It's not incorrect. Incorrect means inaccurate. The information is accurate to its standards which is mapping grade standards. It is not accurate to survey grade standards, but that is OK, because it's not a survey
When a GIS tech places a flood plain so poorly on the GIS that the flood plain does not even touch the water of the river that runs through it, then I would say it doesn't meet any standard.
And as far as disclaimers go the court didn't agree with you.
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> It's not incorrect. Incorrect means inaccurate. The information is accurate to its standards which is mapping grade standards. It is not accurate to survey grade standards, but that is OK, because it's not a survey
>
> When a GIS tech places a flood plain so poorly on the GIS that the flood plain does not even touch the water of the river that runs through it, then I would say it doesn't meet any standard.
>
> And as far as disclaimers go the court didn't agree with you.
Well, if you've found that then you've found a problem, but an anomalous one, no different and no more significant than finding an incorrect survey. It's uncommon, but it happens. It doesn't change the basic reality of the land surveying / GIS dichotomy and it does little to strengthen your argument.
I don't know what you mean by "the court didn't agree with you." Please illuminate.
Stephen
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> It's not incorrect. Incorrect means inaccurate. The information is accurate to its standards which is mapping grade standards. It is not accurate to survey grade standards, but that is OK, because it's not a survey
>
> When a GIS tech places a flood plain so poorly on the GIS that the flood plain does not even touch the water of the river that runs through it, then I would say it doesn't meet any standard.
>
> And as far as disclaimers go the court didn't agree with you.
What you describe does sound like a screw up on the part of the GIS tech.
What sounds like even more of a screw up is any PLS who would rely on the GIS alone and not seek out a more authoritative source.
Just sayin'.
As for the court ruling that the GIS people were at fault, courts screw up sometimes too. This is something that couldn't stand on appeal.
Larry P
What you describe does sound like a screw up on the part of the GIS tech.
Not really, it's a problem with the structure and the processes that the GIS community uses. By "sampling" "shape files" (presumably created by someone off in the interweb somewhere) of perfectly good FIRM maps the GIS changed the locations of those flood plains thereby engineering with a license. This has caused numerous people to be shown to be in the flood plain when they weren't considered to be before the layer in the county GIS showed up. A conservative estimate of incorrect payments to the flood insurance programs would be in the 6-7 figures. Created work for me? Sure; but work I don't want and real pain to people who didn't deserve it. It costs money to do a flood plain properly? So what-that's why we have engineers-it's what they do. Pay to have it done right or don't do it.
What sounds like even more of a screw up is any PLS who would rely on the GIS alone and not seek out a more authoritative source.
I don't know any PLS who relies on GIS for much of anything; I don't trust it for much more than getting me started on a project a nice catalog of information but everything needs to be verified, my property was shown to be owned by a neighbor across the street for many years on the local GIS. But, they never sent him my taxes so even the government doesn't trust it.
As for the court ruling that the GIS people were at fault, courts screw up sometimes too. This is something that couldn't stand on appeal.
The District Court made a correct decision in the case (IMHO), there was no appeal, after reviewing the ruling the lawyers for the city advised cutting their losses and not taking it farther because it was almost a certain loser.
> As for the court ruling that the GIS people were at fault, courts screw up sometimes too. This is something that couldn't stand on appeal.
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> The District Court made a correct decision in the case (IMHO), there was no appeal, after reviewing the ruling the lawyers for the city advised cutting their losses and not taking it farther because it was almost a certain loser.
Interesting. Are the details from the case available online somewhere? If so, could you send a link? I would like to read this case.
Larry P
GIS Disclaimer Case-Press Report
Larry, no doubt there is a resource to get this case online.
I took a quick look and came up with this newspaper article.
If you want to track it down there is probably enough info in here to do it. Sorry just out of time.
It does address the disclaimer and why in this case it's not something to absolve the GIS from responsibility.
Interesting read. It is mostly a zoning issue, but they are still holding the GIS even IF it was in error. Sounds like it was correct by some peoples thought but incorrect by others.
Yes, to me the court made the correct ruling. The city could have purchased the "mistake" and kept the R1 zoning for the north parcel or leave it as R3 and upset the neighbors. They decided to upset the neighbors.
When a citizen comes to the city and asks what the zoning of a property is and they hand him a map showing the zoning, then just what is the citizen to do?
Is he supposed to go through all the city council meetings looking for a resolution that disputes the zoning map?
To make it more of an issue the city also made the map "official" for the purposes of zoning.
The judge basically was disdainful of the disclaimer.
The bigger issue to me is the flood plain layer that appeared a few years ago and incorrectly placed many properties and structures into the flood plain that were never considered in prior to that layer. I guess a GIS guy can design bridges and roads by copying old plans they find on the internet. After all they are GIS guys so they know all. Just place them is some layer near the new bridge site, and then they can disclaim any liability away.:-(
And in case anyone wonders just what I'm talking about here is a GIS created/inserted flood plain:
Call me a doubting Thomas, but it looks like layers using different projections?
If only it were that simple. The flood plain in this particular area was generated in conjunction with a flood control project-1960s era. The FIRM maps worked well until this layer showed up in the GIS and mortgage companies began calling clients saying that they needed flood insurance when they never did before. And getting them out of the flood plain becomes more difficult when this is what everyone sees.
Because the flood plain was generated after the construction of flood control there is quite a bit of information available to reconstruct the location of the FIRM map data. There are cross-sections, profiles, property takings, construction drawings and there are even old monuments set by the army corps (hard to find now but some I've recovered) that could recreate the location of the flood plain, at least in the areas along the flood control project, and for a distance up and down stream into the modern projection the GIS is using. However, this wasn't done. Someone (no one seems to know who) made shape files of the flood plain. Then the GIS guys "sampled" them into the GIS. How could that go wrong?
As soon as they saw just how "off" the whole mess is, it should have been deleted from the data base. You shouldn't put out this kind of information to the public. And from the court case it's clear that they can't disclaim everything away when the public depends on the information.
Although, I must say that all of my (and others) shouting, yelling, stomping of feet at least got the flood plains removed in the areas where FEMA had those dots along streams. Those were really bad in the GIS. They are gone now.