ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS OF DAKOTA COUNTY'S GIS

Dakota County, Minnesota, located in the southern Twin Cities metro area, has about 250,000 people and 100,000 property parcels covering 590 square miles. In 1986, it initiated a feasibility study and needs assessment for a geographic information system (GIS). A Dakota County GIS Committee was formed in 1987 with representatives from the participating organizations. This committee developed specifications for the GIS, a selection process, and evaluation criteria. In April 1988, the GIS Committee selected UltiMap software (UltiMap Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota) running on the Apollo workstation (Hewlett-Packard Company, Apollo Division, Palo Alto, California) as the GIS vendor. A pilot project, conducted by MARKHURD Corporation, of Minneapolis, was completed in January 1989. This article discusses the accuracy required, current GIS applications in Dakota County, and the development of the GIS in Burnsville, a city in the western part of Dakota County with a population of about 50,000 and 17,000 property parcels over 27 square miles. Burnsville's public works department took the lead in cooperating with the county and the electric utility to develop the GIS for utility mapping. Burnsville also uses the system for detail design work and has cooperated with the county on a proposed street reconstruction project.