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D.C. Does GIS

The new Web-based mapping resource puts information from 67 agencies in one place for District employees.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) officially unveiled the DC Atlas on Monday.

The DC Atlas is the district's first and only standardized resource for mapping and location-based information. The DC Atlas is a Web-based suite of GIS tools that pools data from agencies across the district, acting as a central, easy-to-use source to find detailed, useful data for sophisticated planning and analysis. The DC Atlas is available for use by all district employees with Web access over the intranet.

All of the information contained in the DC Atlas comes from the district's 67 agencies, officials said, and the DC Atlas is the first and only standardized resource for district GIS data, pooling information from every district agency and placing it in one central repository for agency employees to access.

Roughly 90 percent of the district's data is geographically based, but officials said that until the DC Atlas was created, each agency lacked a central repository of standardized GIS data.

District workers can now click on a map of a district neighborhood and identify trash collection routes, parking zones, property information and utility lines.

The DC Atlas contains data and more than 100 detailed mapping layers categorized by such themes as administrative, education, recreation, planning and economic development, public safety, environmental, real property, socioeconomic and demographic data, and transportation.

Adam Rubinson, the OCTO's senior director of special projects, explained how the DC Atlas will benefit district citizens both directly and indirectly.

"The DC Atlas is a tool that will ultimately save district resources and benefit citizens in limitless ways, from improving services to district residents to enhancing homeland security efforts," Rubinson said. "By pointing, clicking and dragging, a great number of District employees will be able to perform sophisticated analysis in a fraction of the time it took just a few months ago."

Using the DC Atlas, virtually every district agency will find applications to assist them in their work -- including crime analysis and urban planning -- to the instant production of something as basic as quickly producing mailing labels to notify citizens of street work.

"During the recent IMF protests, public safety employees, using a specially developed 3-D GIS application, were able to simulate scenarios in and around buildings, enabling them to assess and develop strategies to manage contingencies," Rubinson said.