Homeland Security Committee forms GIS Subcommittee
At its June 2006 meeting, the Regional Homeland Security Coordinating Committee RHSCC) reviewed the recently published Strategic Plan for Regional Geospatial Homeland Security and approved formal creation of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) subcommittee to lead implementation of the plan.
The goal of the strategic plan, developed with Urban Area Security Initiative grant funds from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was to define how investments in GIS technology can most effectively enhance homeland security and public safety.
Working with a consultant, MARC coordinated meetings with public safety and GIS personnel from local governments throughout the region to evaluate current GIS capabilities and identify resources needed to improve those capabilities.
The plan identifies four primary objectives:
- Collecting the right data
- Making it sharable
- Ensuring its security
- Integrating GIS into emergency operations
The new subcommittee will tackle challenging issues presented by the plan, including development of a memorandum of understanding for exchanging critical GIS data layers among stakeholders and establishment of a regional data repository — a secure server to store and distribute data and interface with software used by local governments in their emergency operations centers.