Internet-gis Development for Municipalities and Counties Based on Open Source Software

Many market surveys in Germany are indicating that the GIS usage in smaller municipalities and counties will increase in future. This is due to the fact that Internet technologies are offering advanced solutions, not only for eGovernment but also for GIS problems. Nevertheless costs are playing an important role. The concept of a cost-effective Internet-GIS solutions for communes and counties based on Open-Source-software is described. The principle ideas of Open-Source software and Internet-GIS technologies are presented and the technical realisation is described in more detail. The potential of such solutions is explained based on an example developed with the UMN Map Server for the administration in a county in Germany. UMN Map Server was originally developed at University of Minnesota (UMN) in the ForNet-project in cooperation with NASA and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. It is currently one of the most prominent Internet-GIS solutions besides the commercial products. In our research and development we are investigating different user scenarios and user interfaces, e.g. one for the cadastral office in the county, one for specific branches services on county level, one on the municipality level. Various GIS data sets (such as land register, topography, specific thematical maps) are integrated. Ortho photos created from low-cost aerial flight technique are a very important data source besides the legal data sets. The developed solution is now going into practical usage in the county Bad Doberan in the eastern part of Germany. The technical solution is realised mainly using open source software (WAMP architecture and UMN Map Server). * Corresponding author.