GIS Data are Forever!
Popular culture asserts that diamonds are forever.
Scientists will quickly point out that a blowtorch burns diamond away and turns it into gaseous CO2. Nothing left. And so… your GIS data is considerably more permanent than a diamond! Unless accidentally deleted - an event less and less likely given our current distributed backup cloud technologies, your data will be around for the long haul.
Think about it - software can rapidly morph to something unrecognizable within a very short period, and need not pay any allegiance to its past. Your GIS data on the other hand, and all the other data layers registered to it, will likely exist in a recognizable form far into the future.
Authoritative source records are likely to exist in digital form indefinitely.
“Authoritative source records are likely to exist in digital form indefinitely.”
It is unfortunate that organizations put little emphasis into maintaining GIS data. Everyone can build a dataset once - unless you’re a federal government agency tending to create lots of half built and half-funded data sets, much to everyone’s frustration. If you leave a new car out in the elements for an extended period, it may still have the form of a car but will it start? Will the paint be peeling? Will it retain any value?
If you don’t maintain it, will it retain any value?
When looking at a large data project, you of course want to follow all the usual best practices for building the data.
What is the plan for maintenance?
Will versioning of the data need to take place?
When dealing with vendor data, do you know the date the polygon and attribute information were last updated?
What is your roadmap for your data?
How will updates be captured, organized, and included into your framework data?
What are the QA/QC for data update considerations?
Does management know there needs to be a long term investment in the development and growth of the data?
Can you foresee additional, more granular data needed to continue the project down the road?
How can you best position your GIS data project politically for success?
These are some of the questions you should think about given a large GIS data capture project.
Building and maintaining GIS for the nurturing and growth of data are far different creatures. New GIS initiatives create excitement in an organization. Discussions to fund maintenance of a critical existing GIS data providing intangible benefits to an organization do not. Holding these two types of management discussions successfully require two completely different skill sets.
Teams are often great at one and poor at the other, and yet the ultimate long term success of your GIS project depends on handling both conversations well, because GIS data actually is forever.
And so, to freely mix metaphors, treat your GIS data (and your car!) as if they were made of diamonds, and they’ll both be there for you down the road.
