@SeanGorman "Every disaster reinforces that a "data download" button should be a prerequisite – your caged data wants to be free – let it go help!" 3/13/2011
The Arkansas Geographic Information Office (AGIO) logo includes the text "Putting Arkansas on the Map!" I was recently asked "Which map?" My response was, "All of them!" We recognize this is a huge effort that many would consider impossible. Though we do not have full control of who incorporates Arkansas data, we make the data available. The AGIO has provided open access to GIS data for over 10 years. We are enabled by the great GIS community within the state that provides regular data updates which are ingested, and distributed via @GeoStor (www.geostor.arkanas.gov).
The next obvious question is "Why do you provide open data?" Open GIS data is advantageous for economic reasons and in times of disasters . We ask ourselves the question "If a an investor is looking for a place to build a plant or disaster occurs; where would someone look for information?" The answer: "Not our state GIS Platform in most cases." (See presentation Open Data)
Preparing for the New Madrid earthquake has made us to think about how we provide GIS data in a time of disaster. More often than not, the GIS community has suggested Web services. We plan for the worst and hope for the best. Our plans assume GeoStor will be off-line. We have implemented several "low-tech" precautions to plan for the worst.
1. Critical data is exported from our SDE database to a shapefile on our FTP site (http://goo.gl/ZKLl3) every Friday night. (Shapefiles can be used by numerous products and users can easily convert to other file formats or services.)
2. Data is copied to two off-site servers on Saturday mornings. (Data is stored on servers within other agencies that may need the data if disaster strikes.)
3. Data is sent and loaded into GeoCommons once a year (http://goo.gl/2hFlN). (It does not cost the AGIO anything, and it is an easy place to retrieve data if no Internet access is available from within the state.)
Additionally, all of the data has been provided to Bing, Esri, Google and MapQuest along with copies of the most recent aerial imagery publicly available. This is a continuous process, but well worth the return.
We hope a major disaster never strikes the state. If it does, we are hopeful someone will remember this blog post and go get the data. We will need all the help we can get and do not want valuable hours spent recreating data that already exist. We would encourage anyone that creates spatial data to consider where their data is located and how it will be accessed in a time of need.