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An Official Vermont Government Website

History of GIS in VT

The current status of GIS in Vermont is the product of decades of effort from many individuals. The transition from no GIS capacity to today's robust spatial information and its wide-ranging use did not happen overnight.

Collected here are documents created along that journey, dating from the early 1980's through present day. This research was performed by Sara Moulton, a long-time VTrans employee. Thank you Sara!

1981 - Churchill and Frankland Paper
Using Interactive Computer Mapping to Teach Cartographic Concepts at Middlebury College
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1983 - A Geographic Information System for Vermont
In 1981, at the University of Vermont, Gary Smith built an early system that used GIS software from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) of California and began teaching GIS at UVM in 1983.
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1983 - Comments by Gary Smith on the beginning of GIS in VT
The first GIS project focused on the Mad River Valley. Though it was “a very tedious task” to build the database for that project, “with not a single piece of existing digital data (anywhere in VT)…it was obvious to me that GIS held great potential."
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1983 - The Creation of the Vermont State Data Base
Gary Smith wrote this 1983 “Program of Work” that presented his concept for how Vermont could develop the database for a statewide GIS.
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1988 - Report of the Commission on Vermont’s Future
Among its recommendations, the Commission urged that state agencies get funding to compile data for a GIS system.
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1989 - Conceptual System Design Report
This Phase II report, published in early 1989, focused on how the statewide system itself could be designed.
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1989 - VGIS Report to the Legislature
In May 1988, the Vermont Legislature passed Act 200, the Growth Management Act, creating a framework for the cooperative planning envisioned by the Commission on Vermont’s Future — and calling for the development of a statewide GIS.
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1989 - Vermont’s GIS: Development to Implementation
Clarified how VT GIS would ideally be developed and put to use. The state office would serve as a “hub/clearinghouse” for the system, guided by a 12-member GIS Advisory Board, working with state agencies, RPC's, and others.
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1990 - GIS for Vermont Communities
This handbook defined GIS and its concepts, reviewed ways to use GIS information, showed how GIS could support development of a town plan, gave advice on how to access GIS services, and examined issues that could arise in community-based use.
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1992 - VT's GIS Four Years Later: Lessons Learned
This paper takes a look at the lessons learned and the techniques that worked in building Vermont's geographic information system.
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1993 - Toward VGIS 2000
Strategic plan on how Vermont may achieve what it termed “VGIS 2000 — an infrastructure of people, technology, and geographically referenced information...in support of economic development, natural resource protection, and a well-informed public."
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1994 - Report on Whether to Copyright Digital Mapping Data
In this 1996 report, State Auditor Edward Flanagan recommended that GIS data not be copyrighted by the Vermont Department of Taxes. Copyrighting “runs counter to public policy which promotes broad public access to publicly funded information.”
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1994 - Vermont Tackles the Fee Question
In 1994, VCGI's Director published this article about a pivotal question the Legislature had directed VCGI to answer: Should fees be charged for GIS products and data? No, decided VCGI’s Board of Directors after close consideration.
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2008 - Enterprise GIS Strategic Plan
With Vermont’s GIS system now in use by communities, nonprofits, businesses, academics and citizens, a taskforce representing 13 state agencies, departments and programs developed this 2008 strategic plan for how state government could use GIS technology.
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