The Challenge: Cities need accurate, up-to-date, and accessible data on their utility systems to maintain current infrastructure and enable easy additions. South Sioux City noticed that much of their existing data was dated, incorrect, missing, or inconsistently completed. The city needed an update.
The Solution: An obvious solution to this problem would be to recollect data for the entire city, however, this solution would be time-consuming, costly, and only temporarily solve the problem. Once the city grew, the data would be inaccurate. JEO’s South Sioux City intern group partnered with the city to create a Standards Report for South Sioux City’s GIS. This report outlines what data should be collected when conditions change and assigns responsibility in terms of who should collect which pieces of data. With a standard in place, the interns then surveyed the utilities in a small section of the town to create a working example of how this standard set could be used.
Project Benefits: A clear structure outlining who is responsible for collecting data on each change or addition in the city creates a more robust dataset overall. JEO’s intern group was able to update some data for South Sioux City’s existing utilities and, perhaps more importantly, the team supplied South Sioux City with the necessary tools to keep their local information consistent and correct.