Maricopa County, Arizona Selects Smart Data Strategies for the County’s Large Scale Geospatial Adjustment Project
 
December 2007: Smart Data Strategies, Inc. (SDS) announces today that Maricopa County has awarded a contract to SDS and its partner, Engineering Mapping Solutions (EMS), for the geospatial adjustment of the county’s existing GIS parcel basemap. 

With accuracy and data integrity being the highest priority, the county chose to adjust the existing GIS datasets to match the most accurate sources available.  The recent additions of the Maricopa County Geodetic Densification and Cadastral Survey (GDACS) system and digital orthophotography have given the county the control necessary to make adjustments.  The GDACS system alone contains 13,000 control points, making it the largest cadastral control system maintained by a US county.  Many other GIS data layers are registered to the parcel base; therefore, a more accurate parcel layer will have profound effects on all GIS operations across the county.

"Maricopa County has dedicated a concerted effort over the past two years to bring this project to reality. Its importance goes beyond just that of the needs of Maricopa County but also regionally to all of the cities, the development community, and the many special-taxing districts within the county. We are very excited and encouraged to have this project moving forward with the award to SDS and their local partner, EMS."  Russ Heisinger – Maricopa County GIS Manager.

SDS will use a production adjustment methodology that goes far beyond simple rectification to the orthophotography. It uses all contributing source datasets to produce optimal and quantifiable adjustments of the county’s data. This process, the Analytic Adjustment Methodology, has been developed through hands-on experience of millions of parcels nationwide. A similar process will be used for the zoning layers which will be reconstructed by deriving them from the underlying parcel geometry, rather than through a warping process.  The total project, consisting of 1.5 million parcels, will be complete within one year from the project start date.

“Smart Data Strategies is honored to once again be working with Maricopa County. Both SDS and the county share the same high level of enthusiasm in making available better cadastral information that will benefit so many of the county’s day to day operations as well as provide even better services to the general public.”  Susan Marlow, SDS President and CEO.