Anoka County Water Resources GIS Application

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

Anoka County has a rich agricultural history with the County ditch system playing a vital role in that history. Hard copy County ditch records dating back to the 1800s have been preserved and chronicled in file cabinets, accessible only by request from the County ditch engineer. Anoka County has modernized the ditch records by scanning ditch documents and incorporating them into a comprehensive GIS website called Anoka County Water Resources (ACWR). This website provides a one-stop-shop for digital ditch records, culvert data, aerial photos, wetlands, watercourses, soils, flood zones and land ownership information. The site can be used by citizens, businesses and government agencies to conduct ditch research without having to contact the County. ACWR promotes government transparency and provides better public service by making the data easily accessible while reducing staff time needed to process requests. Many MN counties have the desire to modernize their County ditch records, but few have completed the task. This project began several years ago with the scanning of over 5,000 historical ditch records including ditch profiles, maps, correspondence and legal documents. This modernization process not only makes the records more accessible, but creates a digital "back up" so the originals can be archived safely. The Anoka County Water Resources application was designed to give citizens, business owners and other government agencies access to the digital ditch records in logical way. The site references ditch records geographically by establishing links between GIS layers such as ditch centerlines or culvert points and the scanned documents. A user can click on a ditch or culvert and access all the information and documents pertaining to that particular feature. The Anoka County Water Resources application has reduced the number of incoming calls/emails to the County ditch engineer. The Anoka Conservation District and several watershed districts have used the application and find the ditch information and access to other GIS data layers invaluable to their work. Anoka County plans to collaborate with local water resource management agencies to incorporate private and non-county ditch data into the application as well. The ACWR website can be accessed at: http://gis.anokacountymn.gov/acwr