Adirondack Forest Preserve Unit Management Planning: The Forest Preserve consists of millions of acres of public land in the Adirondack Park divided into units and managed by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The goal of this five-year project is to facilitate planning for the Adirondack Forest Preserve using Geographic Information Systems. Stewardship of each unit is guided by a Unit Management Plan (UMP), a document within which natural and cultural resources, stresses on those resources, and present and potential recreational facilities are identified, and recommendations are made to ensure that these resources are not compromised. (September 2004)

Columbia Land Conservancy, Inc. (CLC): In 2004, CLC expand the verification and collection of the data used for the map by working with conservation organizations operating within the eight counties and municipalities located within each of the counties.The goal of this partnership is to create and maintain an accurate data set for recreational and conservation lands open to the public in the eight county region. The purpose of the data collection was to produce a map depicting the recreational and conservation lands open to the public and to analyze the distribution of these lands. (September 2005)

Empire State Development's NYSiteFinder Application: NYSiteFinder is being deployed by Empire State Development to facilitate the site selection process in New York State. In partnership with local and regional economic development agencies, utility companies, commercial realtors, and other economic development professionals, we are able to provide a most extensive and current inventory of industrial sites and buildings. Properties are linked to interactive mapping, providing over 50 layers of GIS data. (March 2003)

Environmental Health: Since environmental health problems are complex and often operate at multiple scales they are often difficult to understand. Timely, accurate, and integrated spatial information is a critical component of environmental health literacy. Our partnership is building a secure online spatial data library to combine information from multiple organizations and to share that information policymakers and community-based organizations. We will demonstrate the benefits of improved literacy through pilot projects in the East and Central Harlem neighborhoods of New York City. (October 2006)

Erie County's Dissemination of GIS Data and Technology to Municipalities: The long-term partnership between the Erie County Soil and Water Conservation District and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) was recently expanded to include a shared staff person with Erie County's Department of Environment and Planning. This shared position will reinforce efforts to coordinate dissemination of GIS data and technology to municipalities throughout Erie County. It builds on earlier efforts to promote GIS through the USDA sponsored "GIS and Conservation Technologies" AmeriCorps team that was based in the East Aurora Service Center over a two year period. (September 2002)

Erie Niagara Intermunicipal Agreement for Shared GIS Services: The Agreement was developed out of a mutual interest between Erie and Niagara counties to develop and maintain GIS programs in the most cost effective manner. The goal is to provide the staff and residents of both counties with high quality geospatial services while saving money through sharing of GIS infrastructure and geospatial applications. (September 2008)

Finger Lakes National Forest(FLNF): A number of stakeholders have advocated strongly for the preservation of forest stands containing old trees, but a current map of the oldest forest stands on the FLNF and adjacent lands does not exist. We developed a collaborative project with the Environmental Studies Program and the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Friends of the Forest, the Finger Lakes Land Trust, the US Forest Service, and Finger Lakes Forest Watch to map patches of old forest in the FLNF and surrounding lands between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. (October 2006)

Geospatial Information Technology(GIT) Education: The GIT Ahead project focuses on workforce preparation in Geospatial Information Technology (GIT) fields through teacher professional development, educational software development, and provision of internships, job shadowing, and career preparation experiences for high school students in urban and rural schools. GIT represents a broad category of tools that are becoming increasingly available to help with regional problem-solving, but there is a shortage of technicians trained to apply these tools. (October 2006)

Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBET): The IBET GIS Work Group was formed to support IBET's mission of securing the US/Canadian border by facilitating partnerships such as the Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) Project. The LULC data and the partnerships developed through this project will support a joint Common Operational Picture (COP) that involves multiple law enforcement agencies. This partnership will deliver a unique set of LULC data that spans the US/Canadian border. (September 2004)

Interactive Mapping Gateway: Statewide Digital Orthophotography Application: The Statewide Digital Orthophotography Application is a statewide data set featuring enhanced image quality and compressed file formats; advanced internet mapping capability centered around accessing digital ortho imagery with a substantial level of geographic guidance; and, a sound internet application that can be transferred to other public entities in order to significantly reduce start-up costs associated with developing inter- or intranet mapping capability.

Map, Analyze, Plan: Upstate New York [M-A-P:UNY]: The purpose is to make Real Property land use and housing condition information more universally available, and usable, to neighborhood preservation companies and rural preservation companies throughout upstate New York as well as to the county agencies responsible for planning and real property tax administration. (updated September 2006)

New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation (NYCEM): The United States Geological Survey's National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project indicates a moderate earthquake hazard in the New York City metropolitan region. However, little is known to date concerning the nature and extent of losses which would result from a large or even a moderate size earthquake. NYCEM was established in 1998 to conduct loss estimation studies, which will provide a framework for developing appropriate, cost effective mitigation strategies to reduce this risk. In addition, loss estimates will enable disaster preparedness planners with a better understanding of the likely post event conditions on which to base their plans.

New York City's GIS Coordination Program: The New York City GIS Coordination Program has been spearheaded by the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and their GIS Director. The goal of DoITT's program was to develop an integrated approach to the development, distribution, and use of data in New York City Government. A major portion of this partnership includes the development of the GIS Utility project, which creates a central database (also referred to as a spatial data warehouse) for key spatial data layers that would be of use to all City agencies and the public. The GIS Utility integrates important GIS layers with business critical databases from different City agencies. This allows agencies to tie their business data to GIS base layers to perform powerful analyses efficiently, using the most current and relevant data available in the City. The effectiveness of the GIS Utility is directly related to the type and amount of data in the system. Given this, the success of the project success depended heavily on the cooperation and coordination of nearly every agency in New York City.

New York City's Urban Forest Program: A strong GIS partnership has developed between the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC DPR), the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station (USFS NRS), and the University of Vermont through the New York City Urban Field Station, a joint initiative of the US Forest Service and New York City Parks.  A central purpose of this partnership is to apply geospatial technology to improve the understanding of New York City’s urban forest through analysis, data sharing, education, and cooperation. The partnership was originally founded to analyze NYC’s urban forest during the development of PlaNYC 2030. Since PlaNYC’s inception the partnership has expanded to include everything from mapping stewardship groups to educating the next generation of geospatial professionals. The Urban Field Station promotes natural resource stewardship and ecological literacy in New York City and supports research on the ecology, dynamics and benefits of the urban forest. (September 2008)

New York Ocean and Great Lakes Atlas: Environmental Conservation Law Article 14 - the New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Act created the New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Council made up of nine state organization heads. Section 14-0111, part 4 of the Act calls for creation of "...an ocean and coastal resources atlas to make information available to the public and decision makers". This project resulted in a web mapping application that delivers information on ocean and coastal resources to the public and decision makers. (September 2008)

Open Accessible Space Information System: The Open Accessible Space Information System (OASIS) in New York City is a coalition of more than 40 nonprofit organizations, government agencies, businesses, educational institutions, and individuals. Its centerpiece is the first citywide website that enhances environmental stewardship by providing a common, free, online, spatial data inventory. The OASIS website helps people see and understand their neighborhoods by visualizing data through mapping over the Internet. It makes information available to communities that cannot afford expensive mapping tools and/or access the complex pool of government and private sources of spatial data necessary to understand and plan for open space. (September 2004)

Regional Application Center for the Northeast (RACNE): RACNE was created to increase the potential for Earth system science data to become integrated into local decision making, thus increasing the potential for successful climate variability coping strategies and mitigation efforts throughout the Northeast. Using NASA satellite imagery, the RACNE will initially focus on hydrologic/hydraulic impacts of climate variability in the Finger Lakes Region.

River Area Council of Governments (RACOG): The River Area Council of Governments has appointed an ad hoc committee to address issues pertaining to recreation. The committee has embarked on a project to document existing pedestrian trails within the Villages of Carthage and West Carthage. With the assistance of Carthage Central High School students enrolled in the Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) course, the committee will develop recreational maps to promote a more walkable community and to provide opportunities for recreational activities that will enhance the quality of life of all residents. (September 2005)

Shared Adirondack Park Geographic Information CD-ROM Version 1.0: The "Shared Adirondack Park Geographic Information CD-ROM version 1.0" assembles Adirondack Park geographic information from a broad set of disciplines and makes it easily available for improved park planning. From school children to graduate researcher, from town planner to county and state planners - it is the hope of the participants that the Adirondack Park will benefit greatly from the improved accessibility of this information.

Southern Tier West Regional Planning and Development Board's Community GIS Project: Community GIS provides GIS capacity to local governments utilizing the internet. These are small rural communities that cannot implement GIS on their own because of cost, personnel, and time issues. Community GIS overcomes those barriers by providing GIS capacity through a cooperative effort. (September 2002)

St. Lawrence County Resource Sharing GIS: This informal partnership was born out of the need for GIS development in St. Lawrence County, New York. By combining the knowledge and resources of governmental and academic institutions this large but rural county with limited GIS staff resources can make greater, more efficient progress in developing and disseminating spatial data. (September 2002)

State-of-the-Art Public Access Training and Production GIS Laboratory: The GIS Laboratory was created to deliver fully equipped, public access, production/training GIS laboratory and regional environmental database. It was also formed to meet the needs of local governments, schools and communities to develop sound land use planning capability and decision making at the local level.

Suffolk County Orthoimagery: Purpose was to find money to pay for the additional costs of the higher resolution upgrade for the 2007 NYS Digital Orthoimagery for all of Suffolk County. The goal was to secure a total of $454,000 from multiple government agencies within Suffolk County that requested the need for higher resolution imagery. Suffolk County was not prepared to foot this bill alone and a partnership solution was sought. (September 2007)

Tidal Wetland Restoration, South Shore Estuary Reserve (Long Island, New York): New York's Department of State (DOS), Division of Coastal Resources, is working with partners to develop a comprehensive wetland restoration plan for Long Island's south shore estuary. The estuary is a large coastal embayment complex encompassing over 25,000 acres of estuarine and pallustrine wetlands. The objective of conducting the comprehensive restoration plan is twofold: 1) identify a long term restoration goal for tidal wetlands and wetland-dependent fish and wildlife resources, by quantifying the total amount of potential wetland restoration acreage; and 2) identify and characterize specific site restoration requirements. Both objectives are being achieved using GIS spatial analysis, based on newly developed digital data sets.

Tug Hill Commission GIS Cooperative: The purpose of the Tug Hill Commission GIS Cooperative is to share the NYS Tug Hill Commission's relative wealth of GIS resources (hardware, software, data and staff) with government and not-for-profit agencies in the North Country region that lack the budget and/or personnel to implement GIS themselves. Deliverables consist of data analysis and hardcopy maps produced for specific projects undertaken by Cooperative members.

Tug Hill Commission GIS Starter Kit Program: The Tug Hill Commission GIS Starter Kit Program was developed for the purpose of sharing the Commission's relative wealth of GIS resources (hardware, software, data and staff) with local governments in the North Country region that lack the budget and/or personnel to implement GIS themselves. Because this a large and very rural portion of the state, local governments without GIS resources are common. The Tug Hill Commission GIS Starter Kit Program is intended to empower these governments and the communities they serve with GIS capacity. (March 2003)

USGS and New York City DOITT: USGS approached New York City DOITT, Citywide GIS regarding anticipated Home land Security requirements for the August 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC) to be held in Madison Square Garden. This opportunity also would allow USGS to advance it’s National Map initiative while NYC-DOITT was able to use USGS funding along with additional City funding to expand orthoimagery acquisition for all 5 Boroughs. Other ongoing City GIS activities were enhanced for GIS data creation in the central Manhattan area. (September 2004)

Using LiDAR and GIS to Study Flood Plains and Erosion, and to Predict Failure Potential along the Banks of the Mohawk River: This project was an exemplary success of partnership between a NYS department (DEC) and an academic institution (Union College). This project was only possible with this partnership because DEC provided LiDAR files of the Mohawk River watershed that Union College had no access to. The realized savings from this partnership is immeasurable as Union College does not have the resources that can be used to acquire the data that DEC freely provided. We at Union College are certainly thankful and appreciative. (September 2009)

Cortland County's Economic Development GIS: The partnership between the Cortland County Planning Department and the Business Development Corp./Industrial Development Agency (BDC/IDA) in the City of Cortland utilizes GIS to assist in enticing new business and industry into the county. The GIS data and maps generated by the County Planning Department are used by the BDC/IDA to create a positive economic climate within the county for new and existing businesses and residents. (September 2002)

Crime Mapping and Analysis - Operation IMPACT: Crime analysis for tactical and strategic policing is critical to the success of New York State’s Operation IMPACT — the statewide comprehensive crime reduction program. For participating police departments, a key component of the program is the continuum of development and support for crime mapping and analysis provided through a partnership between DCJS and the University at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice. (September 2005)

Interactive Parcel and Tourism Viewers: This is an ongoing partnership between Cattaraugus County and Southern Tier West Regional Planning and Development Board. The partnership was formed to create two interactive ArcIMS viewers. One viewer to showcase all the tourist attractions located throughout the county, and the other to show all the Real Property data associated with all the parcels throughout the county. (September 2003)

New York Statewide Digital Orthoimagery Program (NYSDOP): The goal of the NYSDOP is to deliver consistently high quality orthoimagery and other related products in a manner which offers economies of scale combined with flexibility to customize for localized needs. To meet these goals, CSCIC, as the contract holder, has worked in partnerships with numerous Federal, State, County, and Local government agencies.  In turn, these partners have formed partnerships of their own to pool resources.  Most of the following focuses on financial aspects of partnerships, but the data and knowledge sharing portions of these partnerships have been very valuable. (September 2009)

NYC Watershed Protection Program Tax Mapping Project with Watershed Counties: This project developed out of mutual interest on the part of the City of New York Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP), the State Office of Real Property Services (NYSORPS), and many of the eight NYC Watershed counties to develop digital tax maps in a consistent format.

NYS Department of Health's Public Water Supply Spatial Data Collection Project: The purpose of establishing this partnership is to establish a means of collecting spatial information regarding public water supplies. Water supply information collected includes accurate locations for water sources, other facilities and water districts from the over 11,500 public water supply systems in New York. (September 2002)

Schoharie County's Emergency Management Project: This project seeks to reduce the impact of future flooding by bringing a higher level of accuracy and detail to flooding analysis and prediction. As a result of flooding in 1996 and a Federal Disaster Area declaration, funding became available which the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Schoharie County were able to leverage to enhance emergency management by using digital mapping as a base for a semi-automated flood forecast model. Additional outcomes include better hazard mitigation through land use planning and coordination of emergency decisions including a "reverse 911" system.

Watershed Boundary Dataset(WBD): The Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) is the creation of a consistent, seamless, and hierarchical watershed boundary dataset based on topographic and hydrologic features following the "Federal Standards for Delineation of Hydrologic Unit Boundaries" for consistent watershed coverage across the nation. WBD will contain 10 and 12 digit hydrologic unit boundaries. (October 2006)

Geographic Information Systems Electric Utility's Emergency Reporting Project: The purpose of the project was to provide the 7 major electric companies in New York State and the Department of Public Service (DPS) with an integrated tool to allow DPS to receive, process, analyze, and report electric outage data quickly and in a uniform format during emergency outages. The information is then disseminated to other agencies to assist in deployment of essential resources and services. The partnership was necessary insure that the information provided met the needs (content and format) of the agencies that respond to emergency events at the State Emergency Operations Center.

Response to North Country Ice Storm '98: When days of freezing rain resulted in up to four inches of ice accumulated over northern New York State, leaving 21,687 miles of state, county and town roads impassible and more than 320,000 residents without power, multiple agencies worked with the State Emergency Management Office to assess, update and convey information relating to the emergency for coordinated disaster management.

Rockland County's Emergency Response Planning: Rockland County and State officials have developed detailed emergency response plans for the area within 10 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants, and have previously relied solely on a publication entitled “Planning for Emergencies” to disseminate the emergency plans to the public. The Partnership’s goal was to improve the quality of outreach to Rockland County residents by providing a regularly updated website, with an easily accessible way for users to obtain emergency plans specific to their street address. Thus, the Indian Point Interactive GIS Mapping System was created, a vast improvement for residents who previously relied on having to figure out their emergency information from a small scale printed map enclosed in “Planning for Emergencies”. Partnerships were necessary to bring the technical GIS expertise of the Rockland County Planning Department (the County’s lead agency in GIS development) and consultants, Intelligent Decisions Systems Inc., together with the funding and emergency planning expertise of the Rockland County Office of Fire and Emergency Services. (March 2003)

Schenectady Internet Mapping Systems (SIMS): To foster economic development and community revitalization projects in Schenectady County by enabling municipal and economic development organizations to better manage and analyze geographic information. The goal is to provide partners with convenient access to a powerful GIS with data and functions pertinent to economic development and community revitalization projects. (September 2003)

Suffolk County GIS Consortium for Color Digital Aerial Photography: A Suffolk County consortium of GIS users determined that a current digital image map base covering the entire land area of the County would provide benefits to many agencies, particularly those with responsibility in the areas of planning, public safety and public works. A Suffolk County aerial photography contract, in spring of 1996, resulted in a digital image map base of County-wide 1"=1200' scale scanned and registered digital photography (2.5 ft pixel). The goal was an improved, 1999, 1"=1000' scale, one foot pixel, color digital aerial photo base-map which can be digitally positioned under data sets for use with GIS products such as MapInfo and ArcView.

Web Hosting: This was a Pilot project to determine the usefulness of having a GIS Web Hosting Service accessible for county and local government. The pilot included the development of an online GIS application by a private vendor as well as web hosting services for 4 local governments for a one year period. The focus for the application is to support everyday business uses for people accessing/utilizing parcel (land records) data. (October 2006)

West Carthage Volunteer Fire Department: Providing GIS services to a small community volunteer fire department to map fire hydrant locations as a color-coded document to be carried in every village emergency vehicle as well as distributed to neighboring fire districts.  The goal of this project was to provide immediate, accurate information to drivers of emergency response vehicles as to the size and location of fire hydrants within the village proper. (September 2007)

Year 2000 Emergency Preparedness Task Force: In early 1999, New York State established a Year 2000 Task Force on Emergency Preparedness to ensure its readiness to be able to react to any potential crisis caused by Year 2000 (Y2K) related issues. Building on previous emergency management experiences, GIS was seen as essential to locating facilities affected by power outages, identifying and tracking deployed resources, and communicating the magnitude and interrelationship of problems. In order to provide this GIS support, a 20 person GIS Unit, composed of staff from 10 State agencies, was established.