approximately 150 recipients.
This SAG award, which recognizes vision, outstanding work, and innovative use of GIS technology, was given to CMPDD in recognition of the GIS Data Center feature on its website. “Last year, CMPDD updated our website and incorporated some very innovative technology advances in the process,” said CMPDD Chief Executive Officer Clarke Holmes. “We’re honored to receive this award in recognition of how we’ve focused a great deal of time and resources into making sure we have a world-class system based in Central Mississippi.”
The District made a business commitment and a significant investment in upgrading required hardware and software in late 2011 with implementation occurring in February 2012. These investments, coupled with the expansion of the GIS Department through additional programming staff, resulted in CMPDD developing and launching customized web-based applications using virtual servers and ArcGIS Server technology. These applications, accessible through a web portal on the CMPDD website, use state-of-the-art HTML and JavaScript programming language to serve up 15 different interactive mapping applications containing a host of information for public viewing. These web applications allow accessibility to numerous State and local data layers, including demographics, political boundaries, flood zones, physical geography (physiography, hydrology, soil types, etc.), transportation, public facilities, subdivisions, zoning, parcels, deeds, and plats among other layers. In addition, these services have search and identify functionality allowing users to query datasets.
With these tablet compatible internet based GIS viewing tools, users are able to pick and choose the base map and data layer(s) from a menu of available information. It is anticipated that additional layers and functionality will be added to each viewer as deemed desirable and economically feasible to meet the various needs of users.
