GIS software links maps to databases. This lets you do things like click on a certain property, have the relevant language in the zoning ordinance pop up, and draw the required setbacks from the shore. Or you can visualize how close buildings are to the bluff edge and quantify the hazards they face. Hart is the GIS Specialist for UW Sea Grant's Advisory Services team . His workshops are part of the Wisconsin Coastal GIS Applications Project , a cooperative venture of Wisconsin Sea Grant and the Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Hart looks forward to further developments in the project.
That region could be a small watershed that spans county boundaries or perhaps someday the entire Great Lakes basin. Hart's efforts build on 30 years of Wisconsin leadership in harnessing the power of computers to solve land use problems, according to Al Miller , UW Sea Grant Assistant Director for Advisory Services. This assessment of the public investment in land records, especially at the local government level, stimulated the modernization of land records in Wisconsin. However, the state must overcome many obstacles before modernization becomes reality in local governments, according to Hart. Many local governments are only now beginning to face questions about sharing information with other organizations, recovering the cost of modernizing, and a host of other institutional issues.