Earth Data, Incorporated was recently selected by Delaware County, Pennsylvania to perform a comprehensive project to scan and digitize all of the County’s subdivision maps. Delaware County is the fifth most populous county in Pennsylvania.
The maps had been developed and maintained in a paper format since the 1970s. According to the County the maps “have reached their life expectancy, as well, as it would be helpful and cost-effective for the subdivisions to be captured digitally and added to the extensive County mapping database for planners to utilize on top of other geospatial data.”
Earth Data Selected for Mapping Project in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Pictured are Ron McDonald (Project Administrator at Earth Data) on the left, Eric Flickinger (Director of Geospatial Services at Earth Data) on the right.
Earth Data was one of several firms to compete for this work, which involves scanning, organizing, and naming the maps for easy accessibility and georeferencing the scanned maps using ArcGIS tools to align with current county parcel boundaries. Additional tasks include digitizing the maps, verifying topology, generating metadata, and creating fields to capture the subdivision data visible on the plat maps.
According to Eric Flickinger, Earth Data’s Director of Geospatial Services, “Earth Data is well suited to complete this project. We have significant recent, relevant experience digitizing documents, georeferencing scanned maps and digiting features in an ArcGIS environment for Federal, state and local governments. We look forward to being of service to Delaware County on this project.”
After an initial delivery and review of a subset of the digitized parcels by the County GIS department, the project is expected to take approximately six months to complete.
For more than 48 years, Earth Data, Inc. has been providing field-oriented water resources and geospatial consulting services using high-tech tools to collect, analyze, manage, and distribute data in sophisticated ways. For further information, visit earthdatainc.com.
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