Corporation for Public Broadcasting Civic Networking Project
Davis Community Network -
A Civic Network as a Strategy for Building a "Smart" Community
Current status report summary:
This component of our contract had two distinctly phased parts.
The first of these was to prepare a City of Davis base map with attached
parcel numbers, and to convert the map to a GIS (GenaMap). This has been
completed.
The second part of our efforts is more complex, time consuming and
interesting.
With the project's primary goal of developing and utilizing integrated
document database, GIS and web access for enhanced public decisionmaking,
we have had numerous technical team meetings to determine critical
hardware and software issues. In order to further refine and specify our
selection of a pilot application for this effort, initially proposed as
focusing on the Willow Slough, we have organized meetings with regional
watershed interest groups, activists and agencies. The result has been
the determination of a broader initiative; an Integrated Bioregional
Watershed Project, with many new partner organizations and stakeholders
(see Online Resources for Enhanced Public Decision Making)
The selected project encompasses the City of
Davis, Putah and Cache Creeks and Willow Slough, much of Yolo County, and
extends to neighboring Counties. It represents some of the most critical
issues that will require public decisionmaking over coming months and
years in this region. As such, it allows for measurable assessment and
evaluation within the timeframe of this grant, and seems to be an ideal
application for our proposed internetworked systems and processes. The
almost organic evolution of this project selection has already lead to new
partnerships and potential funding opportunities, giving this effort a
life and value that can extend beyond the limited period of CPB funding.
As a result, we have just been notified that in partnership with the
regional office of the US Department of AgricultureUs Natural Resources
Conservation Service, DCN is one of nine new NSDI (USGS National Spatial
Data Infrastructure) Grant awardees. Additionally, the US Army Corps of
Engineers has indicated that it will also fund DCN to develop the
Integrated Bioregional Watershed Project, adding new prototype watershed
analysis software WEAP) to the integration, to help facilitate public
decisionmaking capabilities.
Four key issues have been identified as the basis for documents,
data and mapping layers selection, and that require near-term critical
decisionmaking by everyone from County Supervisors and State Water
Resources Agency experts to the voting electorate and even K-12 students.
They are:
- Watershed land use (conservation, agriculture or development?).
- Water quality (contaminants?).
- Water transfers (what are the implications of allotting limited
regional water resources to the Bay Area and Southern California?).
- Flood mitigation and emergency response.
University, government and institutional partners are now ready to
provide us with many of the needed data sets and documents. We will be
using ESRI's ArcInfo and Map Objects as our GIS tools, and are going to
make a final selection of our document database platform in the next few
weeks, slightly behind schedule, but with implications and application for
greater than originally anticipated service. We expect that these
proposed project tasks will be fully on schedule again by this Fall.
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