If you’re a homeowner in New Brunswick who would like to know if your property contains a wetland, a developer looking for new sites, or an emergency manager in the province planning flood mitigation strategies, you only need to visit the GeoNB portal (snb.ca/geonb) to find the information you need. Created by Service New Brunswick, GeoNB is a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) that uses geographic information system (GIS) technology to provide an efficient, collaborative and open data-sharing environment with key partners and users across the province. It allows free access to New Brunswick’s extensive collection of data, maps and applications, which can be used to build Web applications and improve research. Since the portal was launched in 2009, New Brunswick has seen public usage of its spatial data increase significantly, with the number of weekly visits to the site up from 5,000 in 2010 to more than 13,000 in 2012. For this outstanding GIS application, Esri Canada yesterday presented Service New Brunswick with an Award of Excellence.
“Service New Brunswick has done exceptionally well in promoting the use of geographic knowledge for various applications through the province’s SDI,” says Alex Miller, president, Esri Canada. “In a time when governments face greater financial constraints, they have created a cost-effective system for opening up valuable data and applications to benefit everyone. GeoNB serves as a model of intelligent government service delivery for others to follow.”
“GeoNB has quickly become a popular tool with the public because it’s easy to use and saves users valuable time and money,” notes Bernie Connors, SDI manager at Service New Brunswick. “It also eliminates duplicate efforts and additional costs for our partners through shared data and infrastructure.”
With participation from many New Brunswick government agencies and several municipalities, Service New Brunswick has been able to grow GeoNB into a highly useful resource for users in the public, academia, business, industry and government. They used Esri’s ArcGIS for Servertechnology to create and maintain a central geodatabase of the province’s rich data catalogue that includes hydrographic network, weather, parcel, wetland and flood risk information, as well as aerial imagery and civic addresses. They also use the ArcGIS API for Flex to make this data available through the Web-based GeoNB Map Viewer.
GeoNB features 10 new geospatial applications that support various government programs including wetland conservation, flood damage reduction, management of protected natural areas, herbicide application, as well as a coordinate transformation service that converts coordinates between several datums and map projections common in the province. The portal offers more than 30 map services that organizations can integrate into their own Web applications. Soon, GeoNB will also include additional datasets such as the province’s road network data.
See the case study: “Service New Brunswick develops geospatial gateway.” Explore the GeoNB Map Viewer at snb.ca/geonb and learn more about Esri’s ArcGIS for Server solution atesri.ca/products/arcgisserver.
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About Service New Brunswick
Service New Brunswick is a provincially-owned crown corporation created in 1998 to consolidate the transactional services and information New Brunswickers rely on to conduct their personal and business lives. The Corporation has an extensive mandate with four main lines of business. It operates a multi-channel service delivery network offering services on behalf of various government departments and municipalities; is responsible for New Brunswick’s Land, Corporate, Vital Statistics and Personal Property registries; provides property assessment services; and serves as the lead agency for geomatics, maintaining the province’s land information infrastructure, including the survey control network and topographic mapping. Service New Brunswick also encompasses the Office of the Rentalsman, offering an alternative dispute resolution program for landlords and tenants. For more information, visit: snb.ca.
About Esri Canada
Founded in 1984, Esri Canada provides enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower businesses, governments and educational institutions to make timely, informed and mission-critical decisions by leveraging the power of geography. The company distributes the world’s leading GIS software from Esri, Telvent, Cityworks – Azteca Systems and other technology partners. Headquartered in Toronto, the company serves over 10,000 customers from 16 regional offices across Canada and has been named as one of the Top 250 Canadian IT Companies and Top 25 IT Professional Services Providers in Canada by the Branham Group, as well as one of Computer Dealer News’ Top 100 IT Solution Providers in Canada. Information about Esri Canada can be found at esri.ca.
