In 2014, MVRPC launched the Regional GIS program to facilitate regional collaboration through data sharing, information exchange, and leveraging GIS investments made by each organization.
The purposes of the Regional GIS program are to: 1) provide its members direct access to MVRPC’s datasets and interact with MVRPC’s GIS to map and analyze data to meet their own needs; and 2) address regional needs through on-going coordination and cooperation amongst organizations in the region.
Two components of MVRPC’s Regional GIS Program are:
- GIS Professional Services Support (PSS): A service-oriented program for MVRPC to assist and support its members to create, maintain, publish and access important geographic data and to utilize MVRPC’s GIS on a routine basis through project-specific partnership efforts.
- Regional Geospatial Coordination (RGC): A working group of GIS professionals in the region to identify, prioritize, and take collaborative action to address specific regional project and data needs.
These two components are meant to work together; as communities work with us through the PSS program and gain GIS expertise; they may then participate with the RGC. As ideas are developed at the RGC, they may circulate down to the communities and be implemented through the PSS program.
With these two components, participating members will realize the following benefits:
- Improved direct access to mapping and geospatial data
- Improved analysis capability and resources
- Enhanced access to value-added information through GIS
- Enhanced capacity for data-driven decision-making
- Enhanced data and information sharing across departments, facilitating innovative, shared solutions at the local level
View a GIS at MVRPC presentation about made to the MVRPC Board of Directors in February of 2015.
A new GIS services flyer highlights information on some of the GIS services MVRPC can provide to communities.
In 2015, MVRPC surveyed GIS users about how they used GIS in their organizations so that we could better understand the needs that exist at the regional and local level. The MVRPC Regional GIS survey results from this first survey were summarized and are available for download. This first GIS Needs Assessment survey was conducted in May of 2015.
A second GIS Needs Assessment survey was conducted in late 2019. This survey has the same aims as the first, with the additional goal of cataloging change in GIS use and needs in the region. The results have also been summarized and are available. Over 50 GIS users responded to the survey, issued in October 2019.
A third GIS Needs Assessment survey was conducted in March 2024. Our latest survey continues to serve as a way to ascertain what the region’s GIS professionals are doing, what they’d like to be doing, and what might be lacking.
MVRPC identified how GIS usage has changed over the years in the Miami Valley Region by analyzing trends from the three assessments, the results of which can be found here: Regional GIS Trends 2015-2024.