GIS Solutions and ESRI Join to Deliver Homeland Security GIS Tools

GIS Solutions (IL, USA) and ESRI (CA, USA) were selected by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) to develop GIS tools that will improve the effectiveness of a coordinated response to a Foreign Animal Disease outbreak. IDOA is pursuing GIS technologies to provide support for critical emergency response functions and gain critical information about threatened areas, animals and producers. The goals of the project are to improve IDOA's ability to respond to an emergency outbreak of a Foreign Animal Disease as well as supporting IDOA functions of monitoring and promoting animal health and productivity.

The project will be completed in two phases with Phase I focused on the completion of a comprehensive GIS Strategic Plan for IDOA. The strategic planning effort will demonstrate to IDOA a detailed understanding of the capabilities of GIS software in an enterprise environment and provide the framework for the continued expansion of GIS applications and services within IDOA.

During Phase II of the project, GIS Solutions will design, develop, and implement the IDOA Animal Disease/ Emergency Response application. The core GIS functionality required by the IDOA Animal Disease Emergency Response GIS system is contained within the ESRI suite of enterprise GIS software. This system will be designed to provide robust query capabilities and predictive epidemiological and statistical modelling with simulation capabilities which factor environmental, climate, socio-economic and geologic agents.

The project will be funded by a Federal Homeland Security grant.

GIS Solutions, Inc. provides GIS products and services to federal, state, local and private sector clients.