Well and Good

The Division of Water at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has historically collected and stored data on floodplains, construction permit applications, dam specifications and inspections, violations, and water well records in a database called Unity. Unity records could only be found by searching on text fields. The Division of Water needed a more efficient and accurate way of researching their records using spatial data that could be quickly displayed on a GIS map, and which would easily toggle back to the database record.

The Division of Water built a map and mapping tool called G.R.I.D. (Geographic Research for Internal Data). G.R.I.D. displays live data from the Unity database as a map view. Pulling information from the database, G.R.I.D. uses symbols to denote different types of records to display accurate geo-locations as points on the map. A tool bar was developed to allow the user to choose a record and open Unity to that record for detailed research. Dam and Compliance Inspections can be tracked using dates in Unity displayed geographically with appropriate symbols. Using the same dates and geographic locations, a cost effective travel schedule can be developed for inspectors. At users’ request, several layers and tools have been added to simplify finding locations, including zooming to a specific county or record.

Results

G.R.I.D. has been a huge success. The hours saved in research and processing file reviews has been significant. No more digging out paper maps trying to find locations and plotting dots or weeding through hundreds of query hits in Unity that do not warrant research due to their location. Now Division of Water staff can open G.R.I.D., find the location for an application, and research data within a range in just a few steps.

Printable Version

Success Stories

• Environment
• Health & Safety
• Economic Development
• Everyone
• Good Government
• Transportation
• Utilities