News 2008

This is where we'll announce what's happening in Belmont County GIS.  The most recent information is listed first.  See news from prior years for a historic review of the status of GIS in Belmont County.

April 2008

Data for the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) was shipped to the Detroit Office of the US Census Bureau.  A comparison was made between their addresses and the county's addresses in preparation for the April 1, 2010 Census.  Over 9,300 edits were made to their file in an eleven week period.  Municipalities who participated directly in the program themselves included St. Clairsville, Martins Ferry, Powhatan Point and Brookside, and their data was not checked by the county.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Soil and Water Conservation, has provided a two shapefiles to the Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District showing much of the strip mined areas in the county.  As a service to the public, Belmont SWCD has requested that the files be added to the GIS website.  The mapping may be viewed at the Aerial Mapping section under the Group Header "Strip Mined Soils."  The layer labeled "ODNR C&D Permits" features a tool tip showing the mapping unit symbol as follows:

The metadata in xml format may be viewed here.  The data was prepared under the supervision of the Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District with funding provided by them, the Belmont County Commissioners, Belmont County Auditor and ODNR.

A second layer called SSURGO Spoil Soils includes previously surface mined areas and also features a tool tip showing the MUSYM.

The user should use caution as not all strip mined areas may be included in this mapping, and its accuracy is approximate, based on scans of coal company permit maps submitted to ODNR over the years.

March 2008

Plat books for Belmont County are now available at the Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District Office in Barnesville.  Cost is $12.00.  Phone number is 740-425-1100 x3.

February 2008

The Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio held their Annual Conference in Cleveland, Ohio February 7 and 8.  Sessions attended covered Basic Geodesy, GPS and Business Image, including business, email and cell phone etiquette.  There are 31 GPS satellites in orbit, virtually eliminating the need for mission planning.

Work on the Local Update of Census Addresses is the focus of the GIS Office.  The county addresses are being compared to the address point list of the Census Bureau and updates are being made by Census blocks using software provided by the Census Bureau.  There are over 4,800 blocks in Belmont County, and many errors are from addresses being in the wrong block.   The deadline for completion is April 4.

January 2008

The digitized direction has been edited to agree with the house numbering direction for township road centerlines by a college student during the semester break.

OGRIP's LBRS addressing and centerline data for Guernsey County, our neighbor to the west, is available for download at http://gis3.oit.ohio.gov/LBRS/_downloads/ .  The data has been used for maps for the Barnesville Fire Department.

The Ohio URISA and OGRIP Forum meetings took place January 28.  A workshop for this Spring on 3D Geospatial is in the planning stages by Ohio URISA.  OGRIP reports about all the 6 inch pixel and 9 county 1 foot pixel ortho imagery is processed from the 2007 OSIP flights.  Imagery may be available on the web by mid-April.  48 counties are participating in LBRS, with 9 more in the MOA stage.  Data has been accepted from 34 counties.  An informative presentation was given by USGS on "Ohio and National Map Issues".  Next month's topic will cover K-12 GIS Corps activities.

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Last modified: 06/18/07