CAST Fiscal Year 2004-2005 Annual Report - Center for Advanced ...

county, state and regional governments. We
accomplish this task through research,
appropriate technology transfer, education (at
multiple education levels), and distribution of
GIS data, supporting users, developing
applications and by offering professional GIS
education to a growing audience of new users.
Screen shots from RGIS MidSouth website:
www.rgis.cast.uark.edu
In FY 2004, RGIS-MS has continued its
supporting role in Arkansas’ development of
geospatial data models and standards for its
statewide street centerline file, infrastructure
data layer, and parcel data model through sideby-side
participation with local agencies and
technical consultants within Northwest Arkansas
and in collaboration with the Arkansas Office of
Geographic Information. The RGIS-MS site
continues to host Arkansas’ statewide geospatial
data distribution system GeoStor and we have
leveraged RGIS resources to assist in its
promotion to newly appointed officials and late
adopters within our state and local government.
Through our RGIS mandates, RGIS-MS staff
have provided key demonstrations and
supported over 470 individual outreach efforts
that have helped educate our elected officials
and their staff and citizenry as to the benefits of
geospatial technologies. The RGIS-MS/CAST
website activity has continued to increase during
the 2004 fiscal year to well over 35,000 hits per
day. RGIS-MS continues to build on the past
success of Arkansas’ geospatial data delivery
system GeoStor and has expanded its
usefulness by expanding its data holdings and
broadening its scope beyond the boundaries of
Arkansas into seven mid-American states.
Another exciting impact in FY 2003 that was
continued within FY 2004 was our participation
in the USGS-funded AmericaView program and
our leveraging of RGIS support to expand the
local support opportunities of the project.
Through this effort RGIS-MS has expanded
community access to a range of remotely
sensed data products (TM 5, ETM+, ASTER,
MODIS, and a private-sector, high-resolution
sensor (Quickbird ). Through this effort, we
provided a focused training program for our
regional extension agents and fellow university
researchers in the use of PCI Geomatics
software.
Our collaboration with the City of Fayetteville,
Arkansas and the Northwest Arkansas Regional
Planning Commission during our original
FY2003 special project initiative resulted in a
positive impact by providing a localized
demonstration of a community decision support
system for our local planners and in FY2004
RGIS MidSouth introduced them to the
capabilities of impervious surface classification
of high-resolution satellite imagery (QuickBird
). Our demonstration of the CommunityVIZ
software spawned an interest in a pilot project
with the City of Fayetteville and the Fayetteville
Public School District to purchase QuickBird
imagery of their complete service areas and to
develop a classification method for extraction of
impervious surfaces during FY2004. These data
not only provided up-to-date, high-resolution
imagery, but the results of the remote sensing
pilot with RGIS MidSouth demonstrated the
usefulness of new technologies for supporting
storm water management planning and site
28 CENTER FOR ADVANCED SPATIAL TECHNOLOGIES