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first published week of: 10/12/2015
Better data sharing could have improved states’ response to the bird flu outbreak earlier this year, officials.
After news of the outbreak broke, geographic information systems officials across the Midwest, South and Pacific Coast pieced together maps to help identify infected areas and buffer zones in their states. But generally, states weren’t collaborating with each other. In Minnesota alone, officials created more than 1,700 maps during the five-month outbreak, but local laws prevented them from sharing their data across state lines, said Dan Ross, the state’s chief geospatial information officer.
“Data sharing was easy [but] there are statutes against it — so we didn’t share it,” Ross said during a panel at the National States Geographic Information Council’s annual conference Tuesday. “Sharing would’ve made it easier.”
In some cases, states will have to work within their legislatures to overturn old statutes on data sharing. In others, states will need to turn to groups like NSGIC to share best practices, even if they can’t share specific data.
A map of where avian flu was reported in Minnesota (USDA)A map of where bird flu was reported in Minnesota. (USDA) In Iowa, the nation’s largest egg producer, the outbreak affected 18 counties for nearly three months and resulted in the death of 32 million animals. Jon Paoli, the state’s GIS coordinator, said that in a situation like the outbreak, data sharing will be crucial to containing outbreaks in the future, and despite getting several requests about what the state was doing with GIS to manage the outbreak, Paoli and his team couldn’t legally share detailed information. continued…