June 28, 2010

The Maine GeoLibrary's Strategic Plan was published last year and the Board is currently working on key recommendations from the plan. Updating the state's orthoimagery is one of the priorities and the Board's Geospatial Data Work Group established a subcommittee to develop a report and make recommendations for an orthoimagery program for Maine. The mission of the orthoimagery subcommittee was to develop a program that leverages federal, state, local and private funding to provide statewide high resolution orthoimagery on an ongoing basis. The GeoLibrary’s goal is to establish a statewide program that will provide this valuable data resource at a lower per square mile cost, at higher resolution and on a more regular schedule than could be accomplished by ad hoc projects of limited geographic area and funding.

The subcommittee's work is done and the report is published on the GeoLibrary website (http://www.maine.gov/geolib/workgrps/geo_data/memb_mission.htm). The Maine GeoLibrary is proposing an ongoing aerial orthoimagery program with two levels of detail and varying update cycles. The proposal divides the state into groups of towns with the timing of updates being determined by the estimated rate of change and development. All organized towns would be covered by 2 foot resolution aerial orthoimagery and all unorganized towns by 3.3 foot resolution aerial orthoimagery. There would be buy-up options for groups of towns to acquire better quality orthoimagery by adding funding. The cost of the base program is estimated to be approximately $450,000 per year. The program has not been funded yet, but the Board's Finance Committee is exploring options.

Please review the report and recommendations and send comments and questions to Larry Harwood at [log in to unmask]

Dan Walters, Chair
Orthoimagery Subcommittee
Representing Federal Agencies on the GeoLibrary Board

Dan Walters
Geospatial Liaison for Maine
USGS NSDI Partnership Office
196 Whitten Road
Augusta, Maine 04330
207-776-1293
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