186 Environmental Geoscience (Posters) III

MINING CLAIM MANAGEMENT WEB GIS: A WEB-BASED GIS TOOL FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF MINING CLAIM AND NATURAL RESOURCE INFORMATION

Paper number: 186-3
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had maintained the mining claim database since the creation of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976. The current database is now approximately 1.5 gigabytes; it contains information on claim location and claim type for 10 states. The location information in the database is not described in geographical coordinates, but in the format of Public Land Survey System (meridian, township, range and quadrant), which makes this database difficult to use within standard geographic information systems. The current database is available in a text format only (BLM 2000). A clear need was determined for a map based searchable index of the information which could be provided to the public open access format. The information contained in the database can be used for numerous land use, resource and environmental problem solving applications.

In this study, the mining claim data of 10 western states was imported into Geographic Information System (GIS). After integration with basic geographic data, the mining claim data was published using ESRI ArcIMS. Considering the different needs of various users, three configurations of two ArcIMS Server Services and three client viewer versions were designed to match three sets of user needs. A GIS image server and a HTML viewer provide service to users who need basic GIS functionalities A GIS feature server and a Java viewer/ArcGIS provide more advanced capabilities that can be integrated with the users existing GIS system.

The resulting Mining Claim Management (MCM) Web GIS system provides an ideal tool to manage the mining claim database online, and make it easily accessible to a variety of users via an Internet browser. Also, the MCM Web GIS provides some online tools for spatial analysis and geological analysis for users who do not have access to GIS software. The implementation provides further proof of the value of Web-based GIS (MCM Web GIS) and its potential application as a tool for resolving geological and environmental problems.