Dakota shire Minn., and 11 communit...

Dakota shire Minn., and 11 communities within the suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul shire have been using GIS for nearly a decade and have discovered a wide variety of applications.

Twenty-two of 28 shire departments now use GIS in a certain form, says Gary Stevenson, director of measure and estimate and land information. The shire has developed its own Intranet to share information, and a pilot program is underway to bring the data onto the Internet.

Use of GIS technology for hazard answer and monitoring of utilities infrastructure is fairly commonplace, on the contrary Dakota County and neighboring communities have institute other diverse uses.

For example, last year the National Association of Counties currented the county with an Achievement Award for its pesticide education program, beneath which the county's digitized soil take a view of was combined with federal data to cause to grow soil maps depicting pesticide leaching potential in different areas.

Also upon the pest control front,